Last week freelance writer Alison Stein Wellner posted a scathing assessment of magazines over at Huffington Post. Allison compared finding sources for a magazine article to casting a movie or a reality TV project, which is indeed a sad commentary on the current state of publishing. I won't get into it here, because I'm still optimistic enough to want to continue writing for magazines, but something else she wrote stuck with me.
"... she offered me such an insultingly low fee, that I felt better turning it down totally... "
Some of you are probably thinking, "hey, some money is better than no money, especially in this economy," and I disagree.
It reminds me of an issue I had with a client late last year. This client loved my work until one day he decided to discontinue the project. "OK," I responded, "here's my final invoice."
He agreed to pay the final invoice, then I didn't hear from him for two months (despite several phone calls and emails), when I sent a registered letter politely but firmly demanding payment. Finally I got an email from his secretary saying that he didn't feel like paying my invoice because he wasn't happy with the work I'd done. Nevermind the fact that the work was already on his website. (Note to self: when doing work-for-hire, put a clause in your contract stating that you own the copyright until you get paid in full.)
His secretary oh-so-generously offered to set up a conference call so we could discuss the matter. But at that point, two months later, I was already engrossed in other work and frankly didn't feel the need to take time out of paying projects to get lectured by someone who had previously chewed me out for not telling him right away when my father died of a terminal illness. (I still can't believe he said that, but I have it in an email from the day the project died.) Not because I missed deadlines (I didn't), but because he felt I'd been dishonest with him.
I told her I wasn't available for a conference call, but I'd be willing to drop my final invoice as soon as he dropped the content from his site. He deleted the content a week later, and I never heard from him again. Had I agreed to the conference call, I might have been able to negotiate a partial fee, but the thought of talking to this guy again just made my stomach turn. I no longer wanted his money, even though I'd originally fought for it on principle.
So, dear reader, the moral of the story is this: when things go sour, sometimes it's better to walk away with no money but your dignity intact.
Have you ever been in a similar situation? How would you have handled it?