A while back a freelancer in GA picked up both the Being a Starving Artist Sucks and Verbal Kung Fu for Freelancers books. At virtually the same time I ran a spec work project as an experiment on CrowdSpring. At the end of that contest I made an offer to give the 10-12 freelancers a free copy of my Being a Starving Artist Sucks eBook (about 3 took me up on the offer).
After a few weeks I checked back with everyone to see how they were enjoying the books (yes, that is important to me). What I was surprised to learn was that the designer in GA who actually bought the books had read through them both, in fact she said, "These books are fantastic. I devoured them. I found both of them very funny, and I especially loved the kung-fu theme. Both of them have been quite useful to me already."
Nice response. By the way, I checked out the designer's web site - she's talented and she's going places.
In contacting the other 3 designers I'd met during the spec work project (remember that none of them won the contest I ran), I was surprised to learn that NONE of the 3 designers had read the book. In fact, only 1 of them even went through a few pages. While they all had their own excuses as to why they hadn't done any reading, I found that "I don't have enough time" was a common thread.
Here's a portion of what one wrote, "The book looks really interesting but to be totally honest with you I haven't got very far. That is not because I am not interested, more an issue of time. There are a lot of pages of information to read through and I will get there!"
Hmm, let's back up for a second and look at this; you have time invest hours in doing creative projects that you have virtually no chance of getting paid on, yet you have no time to learn how to grow your business and develop your own clients that will actually pay you.
It's maddening to me. These designers are clearly struggling and yet can't seem to invest 15 minutes a day to grow their business. Over 75% of the freelancing businesses out there won't make it past 2-3 years...I suppose someone has to make up those stats - these freelancers are the ones making up the stats.
What kind of odds do you give these designers in becoming successful and making over even $50k a year?
And is just that they didn't read MY books? Nah, but clearly you can see that "playing the part" of a freelancer is more important to them versus actually becoming a success and being paid for it.
I am sure I'll hear back from the designer in GA - the other 3 I am not holding my breath on. I hope someday they'll get around to taking their success seriously, but if they think spec work is going to make them rich, they've got another thing coming. I wonder how many of them are still actively in business.
PS - Just wanted to quickly thank you guys for passing this info and blog on to other freelancers. If you enjoy reading this and or get an RSS feed to it, please consider letting the online design community know you enjoy this resource.
I used to think "If my work looks the best, then I will make all the money." WRONG!!
The business side of freelancing is critical to success. You have to market yourself, be your agent, be an arm-chair lawyer, accountant, art director, etc. It is all on you. Talent is not enough.
Even my favorite clients can be shifty if I am not diligent. : )
You also have to educate your clients, which is a job unto itself. Sure they can get a website for $300, but what will their return be? Zilch, probably—and then they are out $300 and their business is tanking because their site was hard to navigate, worked poorly on everything but IE6 and had no call to action!
BTW, Jeremy, your Work Smarter NOT Harder Package has been very helpful. I utilized the Bonus File "How to explain to clients that they dont get the original files" this week. Thanks!
Posted by: Lakia | July 01, 2009 at 11:39 AM
Always great to hear from you Lakia!
I used to think that too...the most talented designers always win - they don't.
Yeah, I've even had relatives and very close friends who were clients that got a little shifty from time to time - you've gotta watch everyone!
Glad you enjoyed the Work Smarter NOT Harder Package, that's awesome. Hope all is well with you, I know you are or were expecting a little one - hope that's gone or is going very well :)
Posted by: Jeremy Tuber | July 13, 2009 at 06:16 AM