Well, thankfully, this particular client is very easy to work with. For every article, she always provides me with a Google Doc with clear instructions. This includes sources to base the article on, the structure of the article, and the style of the writing. These articles are usually pretty straightforward to write.

I had one client not long ago who I had a bad time with, though. Their instructions were confusing and unclear. I did my best to provide what I thought they were looking for, but they weren't happy, so I then revised it further, and initially they were happy and paid me, but then came back and wanted more changes. I made more changes, but they still weren't happy and I ended up having to refund them. It was absolutely awful.

And there was another client a while back who I ended up getting rid of because her article topics became ridiculous and I just couldn't do it anymore.

Very recently, I also had a one-time job to write a Medium article for somebody. I thought I did a very good job based on the information they gave me, and they paid me, but then they said they felt they would have expected "something more" for the money they paid me. I asked them to clarify what they meant by "something more", but got no reply. I mean, talk about vague! What did they want? More words? More images? More information? More feeling? I have no idea.

But this is why it's so important to find good clients who are easy to work with. Through my bad experiences, I have a better idea of red flags to look out for with bad clients. And it's good to start with a one-time job first to see how it goes. Both of my current regular clients started with one-off jobs where I proofread and edited an existing article of theirs because English isn't their first language. They were impressed and hired me long-term.