One of the most challenging aspects of being a writer or editor is working with somebody who is not very clear on what they want. Although as writers and editors, we generally know about how long it’s going to take us to accomplish a task, some of this also depends on the depth of work involved. Editing has so many different layers, for example, and may be a quick job or may require a total overhaul.

Even writing can be challenging. I recently took on a ghostwriting client for a book and we had to work our way through a zero draft that was ultimately unusable in order for us to be able to get to the second draft. While this wasn’t my fault and was largely due to the fact that the client didn’t understand exactly what they wanted and needed, it provided me with some valuable lessons going forward.

There are several different ways you can tackle challenges associated with a client not knowing what they want. Having a conversation and providing as many examples as possible can help point you in the right direction. I often seek to mentally place clients into various buckets, such as someone who has never done this before and has no experience whatsoever, will require much more hand-holding and project management setup than someone who is working on their fifth or sixth project. It is very important to establish boundaries in these relationships and to introduce as much clarity as possible as the freelancer. An initial conversation is your chance to ask as many questions as possible to get a better understanding of what they want.

Before proceeding, I strongly recommend taking on a trial paid project to do a small portion of the work. For example, a ghostwriting client may have a small paid project such as coming up with the hook for the book and a one-paragraph introduction of what will be covered in the book or a full outline of main topics in the book. Many editors already use the sample edit as a way to showcase their skills, but this is also an opportunity for you to see how much work the project actually needs. Some people require much more substantial editing and assistance, meaning they may need to do a lot more work than they actually need to do.

Meaning that your flat per word or per page project may not be suitable and that you should instead charge hourly. If a client needs a lot of hand-holding, factor this in to your price. You will need more meetings, more emails, and more overall time to think through the most strategic approach to setting things up for this client.

Here are some other tips to keep in mind:

• Have plenty of samples ready for them to review, including before/afters if you have them for editing projects
• Break down your packages/approach in a few ways, such as text in email, over a video call, and in a brochure. This removes the pressure of them asking you questions over and over since you’ve provided it to them in a format they can revisit.
• Use past examples of interactions with clients where you handle something similar to help them refine what they were looking for; this shows you know how to guide someone through
• Be very clear about what services you do and don’t offer; some clients who see you as an expert may try to rope you into other things like formatting or writing otherwise
• Ask them to give you examples of writing/editing they do and don’t like. This not only helps clarify their vision, but can showcase red flags if the client has unrealistic expectations
• Explain to them your feedback/editing process preferences (Leave comments in Google Doc, record a video, etc.) Ideally, make sure they’re on the same page as you when it comes to this before you start working together.

By taking a leadership role early on, you can make this working relationship more effective.

As a freelance writer or editor, you can broaden your business in two ways with new services: niching into other writing/editing services, or stepping out into other freelance niches like marketing, video or audio work, or administrative work.

But how do you know if it’s the right time or fit for you? Throughout my freelance career, I have pivoted into other freelance services and niched down into other freelance writing options, too. Here’s what to keep in mind.

Taking on Other Kinds of Editing/Writing Work

This is perhaps the easiest pivot, since you already have a track record of delivering in the writing and editing space. You have a better handle on pricing and can also bring over the lessons learned from your existing business (AKA how not to work with nightmare clients, which contract provisions protect you, how to set deadlines.)

For example, if you’ve been largely focused on academic editing services, you could continue to do those or dial that work down to shift over into business editing or fiction manuscript editing. Although the projects will look somewhat different, you aren’t making a huge change. It might be difficult to land those first few clients in your new service area if you’ve done a lot of work “branding” yourself as the academic writing expert.

When to consider making this kind of change:

• You’re feeling too much “sameness” in your work (if you look at one more academic journal article, you’ll lose your mind.) New service offerings, even if you’re not pivoting into them full-time, can help add variety.
• You’re getting bored with your work and feel you’ve taken your current service offering as far as you could take it (After 11 years of writing personal injury law blogs, not a single thing about it was challenging for me anymore.)
• You don’t want to learn something entirely new, but you do desire a little bit of change

Taking on Entirely New Work

It’s a much bigger change if you’re going to start offering book cover design either instead of or in addition to your current editing workload. That’s not to say it can’t be done. In fact, some writers and editors love zooming out to the big picture to make themselves more of a one-stop shop. With this, however, comes thinking about how you’re going to market yourself differently and whether you need new work samples. If you’re not as familiar with the standards, pricing, client types, and deadlines in this new service area, allocate more time to get up to speed. It can be a bit clunky especially when everything feels so smooth in your existing editing and writing business just due to your experience in that field.

For example, after years of content writing, I shifted over to offer Amazon Ads for published book authors for a time. It was a big change even though I was familiar with publishing in general. I was talking to an entirely new group of potential clients and did not have all the kinks worked out yet. More on that later as I walk you through how to approach a test run of a new service area.

