Momentary euphoria turns to nagging doubt

I'm experiencing momentary euphoria due to the fact that the project I mentioned in my last post is finally 'in the post' to the designer. The client and the project manager stopped answering my emails last week so I'm now starting with the nagging doubt of whether I'll ever get paid by them and, if I do get paid, if they will give me any more work - and if so if I would accept it?

You see I've been in the position for the first few years of my freelance career of only having a couple of clients - one of which I worked for in a previous life as an in-house editor - and chugging along quite happily until 1) the work dried up and I realised it was true you can't put all your eggs in one basket and 2) little one went to nursery and I suddenly had more time on my hands - and I'd rather work than do the housework!

My first action when the work started to dry up was to advertise in a few places locally (so far to this date I've had no clients from this :-]), get on as many web forums for freelancers as I could and, of course Facebook.

The second was to chase up my advanced membership of the SfEP which had been sitting in the office for a year waiting for my previous employer to write a reference about my freelance work - which she simply 'didn't have time' to do. Thankfully as I could prove that in the year since I had made the application I had worked 100s and 100s of hours and had undertaken CPD (continuous professional development) the council granted me the status and I was able to add myself to the directory. The result has been several new clients and a very hectic workload but also some bad experiences - unintelligible briefs, contrary clients and late payment. There have been good points too - expanding my repertoire, building up a good client base and in some cases a bit better pay!

So I'm not in a position to pick and choose just yet - but it would be nice! Perhaps when he's at university :-)

Are clients on the same planet?

A regular debate on one of the facebook groups I frequent is 'Do clients speak the same language as us?' with my latest one I'm beginning to wonder if we both inhabit the same planet!

Early December got a 'would you be interested in a quick job for us' email, to which I replied a hearty 'yes' with a view to working over the Christmas period when everyone else was on holiday.

Week before Christmas
Client: 'Glad you can take on the project, will be with you hopefully before Christmas but definitely before the New Year'

2nd Jan
Client: 'Here are the series editors' corrections for the text'.
Me: 'Okay, but I don't have the text to add the corrections to'.

10th Jan
Me: 'I have just received the original but there appear to be 2 versions'.

11th Jan
Client: 'There are 2 different versions of the book one with questions and the other with the answers - here's the email with the instructions that I thought I'd sent before Christmas - can you do the checklist over the weekend and get queries to the project manager early in the week?'

Sun 13th
Me (to project manager): 'Okay I've gone through and here are my initial queries and the checklist you wanted me to fill in. Can you check that I am on the right lines and get back to me?'

Mon 14th
Project manager: 'I'm very pushed at the moment will get back to you tomorrow'.

Tues 15th
Me (to PM and client): 'I've finished going through and there appears to be a lot of text missing - changes have been made to the questions but I need matching information for the answers are there any files missing?'
Project manager: 'I have your queries sent on Sunday I'll be in touch tomorrow with an answer'.
Client: 'There aren't any more files'.
Project manager: 'Can you tell me where you are with the project and how long it is going to take you to finish it?'
Me (to PM): 'Depends on when I get the missing information unless you want me to try to write it'.

Yesterday
Project manager: 'Can you tell me where you are with the project and how long it will take you to finish it?'
Client: 'You don't appear to have sent the information we requested to be with us immediately after the weekend.'
Me (to client): 'Was sent to project manager on Sunday'.
Project manager: 'The stuff sent on Sunday is fine. Can you fill in the attached form to say where you are with the project and how many hours you think it will take?'
Me (to project manager): 'All depends on the answers to the queries.'

Today
Client: 'Can you tell me where you are with the project?'
Me: 'I am waiting for answers to queries sent on Tuesday as I am missing a lot of information.'
Client: 'Please find attached information that we have - does this help?'
Me: 'Not really as it is the same as what I have. Can you confirm what you want me to do? Should I wait for answers to the queries or should I try to rewrite the answers book to match the questions myself?'
Client: 'Oh don't wait for the answers to the queries as we won't send them off until we get proofs. Please do write the answers for the book as best you can. Can you let us know when you will be finished?'
Me: argh!!!!

And, yes, this is one of the clients in my last post about asking questions and Wordsmith was quite right in her observations that there are situations where you can ask too many questions but I dread to think what would have happened with this project if I hadn't!

Payment terms are 45 days - so my hair should have started to grow back by then :-)

OK, rant over, back to work!