The Multifaceted Writer: Planning to Lose It

By Jessica Quillin

This week, I faced every writer and business person’s worst nightmare: I lost a contract. Arguably worse than rejection, losing a contract or writing project means that you initially did something right to win business, but later, something went drastically wrong, whether through your actions or someone else’s.

While disappointed and somewhat confused, I feel cool-headed and almost pleased at having lost this contract. Why? I had a feeling that an ending was on the horizon with this particular client, and had already lined up new clients as a replacement.

But sometimes it’s not always that easy to identify when a project or client relationship is beginning to sour. Breaking up is hard for both sides, particularly with inevitable differences of interpretation, miscommunication, and even contractual difficulties. So, how can you anticipate and perhaps prevent losing a writing project or client contact?

It is cliché to note that the majority of business problems boil down to ineffective communication. Yet, anyone who believes this is a bottom line is losing sight of the intricacies of human interaction and the frankly rotten way in which many businesses manage outsourcing, which, of course, is a huge liability for freelancers and external consultants.

While I obviously believe in the efficacy of communication and the necessity of maintaining an open dialogue with clients, I think a lot of the contention over client and project relationships actually results from ineffective organizational strategy, poorly established project expectations and guidelines, a lack of management oversight, and an overworked, undermanaged, and undervalued workforce.

The contract I just lost came from one of my favorite clients. They offer a variety of interesting projects and are pleasant to work with. However, take a challenging two-phase project and add in fuzzy guidelines, a high volume of work, tight deadlines, and no firm internal communications strategy—then, suddenly, my life as an editorial contractor becomes a mess.

For this project, mistakes happened on both sides. This was in part because project expectations in the first phase of work were not firmly established and continually shifted; but also, this was because we mainly interacted over email, which created inevitable misinterpretations of assigned work and major version control problems.

However, I also confess to internal problems with managing my writers, which resulted in a stupidly missed deadline that added tension to an already delicate client relationship. I blame myself for not better staying on top of my consultants and for not enforcing my internal editorial guidelines and review processes, which I create to give me time to edit and review work before submitting it to clients.

Yet, I firmly believe that these types of mistakes were inevitable given the constraints under which all of us were operating. My client was dealing with a high-maintenance client of their own who had very specific expectations about how work should be done without clearly outlining what those expectations were.  As a result, I was left to interpret guidelines and did my best to provide written output that matched this interpretation, which, as you may predict, turned out to be incorrect. In this way, I honestly feel that it would have been nearly impossible for me to provide them with a polished, professional product considering to what degree the project scope and even basic style guidelines had changed by the end.   

But, my problem with this client is perhaps more fundamental than that, and speaks of a complaint that most writers and professionals encounter when receiving rejection letters, losing jobs/projects, or simply not getting replies to new business queries: our relationship became impersonal.
This is where I saw the writing on the wall with this client in massive, multi-colored graffiti-like fashion. Our professional relations went from being open and flexible, wherein we held weekly conference calls and my email questions were always quickly answered, to an uncomfortable situation wherein my contract massively changed without discussion, emails were rarely answered, and work halted to a minimum.

To be fair, my client was negotiating things on their end to find a mutually beneficial resolution to the disastrous project, which understandably takes time. Yet, I was continually kept in the dark. Similarly, though also understandably, they revised the way they handle outsourcing in an effort to improve accountability and increase transparency with a new online system in which to bid for work and a more convenient way to bill for time. Yet, again, these changes occurred without warning or explanation, which made me hugely uncomfortable.

With this client relationship on the rocks, I quickly mobilized to look around for new clients and new projects. However, whereas when I started freelancing I took whatever work was available, this time I sat down to figure out exactly what kind of projects I want to take. This forced me to think about the direction of my writing business and career and how I want them to grow.
Happily, these efforts proved fruitful. I located several new clients that actually seem to be taking me and my business in a more cohesive direction. As my readers may know from last week's column about balancing work and my indecision over teaching, I actually have been lucky enough to have a lot of business options to choose from. While discussions about teaching and other new clients continue, I feel confident that my writing business is now moving in a solid direction.

While losing a contract is never good, I think it was beneficial in that it caused me to think on my feet and take responsibility for my writing business.

Jessica Quillin owns Quillin Consulting, LLC, a consultancy in Washington, DC, focused on content development, research, and strategy for the public and private sectors. She holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Cambridge.