Here’s when to consider making a shift like this:

• You’re increasingly bored or frustrated with your existing service offering and want to see if you can retire it or dial it down to 20% or less of your total work. Trying out this new service area helps you see whether that’s possible in terms of income and whether you like it enough to do more of it.
• You feel stagnant and want to continue growing or you want to protect yourself from risks, downturns, influence of AI, etc that you’re worried about with your current service offering.
• Your clients keep asking you if you offer service XYZ and you’re saying no, meaning you’re losing the opportunity to do more work with clients you like. An editor who also loves cover design could be a killer combination! ]

Managing a Test Run

A new service offering, even one similar to your existing work, is not always a good fit. Therefore, don’t put the cart before the horse and invest in a total rebrand. I’m really glad I didn’t do this with my Amazon Ads offering, because I ended up phasing it out after just 4 months. The great thing about trying something new is that you’re not obligated to stick with it so long as you don’t promise people it’s your new focus.

Instead, here is how to approach that:

• Set up a test run of a few months or a handful of projects. Ideally, this will come from your existing clients or people who already know, like, and trust you. Bonus: these projects can be your first work samples and/or testimonials if they go well!
• Offering special pricing for these first few projects with clear boundaries and endcaps. For example, with my Amazon Ads offering, I made it clear I was trying this out and only signed 3-month contracts with a few people I already liked who had asked me to run ads for them. This gives people an incentive to try you out while not locking you in to some big project/long timeline in case you end up hating what you’re doing. This also prevents you from long-term underpricing since you only make a promise of special pricing for this limited period.
• Set a deadline for when you’ll decide if this is working. I chose 4 months because during that time I’d be able to work on several projects.
• Do not build a website, pay for a new logo, spend all your time on LinkedIn, etc. making it seem as though this is your “new thing” until then. If you need to pick up a few of these test run clients, you can market this as a special opportunity ex: “I have openings for up to 3 clients with my new service.”
• If you hate it, conclude your contracts and exit the service. No harm done: you learned something new. And now you can try another service offering if you want!

I stopped offering 1:1 Amazon Ads because I just didn’t enjoy it; the clients wanted too much in terms in reporting, the results were randomly effective or not, and I did not like the back and forth emails on the daily. So I just wrapped it up and put that behind me.

Keep these tips in mind as you think about whether offering a new service makes sense for you.

Many freelancers end up working with clients who are not an ideal fit for them especially at the beginning of their business, but bad clients and even toxic clients can still land in your lap as your business grows, and as you get savvier. Understanding what makes a toxic client is critical for helping you to determine how to avoid them, how to spot them in an onboarding call or intake call, and how to respond and terminate the relationship if necessary.

What is a Toxic Client?

We’ve all had our share of less-than-ideal clients, but a toxic client goes beyond that.

A toxic client, simply put, is someone who drains your energy and treats you poorly. You begin to develop a sense of dread or frustration in dealing with them. Toxic clients are typically overwhelming, overbearing, cross communication boundaries and have numerous extra requests for you and most of the time they want these done without any additional pay.

Toxic clients tend to generate an emotional response in the freelancers they work with and it’s common to feel things like anger or frustration, but in the worst-case scenario, they cause you to feel entirely burned out. If you work with clients, you generally enjoy working for, it’s a little bit easier to identify toxic clients because your feelings about these people are so much different than your other clients. Recognizing some of the patterns for what can develop into a toxic client is critical for helping you stop this situation before it escalates.

While it’s important to do everything you can to possibly identify a toxic freelance client, you cannot always identify them in advance. Sometimes these people sneak up on you and come out of nowhere. They seem fine in the intake call or don’t give you information that would indicate their true nature. If one slips through the cracks, however, try to notice the signs of their behavior sooner rather than later.

Here are four signs to keep in mind when identifying toxic clients.

#1: Mismatched Expectations

If your freelance client is pushing you to be available around the clock, or expects you to answer text messages, phone calls or emails overnight or over the weekends, this is an early sign that they may need their boundaries adjusted. In some cases, with a normal client, you’re able to walk this back and explain your business office hours and why you won’t be able to respond during these times.

You may even be able to redirect them into a weekly or biweekly call to avoid all of these issues stacking up in your email inbox. With a toxic client, however, they will refuse to adjust their behavior and leave you suffering the consequences. They may even argue that you’re being unreasonable.

Likewise, if they ask for five rounds of revision on a smaller project or bombard your first submitted piece with far too many comments and change requests, beware.

#2: Badmouthing Past Freelancers

How a client talks about their past freelancers tells you a lot about their experience in this field and whether or not they understand how to interact with freelance professionals appropriately. If they mentioned in a call that their previous five editors or writers all failed or were difficult to work with, the odds are there’s a problem with the client, not the freelancers.

