copywriting Archives - Page 9 of 15 - Otis Regrets... or not

Publishing my ebook on FastPencil

Longtime readers may recall that I started my career as a writer, but not a seller, of screenplays. A special frustration of this status is that a screenplay is not a freestanding creative work. It’s not “done” until somebody makes it into a movie.

It used to be the same with the vast majority of book manuscripts which were lovingly and carefully written and then launched into an unappreciative world. If a publisher turned you down you could print it yourself at a vanity press but the distribution list was limited to friends and relations.

The phenomenon of epublishing has changed this scenario in a major way. Now anyone writing a book can indeed expect that it will be published and distributed if you’re willing to pay the modest sum to register it on Kindle, Nook and similar channels. The market may or may not love you, but you can now say to anyone who crosses your path, “I’ve got a book!”

I have now built out and edited much of the content in the “Copywriting 101” category to create an ebook called “Copywriting that Gets Results”. Initially I planned to use Amazon’s Kindle platform but after reading some reviews I chose to go with FastPencil.com. They made it especially easy for me to import blog posts as a working manuscript and they offer a choice where I can publish on their site for $9.99, or get wide distribution (a number of ebook sites, including Kindle, Nook and others) as well as the setup for a physical book (to be printed on a per-copy basis as required) for an all-inclusive fee of $199.

I chose the latter, and the finished product is now available on FastPencil and will propagate to other epublishing sites over the next few weeks. I was originally going to sell it for $9.99 and then offer a $3 discount to Otisregrets readers, but FastPencil doesn’t allow couponing. So I am publishing the ebook at $6.99 and offering a preview for free; you can also order a hard copy for $14.95 plus shipping.

FastPencil is by no means perfect. Their free publishing format has limited flexibility because they would like you to pay extra for “Silver” or “Gold” level services which come with more design choices and some consultation. And there were some technical glitches along the way which were quickly handled by their support team. But I was determined to make the free tool work in the same way I was determined to make the Copyblogger WordPress style work when I stared my blog. Free is good.

So, I’ve got a book! Now go forth and buy the ebook or printed copy and while you’re at it, sign up for a free FastPencil membership which allows you to do your own publishing. (That’s an affiliate link so by using it you are helping to support this blog. )

Thinking outside the “Johnson Box”

The Johnson box is named for Frank Johnson, who popularized it as a promotional writer for Time-Life books in the 1950s. In an era where most direct mail letters had the appearance of being typewritten, it would be above the salutation, usually centered, and surrounded by a row of asterisks at top and bottom and a line of asterisks down each side—in other words, a box.

Johnson box and intro of sub letter for Great American Recipes

The Johnson box has its equivalent in almost every HTML email today which, in addition to body text, usually has a graphic at the top and some kind of sidebar which is visible in the preview window. In print, it’s morphed into the “superscript”—a statement above the salutation in an attention-getting font that might be next to the address in a personalized letter, or even in the middle of the page with copy wrapped around it. The purpose in every case is to give the reader multiple entry points to increase the odds they will engage with the message.

The classic use of the Johnson box is to summarize the content of the letter—including the key marketing message, the offer and the call to action—in a paragraph. That way a busy reader needs read no further.

But I like to use Johnson boxes as a counterpoint—since your letter has two openings, they can be as different as you want them to be and the reader can decide which to read first. A good example is a letter in a package I did with Carol Worthington Levy for Great American Recipes, a continuity program that starts by sending a “gift” of several sample cards and a box to put them in. The Johnson box is all about the offer… but then I am able to squander the first three paragraphs of the letter without even mentioning the product. This was very useful because what we were really selling was the nostalgic experience of using the recipes. The package became Great American Recipes’ first non-sweepstakes control.

These days letters tend to have multiple calls to action (a URL and a phone number, plus maybe fax and mail-back instructions) which can swamp a Johnson box. So I’ll concentrate on one key element of the offer and then provide an abbreviated CTA. My control letter for Online Trading Academy does this. We tell readers they’re going to “learn the secrets of professional traders” and that this an exclusive, invitation-only event, and we’re done.

Herschell Gordon Lewis in one of his books provides an example of another use of the Johnson box: to incite curiosity. A subscription offer for Cat Fancy magazine starts with a quiz about cats. If the purpose of the letter is to engage the reader in a dialog, why not start at the top? A similar application is any letter or email that’s going to offer a series of numbered “rules” or “questions”. Pull out one example (always from the middle, never item #1) and use that to tease the reader into wondering what other secrets you have for them. E.g. “Rule #6: never drink water on an airplane unless you see the can it was poured from.”

