Being a freelancer take a lot of trust and risk. Of course, being a company that hires freelancers also takes a bit of risk. The company must trust that the freelancer really will produce quality work on time, but that basically ends there. If they’re unhappy with the freelancer, all they need to do is write a curt e-mail telling him or her that services are no longer needed and good luck with your career, although some opt to detail their grievances, too. For the freelancer, however, he or she must trust that he or she will get paid, and companies are notoriously slow in sending payments to their independent contractors. You’d drown in bills first before receiving the money you earned, and the unfair thing is, you submitted quality work on time or even well ahead of the deadline, and the company is taking its sweet time paying you. If you don’t have a contract, you can see how easily they can worm their way out of the situation, leaving you exhausted from and unpaid for the services you rendered.

I generally make it a point to send an invoice to my clients on the date I’m supposed to receive my payment, and barring that, I like to harangue them about it–within reason, of course, but I’ve never exactly been shy about asking for money. It gets curious how some companies would be in constant touch the whole time you’re completing the project and suddenly be unavailable most of the time when it’s time to pay you.

I have no other advice for fellow freelancers other than to get everything in writing, send an invoice, and ask aggressively for the money you rightfully deserve. Fortunately, Melissa Brewer has a fine article entitled When Clients Don’t Pay, Pay Late…And Another Anomalies of Freelancing that you will learn a whole lot from. At the very least, you’ll learn that you’re not the only freelancer out there whose clients are wimping out on you.

This week was shaping up to be a pretty tame one, workwise. I had seven articles to submit and five content pages to complete. I sent in the previous set already and just had four pages left from the second set to write. And then in comes a whole deluge of writing jobs, with six articles due on Wednesday, five content pages due on Thursday, and another four for Friday, and a 2,000-word magazine article I’m supposed to send in by Monday, the same day I have to go to a government office to get more details about a feature they want written.

I’d complain about the workload, except I’m really just happy even getting any number of writing assignments. Plus, I said yes to all of them anyway, so I can’t blame anyone else.

The strange thing is, even if I get exhausted with all the writing, I can’t seem to be able to say no to projects. Most likely it comes from a fear of not having anything to do and therefore not earning any money. Maybe one of these days, I’ll say no to any job for a whole month so I can spend my time and energy working on all the projects I’ve pushed to the back burner.

People. When you say “Ezinearticles,” you don’t pronounce “Ezine” to rhyme with “wine.” E-zine comes from “electronic magazine,” and therefore e-zine should rhyme with–guess what?–magazine.

Again: E-zine as in e-magazine. E-zeeeeen. I cannot stress this enough.

I just had to let this out, because this is a total pet peeve of mine.

One of the misconceptions about freelancers is that our time belongs to no one but our clients. Since we’re not following any particular work hours, that must mean we’re available any time of the day, and the client is therefore free to intrude on your time anytime they need you to do something, is what seems to be what they’re thinking. A friend of mine, Doreen, was hired to be an editor and writer for a self-improvement website.  She ended up quitting after one month because she was unable to cope with the website owner’s demands, not least of them requiring her to be online in both Yahoo! Messenger and Skype all day, and haranguing her when she doesn’t reply to e-mails instantly.

Another freelancer, Elaine, served as a graphic designer and website manager for an environmental group. She was told that she didn’t have to follow any particular working schedule, which suited her just fine. In retrospect, she shares that it might have been a good idea to pin down a certain number of hours and the time as well, because the clients then called her every time she didn’t reply to e-mails quickly, expected her to keep working even at 10 p.m., and sometimes even told her to work Sundays. “That wasn’t what I signed up for. I was a contractor, not their employee,” she said.

It’s not unheard of for freelancers to be at the beck and call of their clients all throughout the day, but that doesn’t mean that this should be the case. If you’re new to freelancing, you might be scared to lose the clients you have and think that setting guidelines about work hours will antagonize them. But it’s a good idea to do this, or you risk spoiling them and making them think that they can run to you every time they need you. Let them know how much time you spend on their projects each day, if you have to, and you can also turn in a progress report detailing your work for the day. Keep a firm hold over your schedule. If you work six hours a day and never during weekends, make sure that you work in a way that ensures timely completion of the project. Hopefully, that will keep clients from breathing down your neck. You became a freelancer to have control over your schedule after all, not to spend 24 hours working.

What do you do to discourage your clients from forcing you to do what feels like a 24-hour work day?