About this ebook
This is a hundred and twenty moments in freelance work, written out in full, from the first enquiry to the money arriving. Not a pep talk and not a template. There is not a square bracket in the book, and not a single figure.
The enquiry. Who is actually asking, and why the person emailing you is so often not the person who decides or the person who pays. The questions to ask before quoting anything. The signals in a first conversation that reliably predict trouble, which are the same in every field. Free consultations, test pieces, and being asked for ideas before you are engaged. What is your rate, and what to say instead. Saying no, saying not yet, and the enquiry that goes quiet.
Pricing. The five ways to charge and what each one does to the risk. What it costs you to exist, and what it costs the business to run — the two numbers that sit under every price and that almost nobody has worked out. How many days you can actually bill, which is far fewer than you think. Setting a rate for the first time, and raising one. Why estimates are wrong, and the personal multiplier that corrects them. Contingency, discounts, the friend rate, rush work, and what a day actually means. And what to say when they tell you it is too expensive, which is not to reduce the number.
The agreement. What a one-page agreement has to contain. Scope, and the list of exclusions that is missing from nearly every freelance contract. What counts as done, and the deemed-acceptance clause that stops projects hanging open for months. Payment terms, deposits, staged payments and kill fees. Who owns what you make, and the three words that decide it if you are never paid. Reading their fifteen-page supplier agreement for the four terms that matter. Purchase orders, onboarding and insurance. And the two commonest ways freelancers work for nothing.
Doing the work. The kick-off hour that decides the next two months. Getting content and answers out of people, including the default that resolves most stalls. Recognising scope creep while it is still four small things. The scope conversation, had against the document rather than the person. Revisions, change notes, the client who will not decide, the client who disappears, feedback you cannot use, and a committee that was not in the brief. Delivering, sign-off, and the half hour afterwards that is worth more than a day of looking for clients.
Invoicing. What an invoice must contain for a system that has never heard of you. When to send it, and why a two-day delay of yours becomes a five-week delay of theirs. Numbering. Purchase order references. Who to actually send it to. Other currencies, and the four ways money leaks out of a foreign payment. Deposit, stage and final invoices. Credit notes. Retainers. Expenses. Portals. Getting it approved. And the invoice that disappears, which is found in week two by one short message and in week eight by an argument.
Getting paid. When a payment is actually late. The first chase, which recovers most of them on its own. The second. Finding the person inside the organisation who can actually pay. Interest, charges and stopping work. The formal demand. Collection services, small claims, and an honest calculation of whether any of it is worth it. The client who has gone under. Partial payment and settlement. What to do when the complaint is about the work rather than the money. Writing it off as a decision rather than a fading.
And the business around it. Separating the money. What to keep and for how long. Ten minutes of bookkeeping a week. The written list of questions to take to an accountant, which is the highest-return hour in the book. Setting money aside on the day every payment lands. Subcontracting. The pipeline, and the one date that predicts your next bad quarter. Feast and famine. Raising prices with existing clients. Burnout. Going back to employment, which is a legitimate outcome. And the thing you keep not doing.
Every entry says where it comes up, answers the two questions people actually ask, and ends with three things to check.
Written to work anywhere. No country is named, no tax rule is stated, and there is not a currency symbol or a numeral in the body of the book. Registration thresholds, tax treatment, record-keeping periods and claim time limits differ completely between legal systems and several change annually. What travels is the shape of a freelance job and the arithmetic you do for yourself.
It is not legal, tax or financial advice, and every part opener says so. Where something needs an accountant or a lawyer, it says so, and says what to ask them.
120 situations · 240 questions answered · 360 things to check
