Not getting paid

Thanks for all the feedback. I appreciate it. Sounds like I should indeed by concerned. The book is not available for purchase yet, at least on Amazon or any online retailers, so maybe I've got that going for me. On a related note, I was able to get in contact with another writer who put together a couple of stories for this book, and he hasn't been paid yet either.

 

Maybe it's time we come up with a black-list of papers/mags/sites not to do work for.

 

Seems only fair, since there are a lot of papers/mags/sites that have decided, going forward, that we will not be working for them.

 

Depending on your state where you reside, verbal contracts can stand up in court. I had to take a place to conciliation court for non-payment on a verbal contract - and they wanted to reduce what they owed me by three-fourths because what they'd been paying me was "above and beyond and a premium compared to what they paid their other contributors."

B***S***!

Fortunately, in my case I had prior copies of checks (freelancers, it wouldn't hurt to scan those checks for regular gigs, even one-time, you just never know) and every email exchanged between me and this uh, place.

It might not hurt to at least look into it.

 

I have had a lot of trouble with the shop in my neighborhood.

I'm out over $2G's for work that was first printed Oct. 2.

I have religiously sent invoices every week, as instructed, and I haven't received ANYTHING. It is a mid-sized daily up near me... so I have been doing a ton of preps work. That is more than 40 stories at $50/pop.

Every time I ask, the Asst. Sports Editor passes it along to the exec. sports editor, and then the editor passes it along to accounting. I called accounting directly for the first time this week and they didn't have one of my invoices.

So then I make sure that the Asst. Editor put together all of my invoices again and hand delivered them on Thursday because they were cutting checks on Friday. I called the accounting lady again and low and behold, she just got the invoices today after she already cut the checks for the week. Pretty convenient, huh?

 

Not trying to suck up, missourigrad, but I like your style. You are a badass. Good job.
Another example of this buisiness being total horseshit. I forgot about paying freelancers. I remember trying to get this shop to pay somebody who wrote stories. They wanted the stories assigned out sure enough. When it was time to pay, it took forever to get the dude his money. My god. Why am I in this business????? Missourigrad lead us away!!

 

In this business, you will get stiffed now and then even for small sums. One thing I do is, instead of asking on the phone what the pay is for a certain article, I send an e-mail. Like several have said, if it's in e-mail, it's in a court of law. If they tell you on a phone, send a "confirmation" e-mail with the terms specified and ask if you got everything right. I don't do this all the time, but if it's for a significant sum, it is worth confirming ahead of time. Because if it's all over the phone, it's just he said-she said legally, and the company can attempt to stonewall you.

 

Get the specifics in writing, via email or contract, and date your correspondence.

Assignment
Deadline
Word count and other specifics
Payment amount
Payment schedule - upon receipt, upon mutual acceptance (after edits) or upon publication
Kill fee (if possible)

I'm battling for $500 with a non-responsive magazine editor who requested four stories and paid for three. I sent all four and he will not acknowledge my emails now. Next is a formal letter and invoice. No response? I'll talk with his two immediate supervisors I've known for almost 10 years.

If someone owes you money, don't give up. They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue.

Good luck.

 

As for straight freelancing goes, it's amazing how much gets accomplished when you start going over the SE to get answers. The ME and publisher doesn't want to deal with that shit and they'll get pissy with an SE and tell them to pay this fucking freelancer so he stops bothering me. That's worked for me several times.

My most fucked up freelancing story was a college basketball game I did for a small daily in the Midwest. Supposed to get 50 bucks for it. I was in college and working part-time for the local paper so 50 bucks was a big deal to me.

They said they'd send the check to my paper (my SE passed the opportunity on to me). After about 2 months, still got nothing. I called the paper and they said "we sent it a month ago and our records showed it was cashed."

1. They made the check out to my newspaper, not me (who the fuck does that?)
2. My newspaper cashed it not knowing what the hell it was for (not my SE, someone on the business side)

I solved it pretty easily, I put eight extra hours on my timecard. Six for the money owed and two for fucking me over. My SE was fine with it.

 

I've had other places really treat me well, though. One SE owed me 75 bucks. He got the paperwork all filled out for me and then lost it among his piles on his desk. After about six weeks I asked what was up, he said he was sure he sent it and he'll check into it.

About a week later he called me and said he found it on his desk. He ended up adding 25 bucks to the check for making me wait.

Bet that doesn't happen much anymore.

 

suckup

 

OMG!!!

I was counting on money owed to me from freelance stories to pay my rent this month. Well, looks like I won't be the only one wondering it went!