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Assorted Correspondence

Timely Payment
by A. D. Coleman

These are the texts of several letters sent to a European publisher who'd commissioned an introduction to a monograph by a photographer, on which there was a deadline. The piece was commissioned in early summer; contracts arrived, and were returned with invoices, in mid-July. Due date for the essay was mid-August. When no advance was received, I sent a query, which was answered on September 4 with the usual excuse: blame it on the accounting department. In such situations, I now hold my text back, and let editors and publishers know how their behavior has affected (and will affect) our working relationship. The subsequent letters detail later incidents in this story.

-- A. D. C.

September 5, 2001

Ms. X
Editor-in-Chief
Publisher Y

Dear Ms. X:
It's my experience that, like yourself, most editors and publishers have no system in place to make sure that writers get paid for assignments and commissions -- that is, they do no checking whatever to ensure that payments due for services rendered go out on time. Instead, they throw writers to the mercies of their accounting departments -- whose primary job, as everyone in every business knows very well, is to keep the money in the bank as long as possible.

Every editor likes to claim that this is purely accidental. But the fact that no author ever "accidentally" gets paid months ahead of time under this system, and that follow-up on payment is never undertaken by the editors, makes it clear that this is purposeful policy, not chance oversight. Authors, throughout the industry, are the system's only fail-safe mechanism. This constitutes rude, abusive, and unprofessional treatment. The fact that it's a widespread practice doesn't make it any less offensive. Because this has happened to me regularly -- indeed, scores of times -- throughout my thirty-three-years of professional life as a working writer, I can speak to this with some authority; and I can tell you that European editors behave no differently from their U.S. counterparts in this regard. So you can perhaps understand my irritation with this way of doing business, and the attitude toward me and my colleagues in my profession that's implicit in it.

While this incident probably won't change your behavior, it will certainly affect my decision about doing business with you in the future, and my recommendation of you to other authors. So, to create a business that's truly friendly to and respectful of the authors with whom you deal, you might consider instituting policies and practices that require you yourself to actually take responsibility for ensuring that payments are made promptly -- by calling your accounting department after submitting all invoices and bills and establishing some reporting system on such invoices and bills, to guarantee that payments are handled expeditiously. (A radical concept, I know.) Failure to do so would of course now constitute prima facie evidence that this system was a deliberate way of stalling payments.

We can resume our discussion of editorial matters on the Z project when I've received payment of the advance.

Yours,
/s/ Allan Coleman

c: Author of monograph

September 17, 2001

Ms. X
Editor-in-Chief
Publisher Y

Dear Ms. X:
The check for my advance has arrived, finally. And, as I'm sure you know, since you're now certainly paying close attention to my payments, it's drawn in USD on a Swiss bank.

On July 13, I emailed you as follows: "I assume you can pay me in $USD, with a check drawn on a U.S. bank, yes?" And you called me back with assurances that this would be the case. Those assurances were false, it seems.

Now I must mail this check to my European bank account, deposit it there, wait for it to arrive and clear, and then retrieve the money from them. If I wanted to do that, I would simply have given you the deposit information for that account months ago, with my original invoice. Another delay that, "accidentally," benefits Publisher Y. What a coincidence -- two of those in a row!

I'm sure that, once again, you cannot possibly be held responsible for this by any reasonable person, as it is exclusively the fault of your accounting department, which is an empire unto itself over which you have absolutely no control. However, as an unreasonable person, I once again lay the blame for this squarely at your door.

This assignment has turned nightmarish -- not the experience of working with Ms. Author of monograph, by any means, but the experience of working with Publisher Y. Because I do not wish this to affect the publication of her work, I will accept this as payment of the advance and proceed to complete and send on to you and to her the working draft of the essay, so that we can wrap this up and I can put some distance between myself and Publisher Y.

Please do not bother to apologize for this additional inconvenience, unless and until you can also show me the internal memoranda setting in place policies and procedures that will prevent this from happening to me and other authors in the future.

Yours,
/s/ Allan Coleman

c: Author of monograph

Copyright © 2001 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. For reprint permissions contact Image/World Syndication Services, POB 040078, Staten Island, NY 10304-0002 USA;T/F (718) 447-3091, imageworld@nearbycafe.com