To Free or Not To Free?
One of the biggest struggles I had for the longest time was knowing when I should charge for something - and when not to. This was mostly my own internal struggle, though, not one being foisted upon me.
For most entrepreneurs and freelancers, it’s usually the other way around. It’s usually the friend, family member asking, “Hey, can you look over this for me and give me your thoughts?” Or even the prospective client asking, “Do you think I could get a sample of work to see if we would be a fit?”
These are different problems that have to be handled in different ways, but before we get into that, let’s start with a rather Shakespearean question you’ll have to ask on the road to success:
“To Free or Not To Free? That is the question.”
Awhile back, I shared about my simple scaling method - FREE, DISCOUNT, SCALE - but I didn’t really discuss a ton about when you draw the line between free work and discounted work - or if once you’ve moved from Free to Discount, whether it’s ever appropriate to do Free work again.
There are a couple of principles I follow for when I’ll do free work for someone that I’ll share with you.
FREE PRINCIPLE #1: I Haven’t Done This Before
One of the main reasons I’ll do free work for someone is because I’ve never done it before. Frankly, they’re taking a risk on me and playing the role of guinea pig to my mad scientist. The first book I coached/edited/designed that wasn’t my own was a free project for a friend and co-worker.
She had worked on her book for years and was taking a chance getting it out into the world. I had only self-published some of my own books as practice but had never helped anyone else in the process. So I offered my services for free. All told, I probably spent around twenty hours on the project, from a few rounds of revisions, meeting up to discuss revisions and layout, doing the layout and formatting, and actually setting up the CreateSpace profile (this was before KDP).
I was being paid in experience that I could then turn around and monetize the next time around. That being said, this isn’t the last time I’ve done something for free. I recently read a friend’s book and met with her for a couple hours to discuss the book from beginning to end and give her my notes on it. And I did that for free. Why?
Because while I’m not doing it yet, that’s something I want to monetize in the future. I have long-term plans to create a writing course or offer notes to people. But since I’ve never done it before, I was very much open to doing it for free so that I could figure out the best way to structure my notes, deliver them, discuss through the book. It was a bit messy because it was the first time I’ve done it, but I learned a ton from the experience that will pay off down the road.
FREE PRINCIPLE #2: I Owe This Person
Sometimes I’ve been known to do free work for people that I owe for something. This doesn’t happen much, but it has happened. Or at the very least, maybe I’ll discount my services depending on the project.
A prime example is my dad when he wrote a book a couple years ago about facility management for churches since that’s his industry. He offered to pay me for help with the editing and publishing but I said, “No way.” Which was a big deal because his book was quite a commitment. It went through several big revisions and included a lot of pictures, which is tough on the layout process.
I didn’t just make it free because he’s my dad and I love him. That’s part of it. But also because I wouldn’t be where I am without him. He’s done literally thousands of dollars worth of free car work for me to help our family save money over the years. Me finally having the chance to repay him (a tiny bit) — by editing his book — was a blessing.
I recently gave some free thoughts to a client about their new book. They weren’t hiring me as an editor for this book, which was fine - I didn’t have the time to take on a whole project. And since it was a children’s book, they just wanted me to read through it and provide any thoughts I had. It was about an hour and a half total of work between reading the book, collecting my thoughts, typing my thoughts and hitting “send.”
Normally, I wouldn’t offer a free service like this to a previously paying client, so why did I do it? Because I owe her. The two books I did with her have become two of my favorite editing examples to provide in my portfolio and have helped me land other deals. Giving up an hour and a half of my time for a few thoughts was a no-brainer for me.
And even though she didn’t take all of my suggestions (that’s okay - they’re suggestions), she was grateful for the thought that went into it and what she learned from it. I just caught up with her about a week ago and that book has now sold over 3,000 copies. I couldn’t be more proud of her for this as a self-published author!
That’s not to say you have to do free work forever for people you owe. But you’ll have to figure out case-by-case what that looks like for you.
Some people struggle with this because they don’t know whether the work they do for someone will translate to dollars value for the client. But that’s the risk with any service.
Which gets us to the second part of the question - when NOT to free.
Again, I think there’s a couple of principles that are easy to follow here and the first one should should familiar…
NOT FREE PRINCIPLE #1: I’ve Done This Before
When it’s not your first rodeo and you’ve proven you’re capable, you’ve got a growing portfolio, and you feel confident in what you do…then it should definitely not be free.
The tough thing here is sometimes people you’ve done free work for in the past will come back and say, “Hey can you do this?” To which you need to start responding, “Sure - what’s your budget?”
They’ll have one of two responses. Either they’ll say, “My budget is $” and you can decide whether $ is enough $ for your time (See: Take the Time to Value Your Time).
Or they’ll say, “Oh, I don’t have a budget. I thought it would be free like last time.”
What do you say then? I’m stealing this from Jon Acuff, but it’s a great time to say, “I’m sorry. I can’t do it for free because it would take time away from my paying clients. But I’m glad you came to me and happy to discuss once you have a budget figured out.” Or alternatively you could say something like, “I loved getting to do it for free last time, but I’m growing my business and have to leave room in my schedule for paying clients.” Whatever feels most natural to you.
If this rubs someone the wrong way, then it often means they don’t actually value your work, so why would you want to do work for them anyway? But I think you’ll find it rarely will rub people the wrong way if you deliver it with a professional tone of kindness and courtesy. Now, if you’re a smart-ass when you say it, sure, don’t be surprised when it rubs them the wrong way. That’s on you.
