Free Versus Paid Work

I am an advocate of people being paid fairly for their work. I see too many green entrepreneurs working for free or unfair pay. True enough, perhaps when you have zero experience you may have to settle for this. But it should never continue for long. You have bills and rent or mortgage to pay, just as your clients do.
  In some very limited cases, I have worked for "free". There are a few situations where a friend is asking for help, and I'm aware that economically they are disadvantaged. In these cases, I try to arrange a fair barter. In fact, I am a foodie, and payment in the form of food has always been a great option for me. However, this method has strict limits. For example, I never do it more than once for a friend.

Just this once...

   Believe me, there is a bit of guilt explaining to people that want a discount, that I must be paid fairly for my work. Because of my experience and apparent ease in accomplishing skilled tasks, they think that I can do it with my eyes closed. That is never the case. What can appear, for example, to be a simple editing job of laying down photos and video in a 3-minute presentation, quickly becomes a nightmare: last-minute changes, resizing different formats, conversions, audio problems...the list goes on. It's important that clients realize all of the effort involved in their "simple projects", and pay us fairly.