[Electric Speed] Freelancer insurance | one-page websites

A note from Jane

Last week I treated a client badly.

He was someone I’d consulted with before, who was now returning for help with a book proposal. Was I available? Could I quote him?

Indeed, send the draft when ready, I wrote him.

What I didn’t say: I was winding down my consulting and not eager to take on another project. But I have trouble saying no to established clients.

When his document appeared in my inbox a week later, I realized I’d been hoping that it would never arrive. That was not a false hope; many clients don’t follow through, for various reasons, or they work with someone else.

But now I had to grapple with the problem I’d created for myself. Based on earlier conversations, I knew this would likely be a time-intensive project, not a breezy spin through a Word doc. I was overcommitted and had been saying no to things I wanted to do. Why was I saying yes to this?

I made a snap decision to drop the project while sitting in the kitchen at my laptop, on a weekend, not long after I saw the document come through. I shot off a message saying I couldn’t take on the project, sorry. It was the briefest email you can imagine.

When I get stressed, I dispatch emails of even greater brevity than usual, the kind that hurt people’s feelings. Unfortunately, I was not sitting in my office, where I have a big sticky note that commands me to "Answer Tomorrow."

The client was—no surprise—distressed and thought he’d done something wrong. Of course he had only done exactly what I’d told him to do. By the time I slowed down to explain why I couldn’t help him, the damage was done.

I’ve reached these low points before, and I keep trying to reform my ways. Over the last 18 months, I’ve drawn back on client work, precisely to avoid overwhelm or short-changing clients. But now I’ve decided to close entirely.

I may open again in the future, but I’ve long wanted to serve a greater number of writers through each hour of my work, especially those of limited means. This changes my business model, but I feel ready.

Jane

Many moons ago in this newsletter, I suggested Carrd as an easy, no-code website builder. It remains a great solution for quick, one-page sites (free!), but recently I saw Dan Oshinsky suggest Carrd as an efficient way to create a slick sign-up page for your email newsletter, an event landing page, or a dedicated page for a book or product. That’s because Carrd integrates with email service providers, payment providers, and Zapier.

I never thought of these use cases before, and it’s brilliant. It does mean paying a modest fee ($19/year) for the integrations.

In partnership with Writer’s Digest: Learn how to take a holistic and fits-for-you approach to social media that’s based on long-term reader engagement and sound principles of online marketing. You won’t find gimmicks or short-term approaches here. Rather, the basic philosophy is that (1) your work—your writing—is always central, and (2) you have to enjoy what you’re doing on social media for it to be sustainable and to become a meaningful part of your overall platform and online presence. We’ll eliminate as much guesswork as possible, and focus on how to retain your authentic voice regardless of what social media site you use.

In the last issue, I asked you to tell me your favorite tools for managing Twitter. Apparently not many of you are using such tools! I have one response, from Bob Mueller:

If you’re late to the idea of Twitter Lists or just want to manage them more effectively than the native Twitter interface allows, check out Twitter List Manager. You can easily bulk add or delete users to lists; you can also manage the lists themselves. It’s got a neat, simple, relatively intuitive interface, it’s free/donationware, and is the best such interface I’ve found.

Next question: Do you have a favorite at-the-desk exercise or stretch? Hit reply to this email and let me know, or discuss on Discord.

[Electric Speed] Freelancer insurance | one-page websites | punctuation beauty

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