CYA – Contracts and Payment
Hooray! Four times must be a charm, because the client finally understood that the project I spoke of in the last post will not be finished this month. I guess I got what I wanted for Christmas!
Now comes the fun part – getting payment. Yep, I have a contract. Yep, it spells out the terms. Yep, they’ve paid in the past. Nope, I don’t think any of that guarantees payment.
Let me tell you a story – Once upon a time, there was a writer who was hired to ghostwrite a book. The client and the writer got along well, and the writer was given feedback by the client, but it was sporadic and the writer had to pull it out of him. While the client was a bit scattered and didn’t always respond to the writer’s questions, the writer did not foresee any problems. The client had paid the first invoice on time and in full, so all was right with the world. The client kept insisting on putting his own copy back after the writer painstakingly edited it, but the writer advised him once and let him control his own destiny.
Then one Friday, a week before the project was to go to the publisher, the writer got a phone call from the client. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. The client claimed that the writer had not performed the editing process correctly – the text, the client claimed, was full of mistakes! Not surprisingly, these were the same mistakes the writer had removed and the client had insisted on keeping. The client claimed the writer was ill prepared, untalented and not very smart. Two days later, after the writer spent an entire weekend tearing apart the client’s project, rewriting and polishing, the client fired the writer, claiming her edits killed the “sprit” of his book. The writer, obviously upset, decided to hold her tongue and consult her attorney.
Upon the attorney’s advice, the writer billed the client for payment in full. The client came back with a note saying he owed her nothing and in fact, the writer needed to reimburse him for all he’d paid her to date. Upon reminding him that he’d broken the contract by firing her after she’d performed exactly as he’d requested in the contract, the writer rebilled and suggested he pay to avoid litigation. The client was upset and threatened a countersuit. In the end, the relationship ended horribly, but the writer did receive one-half of the amount due from the client.
You guessed it – the writer was me. That’s why I never rest easy even with a contract. Perhaps the situation I just described could have worked out better had we communicated more, but I have to say that I think the client was trying to get out of paying me. Perhaps it was because he’d recently found out that his publishing house would do the edits for a fraction of the cost and work that into his invoice. Perhaps it was because he’d been embarrassed. He had been brazen enough to pass his manuscript around the office and a few who thought they were editors must have told him his copy needed some work (it did – I’d done the work, but if he’s not accepting it, then the onus would be on him to repair, don’t you think?). Trying to save face perhaps, he came back on me with it. It was something I never expected, given the fact that I’d communicated as much as I could with the client. ‘Twas an expensive lesson. To this day, I don’t rest easy until that last check clears. Call me cynical.
That would leave me cynical too.
Count me in the cynical crowd. I have a few longstanding clients whom I would trust with my life to pay on time and in full. As for the rest of them, well, let’s just say I’m sorely lacking in the trust department. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
You’re not cynical — you’re smart.
This is a horror story. I’m glad I read it this morning and not last night. Eek!
Unfortunately the world is full of people who won’t stand up and do the right thing. Here’s hoping you don’t have any more clients like that… (and that I don’t either)
P.S. I’m just about to start a new book proposal entitled To Love, Honor, and Dismay. Should be fun!