Have you ever been part of a clean-up crew? That’s when a client hires you to rewrite horrible content they paid someone to write the first time. Except the first writer did such a lousy job they need another writer to come in and make it right, We’ve performed life support on some pretty bad content over the years. It’s not necessarily something we enjoy doing, but we do it because when we turn crappy content into great content, our clients think we’re heroes.

And guess what? We may be doing more of it because companies are realizing that AI can produce some pretty bad content if it’s not prompted well. According to Ed Gandia in a LinkedIn post on September 16, 2025, the number of content writing jobs is rising and fact-checking has become the top-10 AI skill on Upwork. 

Companies rushed to adopt AI with the intention of replacing humans. Now they seem to be realizing that it’s the combination of AI and human intelligence that’s needed. In fact, census data show that AI adoption rates are declining, especially for larger companies.

The need for humans to rewrite AI-generated content isn’t cheap. Gandia reports that a marketing manager spent $2,000 and 20 hours completely rewriting AI-generated copy. We wonder what it would have cost to have a human writer just do it to begin with.

This situation reminds of the offshoring trend several years ago. Companies rushed to hire writers outside of the United States because they could pay them less. Unfortunately, firms learned the hard way that it wasn’t cheaper in the long run. When the content wasn’t up to their standards, they had to hire US writers to clean up the copy. We’re seeing a similar trend now with AI.

Freelancers should think about carving out a role for themselves, either as a person who knows how to fact-check and clean up AI content or who knows how to create well-crafted prompts that enable AI to produce accurate content. It’s no surprise that AI needs us just as much as we need AI.

As we’ve written in this issue and in many past issues, AI is changing the way we work. We need to understand, though, that AI companies need content to train their systems. Sometimes that content is freely available to anyone; often, though, proprietary content is used. When AI companies use copyrighted material for AI training without purchasing a license to use it, that’s theft. That’s our biggest concern about AI—that it’s being trained with proprietary content with no credit given to the individuals who originally created that content. We’re writers and we don’t want our content to be pirated for AI training. 

It’s a big issue. In July, best-selling author David Baldacci testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism that his intellectual property was pirated. By accident he discovered that AI companies disregarded copyright laws and had stolen his entire body of work to train their systems. 

Unfortunately, we have little control once we put our content out to the world. That’s why we were pleased to see that LinkedIn recognizes the value of people’s intellectual property and is changing its terms of service to give individuals the ability to opt out if we don’t want our content used for AI training. To do so, log into LinkedIn, click on your profile in the top toolbar and in the dropdown menu select Settings & Privacy. From the options on the left, select Data Privacy. In the box labeled, How LinkedIn uses your data, click on Data for Generative AI and toggle the button off or on according to your preference.

We commend LinkedIn for taking this step and we hope other companies soon follow suit. In the meantime, we’ll be reading terms of service closely to discern what companies are doing with our content.

There are many factors that affect a freelancer’s success. For example, you can’t become successful without great clients, you can’t get great clients if you don’t consistently do great work, you can’t get paid on time if you don’t invoice on time, and you can’t pay yourself if you don’t get paid. These are all pretty obvious and pretty easy to remember. But there’s another important factor we want to add to the list, and it’s not as obvious as the others—the speed at which your money travels.

Think of it as a race to the finish line—the finish line being money in the bank. The goal is to get your money in the bank as quickly as possible.

When a client reaches out to you with a project, you prepare an estimate. Your money is at the starting line just waiting for the green flag. When the project gets approved, you hit the gas. Every turn is a challenge, and every straightaway is a breeze. You develop your deliverables and meet your deadlines. When you cross a benchmark finish line, you invoice. Now your money takes a 30- or 45-day pit stop. But then, as you’re fueling up and getting ready for the next race, or maybe already in the next race, the checkered flag waves, and the money you invoiced hits your bank account. You’ve won!

