BTW, Digging the ice cream obsession!

Clients with their own contracts actually sounds fair. If I use a contract, why wouldn’t someone else use a contract? Of course, my contract is adaptable and negotiable, so I expect the same.

Couple of apparently recurring themes are contracts and rates, of course. As a freelance science journalist, these discussions kind of baffle me. Most of my clients, send me their contract to sign and tell me how much I’m going to get paid. Usually, the only choice I have in the matter is maybe to tweak the liability and copyright clauses and to perhaps ask them if they can up the rate. But, it’s rare that I devise the contract myself or give them my rate.

DaveB

PS 90 minutes is too many minutes for me. 55′45″ would be perfect as that’s the round trip for my daily dog walk.

I thought that I’d share my time keeping method with the freelancers of the world.

I use an Excel spreadsheet template (see link below). It is very easy to use and maintain. I simply create a copy for each client.

The link: http://www.levelfour.com.au/FreelanceSwitch/Timesheet.xls

With a two-hour subway commute daily here in NYC, podcasts on my iPod have been a must for the past two years.

Having listened to so MANY podcasts, I’ve to say the Freelance Radio podcast is one of the most well organized / well thought out podcasts I have ever listened to!

I personally think your show is filled with excellent & quality contents. When I first saw the length of the first show, I was a bit skeptical about the quality of it, as I have listened to many 40+ minutes podcasts that the hosts just dragged it on & on. But I was pleasantly surprised! As someone who had done a few podcasts with people across the globe, I can totally see the amount of preparation you’ve put into each show & I really appreciate that!

Having said that, I can also see how it could be a bit long for some listeners. May be you can cut each show in half by “just simply” (I’m sure it’s easier said than done) doing the part 1 / part 2 thing? So we’ll hear the “professional practice” topics & “mailbag” in part 1 & “contests” & “recommendations” in part 2. Something like that. Then that way, you guys can keep the conversation going without losing momentum, while some of us can still benefit from your show without having to set aside too much time at once! Just a thought!

And lastly, in response to the comment about Dickie’s “wishy washy” answers, I have to disagree. I also disagree about how Dickie is inexperience. I don’t know where that came from. My impression of him just from the 3 shows alone tells me he knows about freelancing more than most people out there. I feel that with so many different types of freelance work & so many different types of clients, it’s almost impossible to give “the golden answer” to many freelance-related issues.

But to help some listeners understand better about that specific nature of freelance work, may be questions to the panel can be asked differently in the future? Instead of asking “should we do this or do that,” like with the “we vs. I” question or “hourly vs flat fee”, the question can be “when should we do this & when should we do that.”

Last, I would like to throw a suggestion/request to you guys regarding the contract. I would love to see a place where readers/listeners can submit their versions of the contract, may be organized by work type (like “graphic design,” “copywriting,” “web design,” etc.)? I thought Kristen’s contract was awesome (very lawyer-ly sounding too!) but I’m not a writer. In fact, I’m only a graphic design student. I haven’t been able to find anything like it, but I’d love to see a community-contributed resource/database that freelancers can share their sample contracts & also see what others do on their contracts for different types of work. May be for a graphic designer (or GD student), he/she would be able to see what others do on their contracts for jobs like logo or brochure design or multimedia work. Since different fields & works have different requirements & needs, I think this would be a tremendous resource for ANY freelancer out there. Of course, I can’t possibly expect you guys to cover every type of contract on your own. So I thought this might be something that the community can contribute to.

Anyhow, it’s just a thought that I came up with while on the subway.

Once again, thanks sooooo much for what you do! Keep up the good work!

Thanks again!!

Emma.

:o)