As I delve further into self-employed work I'm finding that you have to be incredibly careful not to sell yourself short. There are many clients out there willing to take advantage of designers. In an environment where there is boundless competition, offering to undertake a job is an interesting game to play. If you quote a job, which you consider is scraping the barrel as far as reasonable remuneration and the client returns with a budget of a third of that quota do you take the job? You've really got to sit back and evaluate your communication with the client up to this point, and combine that with factors such as the time the job will consume, and the potential for endless tweaking to judge whether your time is better spent pursuing other endeavours. Sure, it feels like you're almost throwing money away - but if you're not smart about how you present your business you could find yourself severely out of pocket in both time and money.
(image - a style frame for a job that didn't pan out)
