Are You a Self-Starter?

When working with clients, many freelance writers may experience fear of two things: not asking enough questions, and asking too many. In your zeal to best serve your client, you do need to ask a lot of questions, but they must be the right kind of questions.

Do your research beforehand: know your clients’ voice, their audience, their business, and their competitors. When you do have questions, make sure you have googled, researched, asked the secretary, and taken every other route you can to find the answer independently before bothering your client mid-project. Make executive decisions as you go; don’t get hung up on getting input for every single detail. If they wanted to micromanage the writing process, they wouldn’t have freelanced it out. Instead, take the vote of confidence they gave you by hiring you, and do what you do best.

However, the flip side of being an independent worker is that when it comes to the proofing stage, let your client rule with the red pen. They need ownership and input, and the payoff for not being bothered with the technical details is getting to add a few personal touches. You get control, they get buy-in. Everyone wins.

On technical edits: Some writing/editing work may lead to some odd-looking albeit correct results. Be ready to explain–without being defensive–why question marks reside outside of those quotation marks, or why the line break happens in that spot. You may prepare a pre-review explanation of edits for the lay-reader, or go over that first to ensure your client trusts your judgment and knows that even off-putting edits are technically sound. But be ready to give in other areas, such as commas, word choice, and other somewhat subject matters.

Above all, keep in mind that clarity is king. When editing, don’t get so over-technical that you are sacrificing clarity for editing prowess. Remember, if a reader thinks it’s a mistake, it IS. Reword and rework anything your client just can’t get past. It will pay off in the long run.

Tags: BurtCreative, contractor, freelance writing, new client, self-starter, writer