Setbacks: What is the Cost of Friendship? In This Case 1%
Fulfilling the promise to share my setbacks and my successes, here I am to remind you that money isn't everything, friends are more important, and walk fees are a bitch and a half.
Let’s Start With…Mansa Musa
For several years during the 14th century, the Empire of Mali was ruled by a Mansa (ruler/king) named Musa. Mansa Musa is often regarded as the richest person in the history of the world, and it is said that all of the wealth hoarded today could not touch his own.1
The Empire of Mali, you see, had salt in the north, gold in the south, excellent trade routes, a well-structured tax system, and a culture of generosity. Mali’s wealth under Mansa Musa was so vast, that he is depicted in maps from the time, in full color and illuminated with gold.
Yet, when it came his time to die, nothing could save him. Not his wealth. Not his power. Not the good regard of his subjects and neighbors.
Ghosting as a Freelancer
Getting work as a writer is a difficult challenge made even more so when nobody knows your name. This is compounded exponentially if you want to make a mark in a world where no one exists as themselves: ghostwriting. It’s a perfect gig for any of you who, like me, want money and success…without all of the fame.
Good work if you can get it.
But freelance is freelance is freelance, no matter the creative medium, and if we’re being 100% honest almost all freelancers start their portfolio with a job they picked up from a friend or family member. This was that chance, for me.
I’m Not Easy and That’s OK
I’ve mentioned before, many times, that I am not an easy friend to have. I have autism spectrum disorder; social cues are hard for me to interpret. I care, I care passionately, and that expresses itself in weird ways. I am often offensive, both on purpose and on accident. In short: I can be a lot. I know this. I know.
But holy fuck am I a baller friend to work with!
How so? I pay money. I pay money on time. I don’t ask for a discount, I wait to see if you offer me one. (Pro Tip: Not all friends are the sort of friends who deserve a discount, and not all situations allow us to offer one; food and shelter and clothing, oh my!)
I respect your time. I respect your wages. I respect your knowledge, experience, expertise. Most important, I understand that I’ve hired you to provide a product or service, and that if I thought I was capable of providing that product or service for myself, then I would. So…I don’t tend to argue when problems crop up, I try to be a part of an equitable solution.
This is what I offer when I’m giving out the money to a contractor. And this is what I expect when people hire me under contract.
I Landed a Whale…Until Someone Cut the Line
Some months ago, not long after the enshittification of W.D.C., a friend approached me about a freelance ghosting gig. They wanted a writer, sure, but also someone who could craft a character, a persona, beyond just a brand. And they were offering me 1/3 of my annual salary to do this.
Non-profits can be an excellent source of freelance work, but working with one that is just starting up comes with its own set of risks. Still, this was a friend, someone I know well. Someone excellent in this role. I saw the books, and they were well on their way to securing the funding that they needed for the entirety of the project, not just my small part.
Negotiations began, went smoothly, and ended with pretty standard terms…mostly.
What is a “Walk Fee?”
Contracts are legally binding documents that hold both parties responsible for certain actions and behaviors. I do work. You pay money. Simple.
Because of this legally binding nature, most contracts have some sort of negative consequence for backing out. In freelance creative communities, this is often referred to as a walk fee. If we have a contract that states you are to pay me money for my services (writing, editing, design, art, ect.), and you decide that you no longer want those services, then you have to pay me a fee.
These fees can vary based on a multitude of factors. Think of the fees that they charge if you have to cancel a vacation reservation. If you do it far enough out, then the fee is pretty small, but if you cancel last minute, it might be 50% or even 100%.
Same thing in freelance work.
In this instance, there was a mutual walk fee. They acknowledged that they might not be able to raise the full funding. I acknowledged that the subject matter was volatile and might no longer be fresh and relevant at the point of release.
Risk on both sides. Everyone had skin in the game. We came to an agreement of a 1% walk fee. If they couldn’t pay the money, I would get 1% and be able to keep all of the work I’d done to (hopefully) use on another project. (It would have made a killer novel.) If I couldn’t deliver the product that they wanted, then I would have to pay them 1% and destroy all of the material.
Did you know…? If you turn on Substack payments, then turn them off, you can’t turn them back on again!!! FUUUUNNNN!
Two Can Keep a Secret…If One is Dead
The time came to take the character out into the sunlight, to see if it would shine. Not a bot, mind you! A brand, a persona, a carefully crafted style and personality completely unlike mine, my friend who hired me, or anyone else associated with the project. Something both anonymous and personal, at the same time.
But people are perceptive, and so I had to break the secret in order to keep it. I checked with my friend the client, explained the situation, and had permission.
I told a couple of people as much as I could…which wasn’t much. I needed the test run, I needed to make sure that no one would recognize my style or personality, and I was afraid that these people, with their keen perceptions, would see some piece of me in the character I had created.
“I’m trusting you not to out me in public.”
“Okay.”
3…2…1…EXPLODE!
I wrote in character.
It was unlike anything anyone who knows me had ever seen before.
The friend I shared the secret with…was unprepared, startled, and hurt. My friend…outed me in public. Not by name, but by association. It was enough to blow the entire project out of the water, and pepper us both with shrapnel.
Was it my fault? Maybe. The words were mine, I typed them, in the guise of an imaginary person. I did my best to prepare my friend in the limited “spoilers are a breach of contract with a 50% fee” allowance.
Maybe I didn’t do enough work to prep my friend. Maybe I should have taken the extra risk and said that it was a contract job. Maybe I should have picked a stranger to take a run at instead. Maybe my friend wasn’t in the right head space to play. Maybe my friend completely ignored all of the subtle warnings I gave. Maybe my friend underestimated my skills.
Maybe maybe maybe.
I did what I did and I said what I said.
My friend’s expectations were dismantled and in the collapse of that wreckage, their feelings got hurt. Making matters worse, technology and security being what they are, it took me a while to understand what had happened from my friend’s perspective.
I’m Not an Easy Friend, but I Work at Being a Good One
I didn’t just take shrapnel…. I shattered like a supernova. Already raw and wrecked from two incredibly intense days of unbelievably intimate writing, I was in no way prepared to have a project blow up in my face. Especially one in the process of being handed over as complete.
I was even less prepared to lose a friend. Yet there I was.
I told my husband a tiny bit about it when it started. I told my editor a tiny bit about it when it was ready to go live. And my friend…my friend made three.
“It’s always the third one that fucks me. Thrice-damned since birth.”
The funny part? I wrote that line on Wednesday, in a chapter, before this all happened. (See,
, I told you! Hilarious!)I sent a “you see, what had happened was….” email to my friend, the client. I then transferred the 1% fee to my friend, the client.
Then, I….I deleted….*deep breath*….8 months of work. Almost a quarter of a million words. All of the artwork. All of the accounts. Everything. Gone.
Finally, I sent an email to my friend who, like me, had been hurt in the explosion.
The Bottom Line:
Price to keep both my friends: $250—1% of $25,000.
Cost of doing business: Still unknown, probably incalculable.
Value in keeping both of those relationships: Priceless.
…I hope.
Jesus Fuck, Haly, is There any GOOD News?
I can share this with you—in this very sterilized and limited form—with the hope that something, somewhere inside of it, will serve you in the future…whether dealing with me, dealing with a client/contract, or dealing with a friend.
This is questioned by many modern scholars as there is really no way to measure his wealth, but don’t let’s allow facts to ruin a good story.