The dangers of doing work for free
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Wow, that was a rude “customer” stealing your work like that. Yes, I guess that the beginning phase of your business is the best time to learn that lesson, but hopefully people can avoid learning it the hard way now.
Unfortunately, it happens to a lot of people in my field. Its a tricky situation, and I hope that others can learn from my example!
I have had similiar experiences working with a book creation company. After I hadn’t been paid in several months, I told the company I couldn’t work with them. They handed off my cover comps and book spread comps to another designer. I never got paid, and the other designer had a great layout courtesy of me. Yes the book (s) are in print. Never again. It turns out they treated all of their freelance designers this way.
I was eventually paid, but after almost a year, and after filing court procedures.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience.
Wiser and stronger,
Cheers,
C.
Great Info! Thanks for the post!
I made similar mistakes when I was starting out in marketing years ago. I learned the hard way that once you’ve done work for free or for extremely cheap – maybe just to get a client ‘in the door’ so to speak, you can almost never get that client to then pay your actual price for that service. I guess the moral is that there is never a good reason to do work for less than you feel you are worth. These days I’ll only do pro bono for causes I personally believe in, and I’m much better at sensing the red flags in prospective clients.
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That’s terrible that they’d steal your work like that!