Familiar? A large publication solicits an article from you, quoting a fee that they will pay. A longish, detailed piece. You send it well before their deadline. It appears. Weeks pass, then you write to them asking about the payment. Silence. Then they ask you to send them an invoice. The sum sounds absurd, so you ask them how they came up with that figure, while the amount promised was easily triple that. They apologize prettily: Oops, we miscalculated - can you send us a fresh invoice? You do, you wait. Life goes on and then you remember that nothing has come from them, and it goes on to your white board as a to follow up note. Many absurd and non sequitur email interactions follow. Each time theres some kind of oopsie-cutsie explanation, including my daddy died (so that you feel nice and boorish for asking for your stupid money during their family ordeal, etc). Then a completely newly-minted moron is put on to your case. She has to know from the vewwy beginning wottheproblemismaam? You explain, in short simple sentences. Silence. Months have passed now, from the date that your piece was published. You stomp down to your study one morning remembering that you are still to be paid and ask them sternly in an email, wtf? You get a baffling reply that goes something like this: We have been taken over by a giant conglomerate from phoren country last month, and all payments have been frozen. You may get your money (not in Euros, for sure) and then you may not. Thank you for writing for us and hope you will continue doing so. Some years ago I heard from someone about myself, that as a book editor and writer, She is too money-driven. - ya, like these publications are what, pebbles-driven? love-and-fresh-air driven? One can only laugh and write off the loss. Weve heard the saying Pay peanuts and you get monkeys. - but what of people who simply dont pay at all - and simply show you an elegant cutely-worded thenga?
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 11:00:21 +0000