100%??
i wouldn't even fucking bother to freelance in Web design unless you're going to simply work for large companies. With the exception of DM, KN, JB, and SM/JM/YF of MR every single client I had, whether solo operators or larger, were small business who sucked sewage out of hefty bags because they were cheap ass motherfuckers. And fact of the matter is, the name of the game is networking, too. I got exactly 1% of clients through advertising. And 1/2 of those were due to the confusion of a local printer.
1. do not market on the web, only locally. 2. do it the old fashioned way: pound pavement looking for work by walking right into a business, handing out business cards, going to chamber of commerce meetings etc. had i had the money to do that, i would have and it probably would have mad e a dfference because, when people are part of an org like that, they are more likely to be concerned about their reputations locally and 3. i would try to only go after the larger business market or work contract gigs found via conventional job search boards (monster, etc.)
also, people who tell you that you should charge what you think you're worth and tell you that you don't get jobs because you undercharge are totally full of shit. you lose 95% of jobs because you charge too much. My attitude is summed up here:
Dear Recently Fired Client,
Today, I received your request for 4 CDs, each containing a copy of the source files for your books, both the interior designs and the cover. I regret to inform you that our contract indicates that, when a client is a cheap ass son of a bitch who tries to extract a profit, not by creating a valuable product, but by figuring out how to effectively squeeze labor costs down to nothing, then they get the Cheap Son of a Bitch Version of the Contract.
In plain English, that means I own the copyright and I leased you use of the design — the layout and look and feel of the interior of the book, as well as the cover. Therefore, you can take your request for the source files and shove it straight right up your rectal cavity and straight on through to your cranial cavity. While there and, with any luck, you can perform your own lobotomy. I'll check my schedule. I may be able to pencil in some time to assist with the procedure for — what else? — freeeeeeee! Wheeeeeeeee!
You are confused? Didn't read the contract, eh? Funny that. I explained this to you the first time we ever spoke. I could send you to The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines where you can read up on how people who create intellectual property protect themselves and earn livings.
Wait. You, yourself, create intellectual property. Well, there you go. Just think about it for a minute. Still not getting it? How's about this. How much do you charge for the "Train the Trainers" sessions you give? More than the regular sessions you give. Right? Why the fuck is that? Oh! Because now you are training people to do your job and once they have that knowledge, they don't need you anymore. Isn't that amazing? You charge more money if there's potential for a client to repurpose your work without paying you.
You get the concept, yes? When it applies to your business and how you make a living your contracts protect your intellectual property, yes?
Well, sister, I do the same thing. And if you want to pay $200 for 20 hours of my labor, then you get the Cheap Ass Son of a Bitch Contract Deal.
You do not get the source files you Cheap Assclown of a former client I had to fire because you drove me right around the bend whereupon I dove off a cliff and plummeted to a craggy earth, utterly amazed that anyone can be such an incredibly hypocritical Cheap Ass Bastard who would, herself, never stand for getting shat on by her own clients, yet turns around and shits all over the people she "employs" so she can make a buck. And yet you have the nerve to actually tell me that I should stand up to abusive clients when those abusive clients are making my life rough and I don't have time to be your lackey for $10/hr.
By the way, all your human resource department techniques manipulation did not work in the way you intended. I know you fancied that you were pulling a fast one. You were not. I knew what you were doing, trying to get me to go the extra mile for peanuts. Well, actually, for nothing. And believe me sister, the only reason I did whatever I did was because we are desperate for work. But there are limits to the degree to which I will fake it and pretend you aren't fucking me over. Talking with you, I realized that I would much prefer to work with someone who says the following:
"I'm a Cheap Ass Hypocritical Bastard who wants to earn $100/hr and wants to pay others for their labor at a tenth of that rate. I would never work for less, but others, they should. I'm more important; they are shit. I can't do what they do mind — since otherwise I might be able to put together a website that belongs at the top of the list of Fugliest Ass Websites in All of Creation. I couldn't possibly figure out how to run my email program, let alone how to use a typesetting program or design graphics. But just 'coz I can't do it, that doesn't mean it's valuable or anything. In fact, because I can't do it, I fancy that it's not particularly valuable. Because I'm a Cheap Ass Hypocritical Son of a Bitch.
That you even DARE ask me to do things not specified in the contract and explicitly forbidden — e.g., correct YOUR fucking typos after I've typeset it, after you signed a document telling me that it was "the final manuscript (Ms.)" — that is the primary insult. It is amazing to me that you think that it's OK to ask someone to create for you a cheap ass "Hyundai" — we spelled it out in the contract, remember? — and yet you then request customized changes to the off-the-shelf Hyundai without actually thinking you ought to, you know, actual pay for the customization work. Do you go to a car dealer, point and say, "I want the blue one" and then ask for custom work and expect to not pay for it because you chit chat up the people who have to perform the customization work? No? Thought not.
Give me the honest Cheap Ass Bastard any day who tells me flat out that he wants me to overwork for underpay, who tells me flat out that they think little of my work and do not believe I have any talent to speak of. I'd rather hear the truth. Give me the Cheap Bastard who just out and says it, instead of pretending that they give a shit about the fact that millions of Americans don't have health insurance.
It was the final straw when I had to listen to your bullshit there. I thought about that all week as I waited for you to get back to me after I'd presented you with the deliverable. I thought about how angry you were about poverty and the state of health care and health insurance. I thought about how you deny that you participate in the very process your heart bleeds over. I thought about how many people I know who've done the same to me and others — like their maids, the lawncare workers, their daycare providers, and their nannies. (See Ehrenreich and Hochschild's Global Woman).
Honey, in this case you are the problem. You imagine it is "them" over there who are causing the problem. No, when you want to pay $10 an hour to a contractor who must still pay self-employment taxes and all out of pocket expenses for overhead, insurance, errors and omission insurance, renters' insurance, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, vacations, sick days, etc. AND does her own accounting, billing, and credit collection (e.g., you want to pay less than min. wage), then you ARE part of the problem. They are not them. They are you, you Cheap Ass Bastard
In sum, you will get your source files when you pay me for them. Moreover, I will be happy to send you a download link so you, yourself, can download them and burn them to your own fucking CDs on your own fucking time, not mine. If your time is too valuable… uh, I'll be happy to do it: just pay me the same thing you think your time is worth, 'k?