Maverick Words Blog | Practical Copywriting, Marketing and Business Tips

4 Freelance Contract Clauses You Should Always Include

André August 26, 2016July 17, 2019 Business, Writing No Comments

Whether it’s a small job or a major project, you should always have a freelance contract in place.

Always.

There are various reasons for this, some of which I’ve touched on before. However, I think the most important one is that a freelance contract sets out everyone’s expectations in writing and makes each party’s duties and responsibilities clear from the get go.

Now, let’s be clear. No-one wants things to go awry. And most of the time they won’t. But deliberately ignoring the possibility is not only short-sighted, it’s downright stupid. The one time things go wrong, not having a contract WILL come back to bite you in the ass. You can take that to the bank.

A contract avoids a lot of unnecessary strife because – guess what? – you can’t argue with a signed document that sets out in plain language exactly what’s going to happen.

Unsurprisingly, contracts are routine in most business transactions; and they should be routine in your freelance business too. A serious client will have no problem signing a contract. In fact, they might just suggest one themselves.

But, you may be wondering, what types of clauses should you include in a freelance contract?

Let’s have a look.

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Defeat Writers’ Block And Nail Your Writing Assignment In 5 Easy Steps

André August 19, 2016July 30, 2019 Productivity, Writing 10 Comments

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a complete newbie, at some point it’s bound to happen. You’re going to find yourself in front of your laptop screen, staring at a blank page.

The cursor will blink accusingly at you.

The whiteness of the page will threaten to blind you.

Meanwhile, you’ll keep stealing glances at the clock on the top right of your laptop screen, feeling the pressure and trying to stop yourself from breaking into a cold sweat.

You guessed it, my friends. I’m talking about that most nefarious of mortal enemies, aka writer’s block.

Unfortunately, if you’re a professional writer, waiting for that pesky Muse to get the fuck back here and do its bloody job isn’t going to cut it. You’re going to have to find a way to power through this.

You’ll be happy to learn that this isn’t as hard as it sounds.

Read on for my proven five-step approach to stop writers’ block in its tracks and nail every assignment.

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Signs A Client Won’t Pay You (And What To Do About It)

André August 12, 2016July 17, 2019 Business, Writing 4 Comments

If you run an online business (or any other business, for that matter) there’s a good chance you’re going to have to deal with at least the occasional late payment. While this is unfortunate, it’s also completely normal. More often than not, the client is in good faith and the matter can be resolved quickly and amicably. No harm, no foul.

Unfortunately, though, there are times when, whichever way you look at it, the client was in bad faith. Perhaps they tried to talk themselves out of paying you with a variety of excuses. Or, even worse, they simply went AWOL the minute you delivered the work.

It’s a sad fact of life that there are unscrupulous people who take advantage of the veneer of anonymity the Internet provides to score free work. And, if you’re not careful, you could end up putting in a lot of time and effort into a project without getting paid what you’re due.

Thankfully, it’s very easy to weed out these people from legitimate clients and to nip any potential problems in the bud. Here’s how.

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What I’ve Read In 2016 So Far – My 5 Top Picks

André July 15, 2016July 17, 2019 Writing 2 Comments

At the beginning of this year, for the first time ever, I decided to set myself a reading challenge. Last year I read 32 books, so I figured a target of 35 books for 2016 was realistic.

Unfortunately, I had some trouble at first (I’m still in a “finish every book you start” phase, for reasons I’ve gone into a while ago. This is a view I’m finally starting to reconsider, because I’m not getting any younger and life is too short to read books I don’t like. Anyway.)

Until last month, I was a whopping seven books behind schedule. Incredibly, I turned this around in a little over a month – I even read four books in eight days – so now I’m bang on track. Yay me.

Anyway, seeing as I’m halfway through my reading challenge and it’s also halfway through the year, I thought it fitting to share the high points of my journey so far.

Read on.

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How To Find Financial Stability As A Freelancer

André July 1, 2016July 17, 2019 Business, Writing 6 Comments

While I do love me a good gangster movie, I have to admit I was never much of a Sopranos fan when it was on the air.

Don’t get me wrong. It did have its moments, sure. But for some reason it never really grabbed me.

Funnily enough, though, as I dealt with the cataclysmic fallout of Brexit this week, I found myself thinking a lot about it; and about one scene in particular.

I believe it was a sit down of some sort, and this one mobster was complaining that, because of the economic recession, he wasn’t making as much money as he used to.

As I remember it, Tony Soprano was up in arms in characteristically hilarious fashion. He countered that this just wasn’t possible, because “certain aspects of show business and our thing have been recession-proof since time immemorial.”

Which brings me to my point.

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My 5 Steps To Freelance Writing Success

André June 17, 2016July 17, 2019 Business, Writing 2 Comments

This week, I was featured as a success story on the amazing Karen Marston’s Untamed Writing blog.

I was really fucking stoked because: 1) I never thought I’d one day be featured on a popular blog as a success story; and 2) Who am I kidding? It feels good to have my efforts acknowledged in this manner.

Now I’m not going to get all self-indulgent and use this post to paraphrase the entire interview. You can read it for yourself if you want to. But doing the interview did get me thinking.

Maverick Words isn’t my first foray into freelancing. It’s probably my third or fourth one. However, it’s the only one that’s been successful (at least so far). My other ventures didn’t really work out for me.

So, having done the interview and all, I found myself soul searching to find out what I did differently this time round.

I’d like to share what I found out with you, in the hope that you can get something out of it.

Here goes.

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What I Learned Spilling Coffee On My Laptop

André June 10, 2016July 17, 2019 Business 2 Comments

It wasn’t a fun week.

I’d just been back home for a friend’s wedding, some catching up and a spot of r and r; and I had a hell of a time getting my ass back into gear.

Sounds like a pretty standard case of holiday blues, right?

But then, last Friday, things just flew up the scale from not fun to complete and utter disaster.

As I sat at my desk to start my day, bleary eyed and still half asleep, I accidentally spilled a whole mug of steaming coffee.

All over my laptop.

After staring at it for a few seconds in abject horror, I rushed for whatever I could find to mop up the bloody mess.

Having been blogging for a cleaning company for quite some time now, I should have known better than to rub instead of just blot the damn spill. But, in my panic, rub I did; and I think I made matters way worse.

My screen went crazy, and I couldn’t get the laptop to co-operate. So I shut it down, used the hairdryer on it, and tried to switch it back on. But, alas, nothing happened. My laptop was in a coma or, even worse – gasp – dead.

Which brings me to the moral of my story.

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