The Dangers of Big Projects

At some point in your writing, you'll get involved with a project that seems great - a large sum of money (think five or six figures), work guaranteed for a period of time, and all looking right with the world. But the big-ticket job can, in its own way, be as dangerous as the assignments that pay too little:

• No client should be too important. You don't want any one client to provide too much of your income; losing it can become a devastating financial blow. That's what can happen with a big ticket project, particularly if it's out of scale with the rest of your work. If something like this does seem likely to happen, then consider pushing to expand the rest of your business to keep it in balance. After all, few clients offer such projects on a regular basis, and you don't want to become used to nice money only to see it dry up.


• Emphasize the client, not the project. Real success comes from relationships. A big project may seem a delight, but keep it in perspective. Big projects just don't happen as often as smaller ones and so are harder to find. Clients that provide significant revenue over smaller projects year after year are always worth more.


• Keep projects in their places. When you have the chance of a big project, there's always that temptation to do nothing else. But that has its price. If a five figure project keeps you from maintaining ties with important long-term, high-value clients or from ongoing marketing, it disrupts your work flow after it's over. And then, 30 to 60 days after it's over, you'll take a hit to your cash flow because you didn't keep your business pipeline filled. Always have projects and customers fit your business model. See if you can negotiate and schedule the work to be part-time over some number of months. In any case, always keep marketing so that when the project is done, you aren't done for.


• Clients cancel. Many contracts have termination clauses, which means there's always a possibility that the project will suddenly end. Even if there isn't a provision, if someone stops paying, you can go to court, but it can take a long time to get satisfaction. Manage your risk so it's at a level you can tolerate.

I'm not suggesting that writers shouldn't take large projects by any means. Just use some caution and common sense so that the offer that seems to be too good to be real doesn't turn out that way.