Turns out my post on working for free was oh-so-timely. I got a call last night from a friend. An author and speaker. And he was pissed.

He had been asked to speak at a luncheon. For free. He explained that he doesn’t speak for free unless he can have a table and sell his book, dvd and workbooks. Here’s a fictionalized version of the phone conversation from two months ago:

“Well, we don’t do that.” (Meaning, they don’t let people sell their product at speaking events.)

“I’m an author and that’s how I make a living. I don’t speak for free unless it’s to children. So if you would like me to speak, you can either pay my fee or allow me to sell my products.”

“Well, we don’t do that.”

“Look, how about I just set up a table with my book? Not any other products. Just my book. Because I am not speaking for free.”

“I can bring it to the Board and have them vote on it.”

“Sounds good.”

Again, that was two months ago. Fast forward to last night at 5:45PM. The luncheon is this morning. So we’re talking less than 24 hours notice. My friend gets a call and is told that the Board voted ONE WEEK AGO. And they voted not to let my friend sell his books.

Hmm…and they couldn’t tell him this a week ago, after they voted, allowing him time to gracefully bow out of the speaking gig? Nice. Real nice.

But to add insult to injury, he was informed that the speaking gig had actually evolved into a panel discussion. So now he would be sitting alongside others, vying for attention and making zero dollars for his time.

He’s not a newbie trying to make contacts. He’s not desperate for speaking or teaching gigs – in fact, he turned a paying gig down in order to attend this luncheon.

So now he’s placed in the position of being on a discussion panel, not making any money and basically wasting about 4 hours of his life.

He was pissed and I’m pissed for him.

If you are ever in the position of hiring a speaker and you don’t want to pay, or can’t pay – fine. But you have to make it worth the speaker’s time. You don’t tell them to hand out business cards and call it day.

That’s just bad business.