Paula, that's the most ridiculous schedule! I'd ask if he's serious, but clearly he is. Good grief!

Kim, maybe it's the heat. It's causing some of them to lose their freakin' minds!

Gabriella, I get the same feeling sometimes. I just let a client go 29 days without paying because they'd paid up to that point on time. I think it's okay to give them a break once, and maybe twice (but not if it's twice in a row), but after that it may be good to assume some universal shift in their reliability.

Anne, very wise decision. I took on the annual Huge Project in April. I'm still waiting for the bulk of it. If it comes in today I'm totally screwed (or they are because my time is booked), but I suspect it will come in the first week of August.

Andrew, great hearing from you! Congratulations on the book — about time! I love your blog.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I've been having trouble with slow feedback (and I don't like to invoice unless I'm sure the work was on target) and slow payment, and I have no idea why it's growing.

Anyway, since I wrote that, two of the three people who'd not gotten back to me did, and I sent off the invoices. Still waiting on a third payment that's way overdue, though.

I see your point about late payments, Lori, and I do have a provision in my contract allowing me late fees if payments aren't made within 30 days of invoicing.

However, these stallers are long-term typically timely payers. So I don't want to ding good relationships by adding a late fee. It's a judgment call, but I'm fine foregoing those fees.

That said, is there something in the water? I swear, people, just pay your bills!

P.S. Thanks for your suggestion a few days ago about how to handle the client not returning emails for feedback. I was about to implement it, and the client called. Finally! But good idea!

@ Cathy: Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with providing contract terms if they're just going to be ignored.

@Paula: I love the way you sweetly offered to split the $180 your client owed into 3 separate payments for their convenience.

His terms state payment will be made 30 days after publication. Ridiculous, sure, but as long as I know when to expect payment I can budget around it. So when they ran one of my articles in November I counted 30 days out, then added one week to allow for the check being mailed. When the check didn't arrive by the first week of December, I stopped putting up my Christmas tree long enough to send a past due notice saying he'd be assessed a 10% late fee if the invoice was not paid by a specific date, December 15, I think it was. Nope. I sent a final notice assuming he'd want to clear the books by year's end. Nope, but he did reply that he was out of the office and would address it when he returned. The check finally arrived in 2012 – with the late fee.

My friend encountered the same problem and discovered while we start counting those 30 days on the first of the month an issue is published, Late Payer starts counting at the END of that month…and even then he manages to pay late.

The longest it took me to chase down a payment? Thirteen months. And it was only $180 or something – a short piece for a "leading" trade mag for a niche industry. They kept making excuses, yet still managed to throw a big event and contest with a $10K grand prize. They only paid when I sent a late notice with a note saying I'd be happy to set up a three part payment plan if they couldn't afford the entire $180 at once. Got the check the next week.

Next was the 11 months it took a bimonthly trade to pay for an article they'd accepted and pushed back two issues. Even as a pays-on-pub they were a good 6 months past due. That was in the early days before I dared add a late fee.