Fishing for Free Work? You Decide.

 I have had two people contact me about freelancing jobs whom I believe are fishing for free work. 

The first one, I was dumb. I set up our contract so he paid in three payments. I usually weight the first payment so if a person doesn't follow through I won't lose as much. So, for example, if the job was $120, I instead of having three $30 payments, I would do $80, $20, $20. By using SafePay, it ensures that I will at least get $80 for the job. In this case, I delivered the full rough draft after one payment. A week after delivering it, he told me he was busy and he would get to reviewing it soon. I haven't heard from him since. I know that what I have given him was plenty to complete the project. I keep hoping he will eventually get back with me, but he kept saying how he was in a hurry to get this project out, so I am pretty sure he has been "busy" getting it out. 

How can you as a freelancer protect yourself if something like this happens? If you are the only author, you should immediately register your work with the copyright office here. It costs $45--so if the work is worth more than that, definitely do it. 

I would like to think that he will come back, and if he does and pays me in full, even though I have registered the copyright, he will still have all the rights to it until he dies because that is in my contract. However, I retain all rights until I am paid in full. The problem is that this is not his first time in the business. He has produced other works. that is why I am afraid my money is gone, for now.

Once you register something with the copyright office, you can always loan or sell your rights to someone else. Unlike other means of trying to make legal claims on any work you created, including scripts and artwork, the copyright office registry is the only way to officially protect you.

This brings me to my second potential fisher. She posted a job about a month ago, and I sent in a bid. Like the above guy, she has her own business and has apparently been doing this a while. In the job post, she wanted me to use "Illustrator" to do what I already do in Word. I told her in my quote I would do this if that is the program she uses. She then contacted me and told me it was Adobe In-Design. Again, I told her I could do it in that program if she prefers. She then asked if I had any samples of work done using In Design. At this point, she also went from solely talking about book layout to now talking about cover design--something that was not in the job description nor discussed before this. I repeated that I do not usually work on that platform. (Adobe constantly sucks up memory when I am using its programs.) I then told her that regardless of the program I use, my layouts will be the same. I sent her links to books on Amazon (where she could presumably see the layouts) and one file of a book cover. She responded that she was in a hurry, and she could not open anything. 

Now, at this point, I almost was about to throw in the towel and tell her to just hire me, and I would refund her money if she wasn't happy. Please never suggest that in a quote! You basically are telling them they can only use you once, but they can get it free. I learned this from experience. 

With some of the jobs, I do give people the option of paying only $25.00 and I will do 5-10 pages of editing (for example) so they can get an idea of what working with me is like. The fact is, though, I have tons of samples in my portfolio--they may not all be updated, but there are many samples that show my work. There should have been no reason for her to even request the things she already has. So, before making the rash decision I would later regret, I sent her more samples and links. I still haven't heard from her. 

I mean, the money goes into SafePay. I can see not wanting to work with a freelancer and waste time, but this job has been posted for a  month. She could have hired me--I quoted 2 days to finish--and if I didn't complete the work as she wanted or if I didn't meet the deadline, she could have filed an arbitration with Guru and gotten her money back. She must have liked something about my bid, or she would not have started talking with me. The work I am willing to do for her for $175, she is selling on her website for $450. She had over 50 people apply for this job. I imagine most are lower than my bid, but I wonder how many are giving her free work?