You can tell I’m a big fan of superscripts/Johnson boxes, but they aren’t appropriate for every letter. Don’t use them for a very short letter which is meant to be consumed as one gulp. And since these devices immediately brand your message as advertising, they aren’t appropriate if you want to make the letter look very personal or formal. (Although there are exceptions, as always: the Online Trading Academy letter is supposed to be very exclusive, but it gets away with its superscript by using the fancy typeface of an engraved invitation.)

Excerpted from my new book, Copywriting that Gets RESULTS! Get your copy here.

How to write a white paper

White papers, properly executed, are the gold standard for a specific type of marketing in which you convince prospects that they should do business with you because you know so much. Professional white paper writers abound in Silicon Valley and other tech-heavy territories and they typically charge $10,000 and up to write a document that ends up as 10 or more dense 8 ½ x 11 inch pages. But the rest of us may be called upon to write a white paper as part of a larger assignment for a client, and today’s tips are for the writer in that scenario. These tips are also for you if you are a marketer who would like to produce a white paper internally.

1. A white paper is not a selling document. If your insights are really just a bunch of sales points, that’s not a white paper and positioning them as such will do you more harm than good. Save the product benefits for the product brochures. Your white paper should describe a problem that people in your prospect’s situation might face, or a new business or technological development they need to know about, that just happens to be relevant to your product. It’s ok to put a tie-in summary section at the end but not really necessary; your reader will connect the dots.

A good example is a white paper I wrote for EMC called “When Content Matters”. Content is structured information inside a database, which is managed by EMC’s Documentum product. Microsoft had just come out with a light version of content management in its latest version of Office, and our job was to convince the reader that their content was so important it should never be trusted to such a “basic” solution. Documentum was hardly mentioned until the end. Instead, the paper built a case for the complexity and diversity of content so that the reader became concerned and disoriented and was yearning for an escape from Microsoft—which we eventually provided.

2. A white paper is not an academic document. Some of my readers may be old enough to remember “white papers” that used to be trotted out by American presidents and politicians to support a war or other untenable proposition. They were supposed to be authoritative because they appeared scholarly, and the same goes for marketing-driven white papers today. But never forget that you are actually selling something, behind the scenes. In fact, some of the most effective papers I’ve seen are documents that take actual research (complete with the footnotes and raw interviews or statistics) and summarize it in a way that is understandable to a lay reader; along the way, you can politely steer them into the appropriate point of view.

3. A white paper is written for a specific audience. Academic studies often begin with the desire of the researcher to solve a specific problem which can be of very narrow interest. You, the marketer, need to begin with the audience and figure out what is important to them. Often the same information can be presented in different ways to different audiences. For example, I did two papers to educate physicians about electronic health records (EHR). One was sponsored by a peer association and focused on how EHR was going to help them practice better medicine. The other was for a medical billing company and focused on how EHR was going to increase profitability and help them get paid faster by Medicare.

4. A white paper should capitalize on the expert knowledge within your client’s organization. Every company is full of subject matter experts, and this is your/their opportunity to turn that knowledge base into something fungible. Product managers, for example, spend their lives explaining technical features in a non-technical way. Sales managers understand the pain points that move prospects to a buying decision. Customer service people know the problems that cause the most headaches in the daily lives of your customers. Interview a few of these subject matter experts and the white paper may start to write itself.

5. You can create a sort of “poor man’s white paper” by mining existing resources. These might include third party analysis or reprints which you have permission to use, combined with a few sales documents which are meaty instead of full of fluff. You might even consider including a product quick-start guide if it’s well written. The combination of resources becomes your “fact kit” or “info kit” which, appropriately presented, can become much more than the sum of its parts.

And if you don’t have the budget to pay for reprints, an alternative is to put the info kit on a web page (the fulfillment page after the prospect has registered on a landing page) with brief descriptions and links to the source documents. Presto, now you’ve created a white paper without actually writing for one and without paying anybody. Wait, don’t do that. Hire a starving copywriter instead.

Excerpted from my new book, Copywriting that Gets RESULTS! Get your copy here.

