Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Ah, payment. We all like to be paid for our hard work, make no mistake. We all like to be paid on time, too. One of the more worrying trends in the publishing industry is shifting payments to a purely royalty-based system. Sometimes this includes editors and cover artists along with the writers. What could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, it seems. Over the last year and a half I've seen more reports of publishers with payment problems than I have in a long time. Several small publishers have gone under owing money to authors and others. Some of those have had a good reputation for payment in the past, which makes this all the more worrying.
Now there are lots of small publishers that are doing well and paying royalties on time. Obviously, those are the ones you want to try to work with.
So what do you do? First, do your virtual legwork. What is the publisher's reputation? Have you seen any verifiable stories of late or missed payments recently?
How are royalties calculated? When will you see your first payment, and how often after that? Will you get a statement if no royalties are due? You should be able to find these things out from most publishers.
You should also see if you can find out some details on how they hire and pay editors and cover artists. Small presses often hire those positions on a contract basis, which is not a red flag. There may not be enough work for full time positions. You don't need to know what they pay, but whether the payment is on a flat rate or hourly basis or a royalty basis.
For me, paying staff on a royalty basis is a red flag. It suggests to me that the business is very under-capitalized. If, as a writer, you don't get paid for 90 days until after publication, then it's a fair assumption that others who work on a royalty won't get paid for 90 days, either. This is just my opinion, but editing, layout, and cover art are items that should be paid by the job (or on a salary basis) rather than payment being dependent on how well the book sells.
And how are royalties calculated? Royalty on the net is becoming more and more common, so it's important that a publisher be absolutely transparent in how that royalty is determined. See Writer Beware's
excellent write up on this for more information.
How can you protect yourself?*
As a contractor, I can tell you entering into an agreement always carries a certain amount of risk. But hey, many people with day jobs run the risk that they'll be laid off tomorrow. Nothing is free of risk. If I follow my end of the contract to the letter and the client runs into financial problems, I can get an attorney to write a Strongly Worded Letter. I can sue. But there's the old blood from a turnip thing. And it would probably cost me more money to sue than I'm owed in the first place. So I can give you some ideas, and it's up to you to decide your level of risk.
1. Get a contract. If there's a royalty payment involved, have the contract vetted by a literary agent or someone versed in publishing law. That goes double if your an author or artist assigning rights.
1.a. If intellectual property is involved, make sure your contract explicitly sets a threshold for return of rights. It may be a set period of time or it may be a sales level. If this is a work for hire job (where the rights belong to the publisher or other entity) then that should be explicitly laid out as well. (A TV or movie tie-in book is an example of a work for hire job.)
2. Don't be afraid to ask for something up front. You probably won't get it, but ask anyway.
3. For editors and cover artists, try to negotiate a flat payment, due on completion of the job (also #2 above). You may be taking a risk that the payment is less than royalties turn out to be, but a payment in hand now might be uh, handy if the publisher runs into trouble down the road.
4. Keep good records. Keep copies of contracts. Keep your invoices. Keep copies of royalty statements. If you keep all of your records electronically, make backups. Use whatever method works best for you, but just be sure you keep up with it so you know what's going on at a glance.
5. If you have to produce invoices, add a line to your invoice to reflect when payment is expected. An invoice is a bill. Your own bills have a deadline, and so should your invoices. Consider tacking on a late payment fee. This is tough to do, but that should be part of your policies that prospective clients need to know up front, and you should try to get it written into the contract. Like any item in a contract, that can be negotiated and you could waive the fee on a case-by-case basis, but you have to show that you mean business.
As yourself this: Would you go to work flippng burgers if the manager promised to pay you at the end of the week a net share of profits based on how many burgers sold? Would you go to work for a company developing a product with the promise of payment after the product started to sell? I don't know about you, but my bills won't wait that long.
Yes, there's always a risk, but do your due diligence and minimize your exposure. You can't always count on the other party following through.
Thanks for stopping by.
*Standard Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer or an accountant, and I don't play one on TV. Please seek professional advice from you know, a professional.
Tags: Publishing Myths Writing Publishing