Midweek Musings #2

Vote with your feet

Greetings! A short while I ago I wrote about my experience with an editor who I no longer write for. I finished the article with:

…who wants to write for an editor who changes their mind so dramatically, and for whom one’s previous record is of no consequence?

Obviously, the answer is nobody, as Mary B rightly said. And Tom Pendergast wrote that that last sentence says it all.

feet, by Terry Freedman

There’s a little more to the story — there always is, isn’t there? The legal person at the Society of Authors who gave me the appropriate wording to use when politely insisting that, having executed the brief to the best of my ability and having met all the stated criteria, I should be paid a kill fee, suggested I email the editor and apologise for my “robust” email and blame the Society of Authors.

But I felt I had been treated rather shabbily, so was disinclined to do that. However, that does remind me of a “trick” I’ve employed many times. I am a great believer in having things tied up in a written agreement. It saves a lot of unpleasantness in the long run.

For example, there was the occasion when an organisation I had delivered a day’s training for told me that they wouldn’t pay the VAT (Value-added tax) on my fee. In Britain, VAT is a whopping 20%, so a day rate of, say, £500 reduces to £400 if you have to pay the tax yourself. Incidentally, the way the tax works is that each party charges the tax to the next link in the chain, until you reach the final consumer, who is landed with the bill.

I simply forwarded on the email exchange in which I had asked if they would pay the VAT, to which they replied that they would.

But what if you have a good relationship with the editor, who might even be a friend of yours? In those cases, if they have presented me with an Agreement I say I always like to have such things given the once-over by the Society of Authors. If necessay I add that even though I trust them, what if they leave? I think you have to regard the Agreement as a professional thing, nothing to do with personal relationships.

There is a separate but, in a way, related issue as well. I decided a long time ago that life is too short to mess about with editors I regard as unprofessional. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have so many commissions flooding in that I can afford to turn any down, but I think my health is more important than money, and also that my reputation is important as well.

For these reasons, some years ago I stopped accepting work from editors who liked everything about my work apart from paying me. It really is quite debilitating having to keep on sending emails asking if they could please pay you, like they’re doing you a huge favour.

As for reputation, before approaching an editor to pitch them an idea, I always look at the publication they edit. If it’s full of typos and bad grammar then I don’t bother. For a start, I don’t want to be associated in any way with that sort of shoddiness. And secondly, if I make a mistake, which is easily done no matter how careful you are, I want the editor to pick it up. That’s what their job is after all.

So if I write, for instance, “there” instead of “their” because I am typing at a rate of knots, the spellchecker is unlikely to pick it up (although they are much better these days), I will end up looking like an ignorant illiterate if the edito doesn’t pick that up.

The result of my attitude in these matters is that the business side of writing is far less stressful. I may be less well-off as a result, but I’m not the richest person in the cemetary either.

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