By Kevin Gault
There’s an old saying: “A verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.” Nailing down a contract for a writing project can guarantee smooth sailing, but is it really necessary?
For Peter Bowerman, successful copywriter and author of the bestselling Well-Fed Writer series, formal contracts are the exception rather than the rule. “Since starting in 1994, I’ve signed fewer than six formal contracts of any kind, and almost all of them came from clients. I’ve only had one situation where I got burned on a deal and a contract might not have even helped in that case.
“Use a more formal contract when dealing with a new client or if the job is fairly large, complicated and multi-faceted. But for your regular clients, formal contracts for each job aren’t only unnecessary, but will likely be insulting. If you have a good working relationship and you’ve always been paid, a contract isn’t necessary.”
Keep It Simple
Gordon Graham, veteran white paper writer and founder of www.thatwhitepaperguy.com, concurs: “I don’t like legal mumbo-jumbo and long forms, so I keep things very simple. I talk to a prospect on the phone, we exchange a few emails, and then if everything sounds right, I send them an invoice for a 50% deposit on my total fee. On my invoice, I include a few terms such as a list of my deliverables and the due dates for each one. When I get the deposit check, I consider that the deal is on and I start work. This seems to satisfy all but the most legalistic of clients. I’ve never had a legal dispute with a client in more than 25 years of freelancing.”
Bowerman feels that for most projects, a one-page “bid letter” will do the job, spelling out basic project parameters such as deposit, fee, timing of payments, what the project entails and deadlines. Ask the client to sign it and send the original back to you and you’re in business.
In his book Pricing Your Writing Services, author and copywriting guru Steve Slaunwhite (www.steveslaunwhite.com) also favors a one-page email “contract,” but with a slightly different flavor, including:
* Scope of the project
* Objective of the piece of writing
* Recommendations on writing style
* Highlights of similar projects done for well-known clients
* Deadline and number of revisions
* Stipulation of 50% payment to start the project and 50% after it is completed
When Things Get Complex
But it’s not always so simple. In his White Paper Pundit blog (www.whitepapercompany.com/blog/), white paper specialist and Appum Group founder Jonathan Kantor maintains that for complex projects (such as white papers), it’s best to use not one, but two contracts: “Both provide the framework needed to ensure satisfaction and success for the development of the paper. The first is the ‘terms and conditions‘ contract that stipulates project timelines and deadlines, rates, payment terms, ownership rights and potential penalties.
“The second is a ‘work‘ contract that takes the form of an outline and provides details of what will be produced by the writer. This outline ensures the final white paper draft will be on message and meet all customer expectations. As part of this ‘contract,’ the outline establishes the marketing message, estimates page length, guides content flow and provides opportunity for the client to make changes.”
Listen to the gurus. For most projects, a simple bid letter is just fine. When the project is complex, use a formal, detailed contract – or as Kantor suggests, two contracts – spelling out terms and conditions and giving an outline for the work. With any agreement, it’s smart to request partial payment before you begin crafting your masterpiece.
“Don’t over complicate things,” advises Graham. “Just be businesslike and confident, establish your terms for the project, and stand up for yourself and everything should turn out fine.”
August 11th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I would say, you should never work without a contract. It’s not just about getting paid. It’a about liability issues too. When you don’t have a contract and things go wrong, your clients might be inclined to blame you. Especially if they spent a great deal of money with no result. If you don’t have a contract, they can make claims like, “You guaranteed this letter would get a 10% response rate and because of that, we produced 10,000 widgets. We only got a 3% response rate. You are liable for the cost of all those widgets we didn’t sell.”
In a bad economy, things like this can happen. Protect yourself, use a contract or letter agreement with every project.
January 1st, 2010 at 5:16 pm
It’s been my experience that, in most all cases, a contract is your best insurance against the many pitfalls of doing business with people you don’t know and may never see. While I’ve done many projects sans a formal contract, I always have an email trail of what I’ll do and what the other party is responsible for. Email is now considered a legal document.
However, most often I’m more comfortable with a formal contract that spells everything out clearly.
Fact is, a minority of clients will attempt to get a refund or do a chargeback or some other such activity. You need to make it clear that you either do or do not offer refunds and what action you’ll take in the event of a fraudulent chargeback.
Of course, when you’re dealing with true professional people who are respected and well-known, this isn’t an issue. But many copywriters don’t deal with this sort of client.
When clients know they’re under a contract, he knows without a doubt what you’ll do for him, what is expected of him and what is and is not allowed as appropriate behavior within the context of the agreement.
Moreover, the client will understand what copyrights are transferred to him. Without this little bit of information (in writing) he owns nothing — the copywriter owns it all. So it’s for the client’s protection too.
You may get along just fine without a contract for years. But there will come a time when you find yourself in a major legal mess or a loss of a large sum of money and you have no defense unless you have a written contract.