Don’t groan – this isn’t going to be that boring, I swear. But as we’ve talked over the years, I’ve come to the realization that contracts are needing a bit more, well, meat to them so that you and I can CYA. So here are a few things you might want to include in your next contract:
Payment terms. Don’t laugh. You’d be surprised how many people overlook this one. It’s not simply putting a figure down. You need to spell out how you expect that client to pay you – weekly, monthly, in installments, etc. If you’re ghostwriting a book, this is especially important, for you don’t want that last payment to be “upon delivery of final product.” I’ve had projects that have gone on for years. Put an end date to that last payment. Trust me. Been there, suffered that.
Revision timeline. Ever sat for months waiting for clients to get back to you on revisions? That’s why your contract needs a clause that explains that the client has 14 days from delivery (or 30 days if it’s a huge document) to get back to you with changes. On day 15 (or day 31), you’re working under a new to-be-negotiated agreement. (This one’s particularly important to me – it’s been four months now and I can’t get them to look at it, let alone pay the invoice. Luckily, late fees are piling on. We’re about to send out the litigation notice.)
Client expectations. This may sound odd, but you do have to get them to understand that you can’t deliver on time if they don’t review on time. I’m a big stickler for deadlines. If I have to meet them, so do the clients. I will deliver that project within two weeks, but they have to review it and get their revisions to me within an equally tight deadline or that project will never get completed. Clients have to be as committed to their project as they expect you to be. Our job is to help them deliver. If that means putting deadlines on them (and making it clear that the contract is void and payable upon breach), do it. Like your mother used to say about that nasty medicine, it’s good for them.
Additional work will be negotiated under a separate agreement. This does a few things – it guarantees that the work you’re about to sign on for isn’t going to snowball into massive amounts of work that you’ve bid only a pittance for. If your agreement is to write two articles, write two. Don’t take on a third under the same agreement, for that turns into six and now you’re unable to pull the plug. Also, it forces the client to consider exactly how much work is needed.
Define your word counts or per-piece counts. While writing the company’s corporate profiles or two ghostwritten articles may seem like fairly specific jobs, how many “executives” are they expecting to pile on to your profile heap, and are those articles in your mind 1,500 words and in their minds 30-page white papers?
What else do you put in your contracts?
I mention something similar in today’s post — because I’ve been dangled by an editor who promised back in April to get back in two weeks to get the money to me “sooner rather than later” on a piece that’s “payment on acceptance” — only it’s now six months later and there’s no official acceptance, and therefore no payment. And it’s not something I could use EVER for ANYTHING else.
So, I’ll be adding timeframes in contracts from now on.
URGH!!!
Good ones, Lori. I’ve used the revision timeline clause since I began, and it has been crucial a number of times to keep my cash flow coming in on time. I also put in a clause that all rights to the material passes to them only upon payment in full (which means you can bust them if they publish or post copy that isn’t paid for yet). And a clause that says they own the rights to all client-supplied material (especially important in a “rewrite” job).
Excellent addition, Eileen. I’ve used that one on both contracts and invoices (especially when they’re late in paying).
I think I’ll print these out for future use. Thanks for more great tippage.
Printed and filed for when the time comes. Thanks for sharing all of this, and I can only assume that this was either told to you when you started, or you learned by making the mistakes yourself. Which was it if I might ask?
The latter, Sal. Sadly, the latter. But unlike our financial gurus, I learn from my mistakes. :))
Ditto. I paid for my “education” the hard way.
I’m so glad that I’m doing all but one of these! I guess you could say that my education was gotten the hard way as well. Plus, as I’ve worked away from working with large writing companies and more with smaller, independent webmasters, it’s given me the chance to write things up on my terms. I also list in my contracts who owns the piece and what rights they have. I don’t mind selling off my rights to most pieces but I retain the right to use them as part of my portfolio and may be published as such.
Lori, you are the BEST! Thank you for this, it just helped me out in a huge way.