Well, perhaps the value of your dollar, and definitely the value of my time.

I was reading a friend’s personal blog (he lives halfway across the country and it’s an easy way to keep up-to-date) and he mentioned an issue with an IT consulting and repair job that he had. He works in IT for a larger company, but contracts out his spare time for consulting and hands-on LAN administration. His quote was for a certain amount of work, as described by the client, but now more work needs to be done and the client is not willing to pay for it. My friend doesn’t want to get screwed out of payment for the work he’s already doen, but also doesn’t want to get taken advantage of.

The situation I’m in relates to a proposal, of sorts. The posting was for a parttime job, but the response was, “How would you do X?” I didn’t really understand what X was, but I responded with an answer. (Roughly $45 worth of consulting.) The nature of X was further clarified and I’m in the process of a new response now. (Adding another $60 worth of consulting.) Unfortunately, none of this work is necessarily leading to a paying job, and I’m not completely sure that my contact is looking to me to do the work. I have a feeling that he’s trying to get as much information as possible and then get one person to implement several people’s “suggestions.”

So, the question is, “Where does one draw the line?” Do I start by providing a free estimate, and write off the cost as the cost of doing business? Or do I ensure that my preliminary analysis is paid for, then contract to do the work?

In my situation, I’m willing (for now) to provide the advice free of charge and see what comes out of it. At least, I have some more experience with the analysis, consulting and reporting. But in future, I think I will be clear about how much free advice I will dispense before it becomes paid consulting.

For my friend, I would suggest finishing the project, take whatever they’ll pay and learn from the experience. I would also advise that in future my friend save himself some time and provide a free (or acceptably priced) estimate, with a written report, including estimated costs. If the recommendations of the report are accepted, then he can contract an acceptable price to do the work. Or the client can get another opinion or contract someone else to complete the work.

Where do you draw the line?

I love writing and I’ve been looking at ways to expand my audience, so I’ve been looking into freelance writing. But, man, there are a ton of freelance writing scams out there!

Some of the sites I found require an “application” or “registration” fee (e.g., freelancehomewriters.com). Really? Shouldn’t the site be making money from me writing for them? Then I found a lot of blogs and posts (e.g., freelancedaily.net, Scams, Warnings, Deadbeats) that actually document the scams as well as the deadbeats who just don’t pay for the work.

I found a pretty good eHow article about avoiding freelance writing scams; step 7 was pretty much number 1 for me:

If they ask you for money, then writer beware. The basic principle of any job is that the employer pays the employee, not the other way around.

Searching for information about freelance writing scams led me to Men with Pens and essentially an admonishment to save my money. Generally, if someone’s willing to share their “get rich quick” system with you for a “low-low price!”, it’s a scam: they’re getting rich by stealing your money!

My top 3:

• Suite 101
• Associated Content
• Helium

What are yours?

I’ll be straightforward in telling you that a lot of what you’ll see here is my interpretation of and comments on things I read in other blogs or on other websites. I don’t apologize; I get a lot of great information by reading blogs and news articles and eBooks. The unfortunate part is that I can’t get to all of them everyday, and thus today’s post is about yesterday’s article.

Daniel Scocco has a great site about blogging, with some excellent tips and Q&As. Yesterday’s post was The Godfather Approach to Internet Marketing, illustrating the business of blogging, and the respect to be given to other bloggers.

I do (and will definitely continue to) link to, read and respond to and quote from blogs and articles of all kinds. I also have some Google Alerts to let me know when someone links to my site, or posts something that seems relevant to my site. I don’t expect a lot of traffic to my site in these early days, but I hope that I can establish a reputation for dealing fairly and appropriately with others.

I’m not expecting thanks for linking to anyone else’s blog, and if I don’t see it, I may not thank anyone for linking to my blog. But I would certainly hope that someone will politely let me know if they think I’ve copied any of their work (as in Daniel’s point #4, It Is Business, Not Personal). As well, if I think that I’m being taken advantage of, I’ll politely let the person know, and hope that the situation doesn’t escalate.

The concept of blogging, and the community that has formed around it, is one of sharing and creating a conversation. If we’re not able to deal fairly with all of the people involved in the conversation, how can it continue and grow?

Alright, so obviously this site isn’t quite up to “daily updates”, but I’m working on it. One of the things I’ve been doing lately is looking through other technical writing blogs and directories for inspiration. About.com has a freelance writing blog, and from there I found Anne Wayman’s About Freelance Writing. From those two I got a couple of great pieces of advice: “Just keep swimming” (actually taken from Disney’s Finding Nemo), and “Persistence pays”.

Persistence doesn’t mean forcing yourself to do something you don’t like, or that isn’t working. There’s no percentage in that. Persistence means keeping on but with flexibility.

Good advice. And while I continue working on this blog, and all my other writing projects, I’ll definitely keep it in mind. If you have any other interesting tidbits, please let me know!