Getting Paid As A Writer

Note to self: next year, remember the Christmas slump where no one wants to finalize content and everyone wants to delay paying their invoices until January.

Being a writer is very different from being a lawyer. As a lawyer, being pushy is simply assumed. Your client would probably worry about you if you weren't a tad demanding, on a continual basis. As a writer, it's a different story - pardon the pun.

I've had a last minute e-mail, just as I was starting the project, with the message "hey, can we go on hiatus this month, start up again next month?" Of course, I said yes. This is a good client, and it's very interesting work, and there was more to the story than I'm going to post here. Still, my budget took a hit that I had not foreseen.

I've had invoices ignored, and I've had to develop a level of diplomacy (it goes way past that general term of "tact") that no lawyer in their right mind would ponder.

And, I've had companies tell me to deal with their client directly, after a contractual commitment with them (and a corresponding rate) that has been in existence for years. They're supposed to pay me, not ask me to be their collecting agent.

No, no one has shafted me any money - I'm blessed that slow pay is not the same as no pay.

It's still a whole new ballgame, though: receivables in a writer's world are so very, very different from receivables in LawyerLand. And, I'm still learning all the rules....