Does your copy have a “voice”? Should it?

One of my favorite direct mail letters of all time came from someone called the “Scripps Center for Executive Health”. The first few paragraphs go like this:

Dear Mr. Maxwell:

In the next 30 seconds, someone will die of a heart attack. In the next 53 seconds, someone will have a stroke. In the next 60 seconds, someone will die of cancer. All in the U.S.A. And have I mentioned that about one-third of all deaths from cardiovascular disease occur prematurely, before age 75.

Hello, Mr. Maxwell… I’m still trying to get your attention.

Let’s face it. We men tend to resist health advice rather stubbornly. If you agree, remember that the difference between my male stubbornness and yours is what I’ve seen as a physician. So if you think you don’t need what I’ve been writing you about, here’s one more wakeup call:

You need a wholeperson picture of your health.

This letter is wrong on so many levels, but most of all it’s the voice. The writer starts by throwing cold water in the reader’s face although he can’t resist being a wise guy with the “have I mentioned”. After shouting at me in the indented subhead, he puts his arm around my shoulder but I am going to push it away because I don’t feel like being friendly with this person who was so recently pummeling me. Too late, he reveals something that I would have no way of knowing—he’s a doctor. Then he morphs into a new age healer with the deadly invented word “wholeperson”. At this point I threw the letter in the trash—though fortunately I retrieved it so I could share it with you.

A letter is always “from” someone and if you don’t keep your voice consistent you will give your audience one more excuse to head for the exits while your play is still in its first act. The most common error (you see this in television infomercials, too) is to build rapport with a personal and emotional tone, then break the spell with a hard sell call to action. Or, to speak to the reader in a human, personal way and suddenly switch to jargon or legalese.

On the other hand, you can help your cause by adopting an appropriate persona such as the subject matter expert, the fellow enthusiast, or the kindly mentor (this is the character that often sells product to a senior audience, and it may be what my wholeperson writer had in mind before the letter went off the tracks.)

Other media can have a voice too, even if it’s a catalog or informational website. The writer is the friendly, approachable tour guide, anticipating the reader’s needs and questions. And an occasional aside can make it more interesting: I once did a catalog of repetitive sports fan merchandise (the same bobblehead or jersey, repeated with a description for every team you could imagine) and it helped keep the interest of the reader to invent a copywriter who was the owner’s assistant, making his own comments on the items.

Excerpted from my new book, Copywriting that Gets RESULTS! Get your copy here.

Should marketers give away their “secret sauce”?

Most marketers I have met have a terror of giving away too much information in their lead generation contacts. As a result they are constantly trying to get me to write “info copy” which is really a thinly disguised sales pitch. They’re afraid that once the reader has their perspective on their business or industry, the marketer becomes irrelevant and the customer will just go out and do it themselves.

Not going to happen. Properly written information will overwhelm and impress the reader. Rather than taking the nuggets and running with them, they will think, “these people sure are smart. Why would I want to do this myself, when I can just hire them?”

The secret sauce of my youth — Brockles... the secret sauce of my youth.

Think about how hard it is to get anybody to pay attention to anything these days. People poring over what is after all marketing copy is a very nice problem to have. In writing my BMA talk, as usual I went to the web and found all kinds of useful research and insight which people are giving away for free such as this great post on how to put on a webinar (something else I will be talking about). Maybe they don’t care about money, maybe they have some kind of hidden agenda. But they can’t all be going out of business because they are giving information away instead of selling it.

Nobody wants to give away their “secret sauce”…. or do they? Sure the recipe should remain a secret. But as far as free samples, the more the better.

How to look at a copywriter’s samples

This article is written for the people who hire and critique copywriters… the hallowed “client”.

You’ve got an ad, website or direct mail package to be written and you’ve got a slew of samples, emails and letters from copywriters in response to your LinkedIn or Craigslist post. How do you separate the real candidates from the posers? Here are a few tips:

1. Realize that the samples in front of you are the best work you’re ever going to see from these writers. If they care about the job at all, they will have hand-selected an assortment of work for your eyes. If a writer doesn’t show you anything that knocks your socks off, pass.

2. Look for work that’s a good fit with your own project. Legitimate experience with your major competitor is ideal. At the very least, the copywriter should provide work that has a parallel to your own project, pointed out by the writer. For example, an insurance writer can probably make the transition to selling financial products since both are about security and money. And a writer in one highly regulated industry, such as banking, can probably make the transition to another, such as pharma. Once again, if the copywriter doesn’t provide anything that is a match then they are disinterested or else they truly have no relevant experience.

