Persistence pays off: Publisher coughs up missing money

It's a sad fact: It's harder to get paying jobs these days thanks to the dismal economy. There's pretty fierce competition from freelance writers for even some of the lousier writing jobs.

What's even worse, though, is that it's getting more difficult to force deadbeat publishers to cough up the money they actually owe freelancers.

This happened to me earlier this month, when a publisher seemed to disappear after I turned in a short writing assignment for him. I bugged him a few times by e-mail, didn't hear anything and decided to give up. It wasn't worth my time, I figured.

Then I changed my mind. The money wasn't a lot. But I did do the work. I deserved to get paid. So I started bugging the publisher again. This time, I heard back. And, amazingly enough, the payment showed up in my Paypal account.

Of course, I don't expect I'll get any more work from this guy. His message back to me was a bit on the ticked-off side. But so what? I don't want to write for people who I have to constantly pester to get paid.

On the down side, I have two other clients -- print publications that actually pay significantly more -- that are late on a total of $1,750. Again, that's not a ton of money, but it's enough when the assignments are so hard to come by. Come Monday, I'll be bugging these editors and publishers, too.

It's a bit of a shame, really. Freelance writers want to write. They don't want to run their own collection agencies.

The late-payment blues

I just got back from a week-long camping trip with my family last week. We had a nice time. We didn't even have to rough it too much. That's good. My version of roughing it means I have to drink warm cans of pop instead of cold ones.

Anyway, when we came back, I was hoping to find several of those wonderful, career-affirming checks in my pile of mail. Unfortunately, I found my credit-card bill, but not any of my much-needed paychecks.

This seems to happen quite often: I think I've written more than enough stories to maintain a steady cash-flow. But then the bills come more quickly than the pay. It's rather annoying.

So I make the rounds, calling or e-mailing editors and publishers looking for my checks. I get the same excuses: Oh, sorry, we missed you in our last round of payments. Don't know how that happened. We'll get in our next round, three weeks from now.

And remorse? None. And is anyone ever willing to break the standard payment cycle and actually send me a check even if it's off the payment schedule? Heavens, no.

I'm convinced that magazines are doing this to freelancers on purpose to help with their own cash-flow problems. Trouble is, there isn't much a freelance writer can do about this in today's economy. I'm writing for clients whom I'd never touch before. Now I have little choice, at least until the economy finally improves.

So I'm writing myself to death, and running to the mailbox every day. We'll see what comes today, more bills or a few of those elusive paychecks.