The faster this process goes, the faster the money comes in. When your money takes a pit stop, there’s nothing you can do but wait. But the faster you get to the point of invoicing, the faster you can keep your money moving.

Quick little projects may not make a lot of money individually, but the speed with which the money comes in can keep you in the winner’s circle. So, too, large projects with short benchmarks that can be invoiced quickly upon deliverables. The worst is big projects that languish between deliverables. Your estimate may have lots of power under the hood, but if you can’t get it moving your money just sits there idling and wasting fuel. By the time it crosses the finish line, the win doesn’t seem as exciting as it did at the start of the race.

Think about the projects you typically work on. Are they short and quick? Big with quick invoicing benchmarks? Or do they drag on for weeks or months without generating any tangible income? These are the projects you want to keep to a minimum. We think it’s best to take them on when you can surround them with smaller, faster projects to keep your bank account full and you always in the winner’s circle.

v r o O O O O M !

We’ve written and spoken at length about the importance of charging for your value rather than for your time. Speaking of value, we’ve also written and spoken about knowing what you’re worth. If you think that knowing your value only pertains to project pricing, you’re wrong. Even freelancers who charge by the hour need to know their worth. Why? Because regardless of how you charge, undercharging can cost you a lot more than just money.

Fees, whether by the hour or by the project, say a lot about your level of experience. Newbies tend to charge less than their more-experienced counterparts. This means that if you bring a lot of value to the table but don’t know how to charge for that value, clients might avoid hiring you. That’s a level of missed opportunity that no marketing can overcome!

Clients that try to do everything on the cheap notwithstanding, good clients—the ones you want to work with—often associate lower prices with less experience, less ability, and lower quality. As the saying goes, freelancers can work good, fast, and cheap. You can have any 2, but cheap and fast won’t be good.

Knowing this, why would a freelancer with substantial experience, solid credentials, and superb skills, undercharge for their value? There are several likely reasons.

• Underestimating your value. Freelancers who deliver consistently on time, on target, and on budget, are worth far more than a freelancer who falls short on any one of these three client expectations. The years of experience you have, your credentials, and your reputation also count big. Keep these in mind and don’t short-change yourself. If you’re having a hard time determining your value, we recommend consulting the 2024 AMWA Medical Communication Compensation Report.

• Fear of charging what you’re worth. Conversations about money are among the hardest to have, but they’re also among the most important to have when you’re a freelancer. When you charge properly for your experience you likely won’t be at the top of every client’s list. That’s okay, because you only want to be at the top of the list with clients who value you. Be confident in putting your pricing out there.

• Underestimating the scope of work. It’s difficult to know what a project may, or should, cost. Even the most seasoned freelancers, including us, sometimes misjudge. They key is to learn from your mistakes, and better still, to avoid making mistakes (as much as possible) in the first place. Reach out to friends and colleagues when you’re unsure what to charge for a project. Look back at similar projects you’ve done in the past and adjust accordingly if that project wasn’t as profitable as you would have liked. And if you base a new estimate on an old estimate, be sure to increase the price no matter what! Accurate estimating is vital whether you’re preparing a project estimate or an estimate of time to accompany your hourly rate.

• New to freelancing. Some freelancers start with a lot of experience, coming out of years of working like their name was on the door for somebody else. It’s easy to see why a freelancer like that, with a lot of value from the start, might not know how to charge properly as a freelancer. Start by getting out of the employee mentality. You work for yourself now. You pay for your own health insurance, your own equipment, your own benefits, which means your clients must pay for it. Clients expect to pay more per hour for a freelancer than they would for a similarly experienced employee. You also need to get out of the mind set of making enough money to just meet your financial obligations, like paying the mortgage, taxes, and utilities. What do you think a can of Coke® costs to make? The rest of the retail price everyone pays covers all the overhead plus bonuses, profit sharing, and more.

Undercharging hurts every experienced freelancer, but it hurts the freelancer who undercharges the most. It can rob you of opportunity as well as money.