NOT FREE PRINCIPLE #2: I’m Providing Value to This Person
This one can feel a bit harder to gauge because, go figure, none of us can predict the future. But for me, it’s about looking at whether the work that’s being proposed will provide real, dollars-based value to the person asking for work to be done.
Will the work help their book be better so it can sell more copies? Will it improve their website’s SEO to attract more clients? Will it make their product be more appealing to their target market?
If the work they’re asking for is going to grow their bottom line, then it should also grow your bottom line. That’s just common sense, Business 101. No real businessperson is going to get upset about that. In fact, they’ll gladly pay you because they recognize the value in what you’re doing.
But still, I know some people struggle with this because they don’t know whether the work they do for someone will translate to dollars value for the client. But that’s the risk with any service. I recently bought an ad for my first podcast as an experiment to see how it would help our numbers. It seems to have given us a modest bump, but will I be buying another ad right away? Not yet. Am I ranting to the ad service that I didn’t get the projected increase and screaming for my money back? No. Because it was a projection, a guess. I knew what I was paying for and decided it was worth the risk. After all, I learned from the experience and I’m moving on. Was the knowledge learned worth what I paid for the ad? Close enough.
Now, let’s quickly address the situation of a potential client coming and asking for free work to see if something is “a fit.” Again, I can’t speak to every situation - there may be times you feel comfortable doing that because the time commitment of doing something free is worth the longer term payoff, but these two principles can help you gauge when might be the right time to free or not to free.
The best clients see you as an equal, not as a hired hand.
POTENTIAL CLIENT PRINCIPLE #1: CAN YOU OFFER A PORTFOLIO INSTEAD?
This is one of the reasons it’s important, even as a writer, to have a portfolio to point to and say, “Here’s what I’ve done.” There’s a reason that I have an entire page on this site dedicated to the books I’ve worked on with links to their Amazon profiles. It’s to make it easier for potential clients to see I’m legit, that I’ve worked on real books by real people with real results. But I’m not going to come up with a free writing sample for everyone who asks.
If they’re not willing to consider your portfolio but only want you to deliver something they specifically ordered, I think that’s a red flag. To me, that’s like the car salesperson saying I can only test drive after I’ve signed the finance documents — or the shoe salesperson saying I can only try on the shoes after I’ve checked out.
In ghostwriting, this can be especially tricky because the client’s argument is often, “Well, I want to see if you can sound like me.” In response to that, I usually go into my process and say, “I can’t sound like you until I really get to know you and what you want to sound like in a book. You may want to sound different in your book than our conversation here today. That’s going to take time to discover. Some of my clients find out in this process that they want to sound more formal than in real life — or more casual, depending on their target audience.”
Or I’ll also direct them to look at what’s in my portfolio and ask, “Read one page from several different books and tell me if they sound the same to you. If not, then that means I can match the tone and style you want. But if you think all these books sound the same, then no sweat, we’re not a match and I wish you the best luck with someone else.”
POTENTIAL CLIENT PRINCIPLE #2: ARE YOU AN EQUAL OR A HIRED HAND?
We’ll get into some best practices for a portfolio another time, but for now, suffice it to say I think it’s fine to offer up your portfolio when asked. What gets questionable is when a potential client wants you to actually do a “small” project (spoiler alert: it’s almost never small) to “test the waters.” For me, this is often a red flag that even if they do become a long-term client, they are going to be very high maintenance and not collaborative.
The best clients see you as an equal, not as a hired hand. If they see you as an equal, they’re happy to pay for work because they also like to get paid for their work, whatever it is. But if they see you as a hired hand, the dynamic is about constantly having to prove yourself, where there is a lack of trust, and that dynamic doesn’t automatically go away after a long-term contract is signed.
My favorite clients have always been the ones who treat me as an equal. The most challenging have been those who treat me as a hired hand. I can’t always tell who will be which in those initial calls, but I’ve had times where I saw the red flag in the call and decided to step away from a potential client. That can be hard to do, but I’d rather make room for clients who will treat me right than just take any ol’ opportunity that comes along.
The one time I was “fired” by a ghostwriting client, the dynamics became very clear. The client kept rescheduling on me last minute with no reason given, gave me zero feedback on the material even though I asked for his thoughts multiple times over the course of several months, and then one day out of the blue, he had the publisher tell me he didn’t want to work with me anymore. He saw me as a hired hand, not as an equal.
If he’d seen me as an equal, he would have prioritized meeting. If he’d seen me as an equal, he would have provided feedback and communicated. If he’d seen me as an equal, he would’ve said, “Hey, I don’t think this is the right fit” instead of having someone else do it for him. Instead, all of his actions communicated I wasn’t worth his time.
When you look at these principles, it becomes easier to decide when to make work free and when to make it not free. You still might feel a little guilty early on about turning down requests, especially from friends. But you shouldn’t. You’ve got a business to grow and that won’t happen if all your time and talent is spent on free work.
Ultimately, this all goes back to taking the time to value your time and then setting up your boundaries for what you will do for free or even for discount. Once you set those boundaries, stick to them! Otherwise, what’s the point? And yes, you’re allowed to adjust those boundaries if needed, but if you’re moving them around for every request that comes your way, then they aren’t really boundaries, are they?
When you adjust your boundaries, it should be to strengthen them as you scale your pricing up, not lowering your defenses. That’s probably a whole other topic for another time but worth mentioning. For now, the only person getting any free work from me is my wife because, according to Free Principle #2 there’s no end in sight for what I owe her!