3. Look for work that shows how they can handle a project from beginning to end. Copywriting isn’t just about a great headline or “I wish I’d thought of that” entry point. It’s also unfolding a product’s benefits in a clear and methodical way. It’s about a call to action that is specific and motivating. The best samples to demonstrate this are a classic “long form” direct mail package or else a digital campaign that includes landing pages. In these examples you’re not looking for brilliance, but follow-through.

4. Look for a broad fit to your corporate personality. If you’re a stolid B-to-B marketer and all the writer can show you is edgy gen-y work, there’s something wrong. Not with them, but with the matchup. If they had more relevant examples, you’d be seeing them.

5. Evaluate the query letter or email as its own example of copywriting. Selling is selling, and if they don’t make a persuasive argument that is relevant to your needs then you should be suspicious. And especially if their are typos, grammatical errors or misspellings in the document, pass.

6. After you’ve reviewed the samples, if they are in physical vs. electronic form, RETURN THEM TO THE WRITER. This holds true even if it’s a stack of color copies; the writer spent time and money to prepare them. Keep in mind that there is a special circle in hell, right next to Leona Helmsley’s dog Trouble, reserved for marketing managers who “misplace” a copywriter’s last sample of a prized work.

The end of “edgy”

One of the side benefits of tough economic times is that fewer clients are asking for “edgy” work. Edgy we’ll define as “different for the sake of different” but it is also has an element of cool. It’s a special request of marketing managers who want to be able to show around their work and get the compliment, “ooh, that’s edgy!”

So what’s the problem with edgy? Good creative grows from a solid understanding of product and audience and a calculated plan to put the two together, which may or may not produce something never seen before. If you’re selling an insurance product it’s not likely that it will meet the edgy test without being irrelevant and ridiculous. But maybe you could sell a new movie in an edgy way… or maybe not.

In the great article on Pixar in the May 16 issue of the New Yorker, John Lassiter remembers the first time he pitched the movie “Toy Story” to executives at Disney. “They said, first, ‘You absolutely can’t have “Toy” in the title, because no teenager or young adult will come see the movie.’ And second, we had to make the characters ‘edgy.’” Can you imagine Woody as a bleary has-been with a Nixonian 5 o’clock shadow? That’s Disney’s “edgy” version which was ultimately tanked in favor of the thoroughly traditional cowboy who is now part of movie iconography.

Anthony Lane, the writer of the Pixar article, advises dramatists to “avoid anyone who talks about edgy, apart from a practicing mountaineer.” Same goes for those mini-dramas we call advertising. Most creative briefs have a section about the voice of the copy, and it’s fine to request a fresh and unexpected tone and the copywriter will do their best as long as it doesn’t compromise the core marketing message. But please, no “edgy”.

How to read a copywriter’s work

This article is written not for copywriters, but for the people who hire and critique them.

You’ve hired a copywriter to write your project, and here they come back at you with their first round, hopefully on time and with no budget alarms going off. Now it’s your job to give honest, specific critique that will enable them to go to the next draft. Here are a few tips. (This article was originally about long-form direct mail copy, but I believe it applies to web pages and even banners and short ads.)

1. Remember that you only get one impression to have a first impression. So, clear your desk and your head and close your door if you have one. If the copywriter is sitting anxiously in your office, ask them to go away.

Now, start by giving the copy a quick scan from the perspective of the intended reader. (If you don’t know who this prospective reader is, you better find out before you read the copy.) Let it sell you. If it leaves you flat, you may have a problem. You’ll analyze why as you continue.

Then go back and read it again, several times, applying a different test each time. (I am borrowing these filters from either Bob Bly or Ed McLean, thank you gentlemen. It is even more productive to come up with your own filters depending on your specific knowledge of your business.)

Is it logical? Is there a premise that is established up front and then supported throughout? Are there logic errors, things that don’t make sense, which can distract the reader?

Is it emotionally consistent? The emotional pitch could be high, low, ironic, satiric… but it needs to stay the same from beginning to end.

Is it clear what is being sold or presented? Is the product or service presented in such a way that the reader grasps its big benefits quickly then understands additional benefits as they read on for more details?

