Makes an ASS of U and ME...

In case you haven't worked it out, the title of this post comes from a line of business advice, "Never assume. ASSUME makes an ASS of U and ME." I first saw this quoted by a character in Stephen King's novel Cell, but since then I have seen it reproduced in various places.

In any event, I think it's very good advice for writers, or indeed anyone who is self-employed. Assuming that you know what your client wants without checking is fraught with peril.

I've been in this writing business for a long time now, but I still fall into this trap myself from time to time. Most recently, I was commissioned by my regular publishers WCCL to write some articles to help promote their range of self-help software. The articles, as you might expect, were to include links to the products and services in question. These tend to follow a similar pattern - so, for example, the website for WCCL's Subliminal Studio software, which enables users to create their own subliminal CDs, is at http://www.subliminal-studio.com/.

I was actually writing about another WCCL self-development product. I won't say which one it was, as it's not relevant to this story. But I assumed the website URL would follow the usual pattern, so I entered the product name separated by hyphens and with a .com suffix into my browser to check. Sure enough, the familiar WCCL product web page appeared, so I assumed the URL must be correct without further checking and entered it into my article.

It was only when I heard back from my client that I realised I'd got it wrong. The domain in question actually belonged to an affiliate of WCCL, who had set it up so that visitors were automatically forwarded to the correct WCCL site with his affiliate link (thus generating sales commission for himself). Of course, the affiliate hadn't done anything wrong, but if my article had been published as it stood, all sales arising from it would have generated 40% commission for that affiliate (and cost WCCL a good deal of money).

Anyway, my client was very good about it, but it was an embarrassing slip to make. Not least, I was afraid it might appear that I had been trying to boost my fee by sneaking my own (or an associate's) affiliate links into the article! As it happens, because I've done a lot of work with WCCL over the years, they understood that it was a genuine mistake. But if it had been a new client, it could have been an expensive slip-up for me. And all because I assumed that a URL was correct without checking properly with my client.

The 'never assume' principle is a very important one. I regularly get emails from new and new-ish writers who have been given a commission and aren't sure about some aspect of it. The instructions they've received from their client aren't clear, and they want my advice on how they ought to approach the job.

My answer is always the same - get back to your client and ask them to clarify. No client should be offended by this (if they are, you don't want to be working for them, trust me). On the contrary, they will be impressed by your professionalism in ensuring that every aspect of the job meets their needs.

The worst thing you can do is ASSUME you know what your client wants and go ahead on that basis. The chances are your assumptions will be wrong. You will then have wasted your time and effort, and the client will be annoyed because he hasn't got what he required. In the best case, you will have to revisit the job, making it less profitable for you. In the worst case, the client will go elsewhere, and your chances of getting paid for the work done (or getting any more work from that source in future) will be minuscule.

Never assume, then. If in any doubt, ASK. And never, ever believe that just because a particular URL leads to your client's website, it is automatically the correct one!