Of doing freelance work.
I've been reading what everyone else mentions or offers, but the one missing item from all the advice is to ask for a deposit. While this may not seem like a very good business move, it does show intent and makes sure that you don't put in a ton of time to only have a client back out later, The deposit can cover expenses for client meetings and research into their project. But you need to ask for a deposit, even more so on the big ticket large scale projects of more than a thousand.
I've had several projects in the last year go belly up. On was a calendar project we were hired to do by a local school. We made the mistake of not having a contract, (Our bad), and not getting a deposit, (again out bad). We figured, "what could go wrong?" the district calendar was a project funded for the last 8years by a local bank. We shopped the project around to several different places and brought the budget in at $12,000, a $6,000 reduction from the year before. We got the go ahead from the school to do the work, and when we were ready to go to print, the bank bailed out of the project. They're now having money problems of their own. The school didn't have the money in the budget, so the project died. And we were out all of the time we spent on the project, plus the money we were going to get paid.
While we can't hold the school responsible for the bank failing to fund the project, a deposit would have kept us from loosing money. After that point, I started asking for deposits and I haven't had a client bail on a project since. By simply asking for a show of earnest money in the project I can safeguard myself from spending my time on a project that goes nowhere.
-Goran