It’s normal for some of your clients to come in with bad experiences with a handful of past freelancers, especially if the client was new to things and perhaps hired the wrong person but listen to the way they talk about their freelancers. If they’re using strong language like this person was an idiot or this person almost destroyed my business, be aware that they may have unrealistic expectations and are likely to blame you for problems that probably weren’t your fault.

I like to ask clients, “tell me about your experience working with freelancers in the past”, as an open-ended question and see how they respond.

#3: Demanding That You Prove Your Worth

Toxic clients tend to want you to prove your worth or talk about things like ROI or how your work will transform their life or business immediately. Toxic clients might push you to prove your worth as early as the initial phone call. They may not be willing to sign a contract for longer than a month or do anything other than a sample project because they don’t trust you.

They may be comparing you against five or six other freelancers to see who will allow them to push the boundaries. Toxic clients may try to pay you 10% upfront and then claim they’ll pay the rest when they are satisfied with the completed project. Be aware, this is a potential trap and a major red flag as they may never actually be “satisfied” enough to send the remaining funds owed.

#4: Refusal to Pay on Your Terms

Each freelancer comes to the table with their own requests about payment, be it late payment fees, deposits that are due or regular payment schedule. If your client is requesting that every aspect of your contract be updated to adhere to their terms or pushes back when their invoice is due and they’re not making the payment, this is an early sign you may be involved with a toxic client.

In general, it’s a good idea to have some measure of good faith, such as a significant deposit or full payment upfront to ensure that the client has the means to pay you. This keeps you from chasing after the client for weeks or months, especially if you have the client who says they’re not satisfied with the final product and refuses to release that money until you are finished with a version they appear to be happy with.

What To Do If You Think a Client Might Be Toxic

Not every client is a full bad apple. Some of them may have no idea how their behavior is affecting you and I always suggest trying to walk it back unless the client has crossed some major line already. Here are a few tips for how to handle clients who are pushing the boundaries:

• Call the situation out early and address it.
  • Example: “I’ve noticed we’ve had a lot of back and forth on the first draft. Here are some ideas I have to streamline that process.”
  • Example: “In the future, please direct all communication to the Google Doc/Email/Trello board. I’m not available to answer texts or Facebook Messenger, especially after hours.”
• If the client speaks to you unprofessionally, reference it in the moment and explain why it’s a problem. You can say phrases such as, “I don’t know if you mean to come across this way”, or, “I want to make sure I understand what you just said because it feels inappropriate”.
• If you are in a relationship with a toxic client, decide if you can part ways. Regardless of the value of the total project, it can be detrimental to the rest of your business to continue working with a toxic client. Think about the actual amount of time you’re putting in with this client and you can probably figure out pretty quickly that you’re not getting what you’re worth. They may also be causing a physical, mental or emotional toll and these clients can push you to burnout.

One of the biggest problems with working with someone who is extremely difficult is that these negative aspects tend to bleed over to your other clients even if you don’t intend them to. You may be showing up frustrated or less able to focus for your other clients.

Over time, you might determine red flags specific to you. As a business owner, remember that you’re in the driver’s seat to determine whether or not you want to work with someone.

Welcome, new member, to your very own site on NAIWE.com. This is your first post on your new blog. We suggest you introduce yourself on this page. This post can be used to orient readers to who you are and what you do in a more conversational style than the Professional Profile page where you will most likely post a résumé or CV.

How to log in

To edit this post, log in to your blog dashboard using the username and password you chose when you joined. To log in, look for the “Meta” heading in the right column of this page, and click on “Log in.” The screenshot at left will show you what you will see if you are already logged in.

After you log in

Once you have logged in to you , look up at the black bar at the top of your screen. You should see “Edit Post” (screenshot below).

If you click on “Edit Post” on any page of your site, you will be taken to the editing screen where you can change the text, add images (through the “Add Media” button, and more.

In the editing view, the left sidebar of the dashboard will have links to each area of your new site. At left is a screenshot of the selections in the dashboard menu.

The sections you will find most immediately useful are circled in red in the illustration at left.

• Posts is what you select if you want to see a list of all existing posts or create a new post.
• Pages is what you select to see a list of pages or create a new page.
• Settings offers several sections with a variety of choices that can be made. The new Customize function (accessed through the top bar) is a simpler way of working with most settings, including site name, colors, and more.

Your website comes with most settings optimized, so you shouldn’t have to do much in here. If you’ve not worked with a WordPress site before, it is probably best to leave things as they are until you are more confident in working with the system

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Save your changes

When you have changed the text of the post, be sure to remember to change the title as well, then click the “Update” button in the right column to save your changes.

Once you have a new blog post up, you may change this post to draft status so that it no longer shows.

You will find detailed, up-to-date instructions for how to work with your new website at WordPress Codex.

If you have questions, contact us at support@naiwe.com.