For Freelance Writers, Revision Requests Can Be A Major Income-Draining Headache. And Here’s Why.
It Comes Down To Rates, My Friends…
The topic of revisions comes up periodically in online writing communities.
How many should freelancers allow? One? Two? Unlimited?
I’ve written about revisions on this Medium publication before.
But here’s the TL;DR.
I’m at the harballers’ end of the spectrum here. I offer my clients one (and one only) and tell them that they need to get their act together internally and get me one really decent request for feedback. Want more? No problem. But you’re going to have to pay for it.
Over the years, my views about many things in freelance writing have changed. In fact, over the course of the last year, I’ve worked to reposition my marketing business away from freelance writing (yes, you read that right; I still get my hands dirty with the writing but it was time to start offering a more holistic package that looked at the ‘bigger picture’).
Despite that, revisions is the one area that I haven’t budged on. In fact, you could say that I’ve become even more entrenched in my views. The clients I stick with the longest and who are most appreciative of my work are invariably the ones who rarely request revisions.
The clients who always request revisions — even on things like outlines — tend to (almost without exception) end up being the most difficult to work with. And in freelancing, difficult working relationships are rarely sustainable. So here’s why when it comes to revisions… I’m sticking with my one shot rule.
Revisions Make Project Management — And Staying On Top Of Earning Goals — Tricky
Let me ask you a question.
How many freelance writing clients do you currently have on your books?
My freelancing roster typically contains 6 to 7 clients at any one time.
Experience has taught me that that’s about the maximum number I can really simultaneously engage with without starting to get names mixed up and getting confused about who’s doing that algorithm thing and who’s building a new CRM (I jest but you know what I mean). Other freelancers can comfortably stretch to double that.
Call me a poor multi-tasker (I’ll take it), but even at this level of scale I need to keep things moving in order to hit my target income. I love a well fleshed out brief that I can pour over to make sure I have exactly what I need to try do a great job for the client.
But when things get stuck in Revision Land? That’s when things start to get frustrating.
There’s a school of thinking — I’ll happily give voice to it — that even requesting one round of revisions means that something has gone wrong in the freelancing relationship that could have been prevented:
- The client doesn’t like your writing. Totally fine. But that begs the question: then why did they hire you.
- The output didn’t accord with directives. Then the question becomes … why weren’t those directives spelled out more clearly in the brief.
Of course, you — Mr/Ms. Freelancer — could have ignored things stated in the brief. But as this is a Medium publication for freelance writers by a freelancer, let’s give ourselves the luxury of the benefit of the doubt here.
You Don’t Ask Your Dentist For A “Revision.” Why Ask Your Writer?
Now let’s look at another reason why asking freelance writers for revisions is really kind of strange when you stop to think about it.
This one will challenge my own premise that “revisions are okay so long as clients pay.” Can I change tact for a moment to ask the bold question: “is asking for revisions really something we should regard as normal?”
A basic argument to challenge that assumption with:
You probably hire the services of other professionals.
I’m guessing — hoping? — that you have a dentist. Probably a family doctor too. Maybe you periodically require the services of a lawyer.
Now let me ask you when was the last time you uttered any of the following:
“Hey Doc! Great performance with the physical yesterday but I’m thinking you could have placed a little more attention to detail when feeling out my GI tract. I’d like to book in a repeat performance. How about tomorrow? Of course, I assume this is covered by the fee for the surgery visit.”
“Hi Mr. Lawyer! Nice first draft with the rental contract. I really like what you did with the first few terms but I’d like to go a little tougher on section two. I’m going to send over feedback later today. This is covered in the fee, right?!”
If you scoured a large city could you find a doctor who would offer something like repeat surgery visits until you were satisfied? Maybe.
But if you visited a random doctor or lawyer for a consult, I highly doubt that you would feel empowered to regard that as a normative expectation.
You know that’s just not how it works and thus even if you did summon up the temerity to ask, you might do so with a sense of embarrassment or trepidation — knowing that you were being a little bit cheeky and perhaps even insulting. You know that doctors and lawyers charge for every minute of their time. You know that they spent years honing their profession and training for it and that that’s how the economics of those lines of business work. Why ask them to spend more time on your case for the same pay?
Lawyers and doctors have something on their side that freelance writers unfortunately don’t. The fact that clients often don’t realize that it takes a while to become a proficient writer might have something to do with this. They have barriers to entry precluding everybody from calling themselves a lawyer or a doctor and a profession that is licensed.
As insignificant as these details might seem in today’s world — embracing as it is of “new” career paths — the difference with which customers treat doctors and writers indicates that, sadly, all this stuff still matters. Like, it really matters. For many clients, freelance writing is one step above a hobby. I can imagine that some clients even think that asking writers for a string of revisions is akin to providing them with an “opportunity” to hone their “craft” (or was that hobby?)
The truest ballers of this world when it comes to knowing their worst and billing mercilessly for it? Probably lawyers.
The biggest losers in this respect? Potentially freelance writers.
Change is going to be tough.
But bending over backwards for clients by offering unlimited revisions isn’t going to get us there.
Revisions Are Fine. If You Pay. And They’re Reasonable In Scope.
I have two more thoughts about revisions that I’d like to share here.
The first is that there’s one type of revision that I know likely spells the end of a client relationship. It’s a type of revision request that I’ve received once or twice over the six or so years I’ve been doing this.
It’s the type in which there’s more red ink than black in the document.
The client apparently hated everything you wrote although if you challenge them or level that allegation they’ll probably tell you that it’s more that they wanted some “extensive” changes.
I’ll send back the revision back. But probably also file a mental note not to work with this client again. If I was that far off the mark, I’ll probably be a while off it again. Something must have gone wrong (see above). And I don’t have time to routinely be sending in revisions that basically amount to starting a project from scratch.
The second is that I offer one revision (and the ability to pay for more) partially because I don’t want to be that writer who doesn’t do revisions because then it’s going to put my clients in a difficult place if they really do need them. So instead I offer one revision in my rates. This tells clients up front that they’re not going to have the luxury of asking for indefinite tweaks.
What do I think about clients that routinely want four, five, or even more rounds of revision?
I think that that’s their prerogative.
But that they also have to understand that that kind of service — from any provider — is going to come at a high premium.
I think that writers, for their part, shouldn’t feel coerced to prop up a reality in which writing is singled out as a unique field in which asking for multiple free “tweaks” (because you changed plan, because you feel like asking for them) is accepted as the norm. It really shouldn’t be. At least in my opinion. We can take a leaf from the books of other professionals who are much more assertive about how they value their time.
Clients who want multiple revisions per project but don’t want to have to pay for them are being cheap. And cheap clients are rarely worth working for. If you don’t really need that income, I encourage you to simply say no.
My Actionable Tips About Revisions
These may stand in contravention to what others recommend, but here’s my guidance:
- Always try to get a sense for what kind of approval cycle a client typically works to before sending a quote. You can ask about this indirectly. Does the client mention that all outlines need to be submitted and approved?
- Bill for all your revisions. If you incorporate one revision into your rates, make sure your rates cover it. If you need to charge for more, don’t be shy about doing so.
- The next time you feel “bad” about charging for a revision, just remember your last visit to your lawyer or doctor. Were revisions included? Or did they bill for all their time?
- Regard revisions with a degree of suspicion. A pattern of ongoing requests for multiple revisions or one revision request that basically amounts to “please start this from scratch” might mean that the client simply doesn’t think very much of your writing. Ultimately these are likely to be less than profitable accounts.
