Had to Turn Down a Potential Client Today

I’m always looking for new clients and sites to write at. I’d like to be comfortable with clients and know that any one of my baskets could go at any one time.

Well, I thought there was going to be something positive today with new clients but it turned out not to be the case. Not only was the client only willing to pay a small amount (a penny a word isn’t going to cut it for me), but they also wanted me to write under a penname.

It turns out that the penname is due to another site I used to write for. The girl doesn’t want her site to be connected to that site or for the owner of that site to find her. Knowing that makes me feel even more about her site, so I’m glad that I refused to write under a penname.

I want to build my brand. Unless I’m hired for ghostwriting, I want all my content to be under my own name. This is especially the case when it comes to news writing. I don’t want to try and build a brand under a new name, and I’m not going to set up social media accounts in the penname for the sake of one site.

The only times I’ll consider writing under a penname is when I get my novels written and published, if I ever write for adult sites and don’t want my current brand connected to them, or if it’s in a completely different type of writing where I want to build a new brand.

If I did agree to write under a penname, I’d want to be paid a lot more than my usual rate because I wouldn’t necessarily be able to use the work as samples. How do you explain to someone that the site wanted you to write under a different name? Not everyone is going to trust that.

It’s disappointing, but I have to do the best for me. I’m sure there will be plenty of other opportunities out there that aren’t going to go against my wants for writing and my brand.

I wrote about the reasons I'd turn down a potential writing client today on my other blog, too. If you want to check it out, I'd love to read your comments.

Have you turned down clients recently? Have you thought about turning them down? Feel free to share why in the comments below.