Hello everyone. I have been freelancing here for about a year now as a writer and editor. Things have been going really well for me, but I am currently in a pickle entirely of my own making, and I'm trying to figure out how it will affect my JSS.
This is in reference to my third contract with a relatively new client. They wanted an 1800-word blog post and sent a detailed brief with sources to reference. I looked over the brief (but only glanced at the source material and didn't read it all because it was very long). Then I bid my standard rate for that length of blog post, which happened to be double their proposed budget. To my surprise, they accepted my bid. It's a fixed price contract and they fully funded it, so now it's time to deliver.
I started out by reading all the source material they sent, which took me about an hour. After reading it, I realized that 1800 words is WAY too long for this topic. I don't write filler or SEO drek, so there's no way I'm going to wring that many words out of this topic unless I significantly broaden it, which the client didn't want. Clearly, I should have spent more time reading the source material before I accepted the contract - lesson learned.
I messaged the client to ask whether there was a reason they set the limit at 1800 words, and let them know politely and professionally that I didn't think the topic warranted more than about 1000 words. I also indicated that I wasn't going to charge for 1800 words if I was only writing 1000 words.
The client responded, and said that 1800 was just the upper limit, and 1000 was fine. My rate for 1000 words is half my rate for 1800 words. I don't want to charge the client the 1800 word rate for 1000 words, so how can we deal with the funds in escrow when the work is complete? And how badly will this affect my JSS?
