Freelancing “On Spec”

Last year, Tamara wrote a post here called “No Spec, No Problem” about clients who ask you to work “on spec.” For those of you new to the game, that means that the potential client will basically give you an assignment, and if he or she thinks it’s up to par, you will be rewarded. If they don’t like the work, however, someone else will be chosen for the job.

At first, this might not seem like a bad idea. After all, maybe you don’t have a lot on your plate right now. What could it hurt right? The truth is that it can hurt. It can hurt you, your bottom line, and your peers.

There are a lot of freelancers out there who get extremely passionate about why spec work is the ultimate evil, but I’m not going to go that far. While I totally get their point of view and agree that spec work is not something that should be done very often (if at all), I draw the line at believing that all the potential employers asking for spec work are simply the spawn of Satan.

Because I once asked a friend to do work on spec. I thought it was an awesome idea. He could take some pictures for me, and if the project went well, he could share in the rewards. I shudder now when I think about how he probably agonized over a nice way to tell me “no.”

I did what a lot of others do. I assumed that he would be excited to be involved in the project. I also figured that he would be happy to share in any proceeds. Thank goodness he was a friend, or I would have looked like a real jerk.

Now that I’ve admitted to being naive, I will tell you that there are also people out there who really do want to take advantage of you by requesting spec work. There are a few ways they do it:

• They tell you that your work will be seen by others, and that’s such a great deal for you. In most cases, that is really not a good deal at all.
• They say that they’ll pay you if they like what they see. So, if they don’t like it, you just wasted how much of your time? Seriously, that’s like paying them to tell you “no.”
• They promise more work in the future. Again, there’s no guarantee you’ll get it; and if you don’t, you’ve just paid for the privilege of being passed over.
• They’ll ask for “students” or “beginners” and tell them this is a chance to build their portfolio. Honestly, I sort of “get” this one, but I still have to say that it’s pretty low to assume that a student or beginner doesn’t have any value.
• They play on the fact that they don’t have much money because they’re a small company, or a start-up, or whatever. Oh, Lord. I think that will have to be another post. All I can say is, “if you can’t afford to start a business, you can’t afford to start a business. Duh.” Besides, how should their lack of money in any way affect your lack of money?

There are even nastier folks out there, too. Some of them will take a big project and break it up. If they have ten or tweleve freelancers doing parts of it “on spec,” then they can actually get the entire project done for free. Others take your work and then have someone really, really cheap change it just enough so that they’re not technically using your work and don’t have to pay you.