The Writer's Way Pt. 2

Follow the Rules or Else

I'm having a hard time processing this whole "friends and family writing is free" theme that is trying to rob me of my livlihood.

I'm not sure whether my friends and family think because I'm a professional writer I'm obligated to write for them for free as their "hook up." Or worse, if they just don't respect what I do because I'm not a clock puncher, and don't take my career seriously.

Regardless, if you have a writer friend or family member, here are some etiquette, rules, guidelines and/or procedures that can help you remain respectful of the writing process:

1. Writing is our career. Please do not ask a professional writer to write for free. Writing is our business. Consider: would you go to work and work for free? Probably not, so please don't expect us to. Instead, tell them your budget up front and work out a payment plan.

2. Respect our time. Self-employed people wear many hats: bookkeeper, sales person, collections agency, project manager--on top of having to do the work you're designed to do. So, while it may seem that working from home or having your own office is easy, it's not. So please, hold the sighs and sarcasm when we say, "we can't."

Rule of thumb: An organized writer will have their day planned out and shouldn't have a whole lot of time to do work for other people, and especially for free. (Writers, if you do have loads of free time, something's off. There's always opportunity for business building and marketing.)

3. Be understanding. There's simply not a lot of productivity in social networking media if you're not promoting yourself or your work. So if we don't e-mail, text, chat, Facebook, Tweet or MySpace back immediately, please understand that we're probably checking business e-mails or sending out business-building messages to generate business that will ultimately pay our bills.

There. See? That's not so bad is it? There's only three rules. Follow.