Is it clear what you want me, the reader, to do? What is the call to action?

2. Now make your notes for the writer. Remember that CRITIQUE and CORRECT are not the same thing. If you take a pencil and start aggressively marking up the copy, the writer will step back…they’re no longer fully invested in the project because you’ve taken over part of their role.

It’s far better to describe what you are trying to accomplish on a high level, then leave it to the writer to interpret and execute. Instead of telling them what you want, tell them what you want to happen. It’s their job to find a way to execute.

As usual, David Ogilvy has something brilliant to say on this point: “Don’t keep a dog and bark yourself.”

3. Now it’s time to meet with the writer—in person, on the phone, or by email. Be careful. Even very experienced and thick-skinned writers get irritated when they feel a client isn’t giving their many hours of hard work the respect which is due.

It’s never a bad thing to compliment a writer on a job well done—but mean it when you say it. Don’t start with faint praise that turns into a slashing attack. If you’re up to it, you can use a positive statement to transition to a critical one: “I really liked the way you described the benefits of the whole life plan. But the term life description just didn’t seem to have the same level of enthusiasm.”

As you get into specifics, refer to the creative brief. (You did give the writer a brief, right?) That way you can use an intermediary to smooth the conversation. It’s not you that says their copy is off (if it is), rather it just doesn’t follow the creative brief. A good writer will not only follow the brief but will be ready to defend sections of the copy where the brief was difficult to follow, and that is helpful.

And most important, never say “I don’t like the copy” or anything negative without supporting your statement with specific examples and logic and without being able to offer equally specific solutions for problems you bring up. It’s lazy, emotionally manipulative and unproductive to dislike the copy on personal grounds and it’s not likely to get you a better product in the next round.

4. Agree on what happens next. As a copywriter, I quite often have my first rounds accepted with minor changes because I have been diligent about executing a clearly executed assignment. Don’t be afraid to just say, “I like it and here’s your check.”

But if you’re asking for rewrites be very specific about what you want and why, and follow it up in writing with an email to the writer. And be sure to include the next schedule milestone.

Dealing with internal client politics

An easy client is one who just wants to make money: as long as you are successful in helping them reach their goal, all is good. But more typically, you’ll be dealing with an organization that has layers of command and that means client politics to be navigated. Here are two of the most typical organizational dynamics and how I’ve learned to deal with them.

Managers vs. Directors. A director is a person with profit & loss responsibility—that easy client I mentioned who just wants to make money. However, you’re unlikely to have direct access to a director level, especially early in the relationship, and even if you do they won’t focus on the details of individual projects. Instead you will report to some form of marketing manager—a person who is tasked with meeting deadlines, staying on budget, and especially presenting no negative surprises to upper management.

Your challenge in dealing with the manager is that your concept and your very existence are inherently risky—you represent the new and unknown, otherwise why would they bring you in to replace whatever else they were using? Your job is to convince the manager that this journey into uncharted waters will be safe and secure as a Caribbean cruise (and without the Legionnaire’s Disease).

You can sell yourself and your concept as a safe solution with a/case histories—other marketers (in recognizable or peer organizations) have done exactly the same thing successfully; b/testimonials—references from clients in those companies they can talk to; c/your personal presentation—this is the time to be buttoned up and professional, not edgy; d/a gentle reminder that one of the possible negatives is being left behind—because others aren’t afraid to innovate and they, the client, are.

Every outside contractor has had the frustration of dealing with managers who seem more focused on budgets and schedules than actual results, but keep in mind that’s what they are getting their job performance reviewed on. Be patient and reasonable, and be prepared to stop seeking work from managers whose near-term focus keeps you from doing the work you want to do or can afford to do.

One last thing: never give a manager a negative surprise. After what I’ve said above you can guess why this is. A blown deadline or budget, or work that doesn’t follow the creative brief, is going to make this person crazy and you may never get work from them (or anyone else in their company) again.

Sound like a lot to deal with? Remember that good managers are where future directors come from. Be patient, prove your reliability, and you may be surprised at how the relationship blossoms once you earn their trust.

Sales vs. Marketing. If the business model is to generate leads, then your company has both a sales and a marketing VP and the sales VP is the one with the big swinging appendage. Because, as sales trainer Roy Chitwood says, “nothing happens until somebody sells something.” The sales department is who brings in the revenues without which nobody would have a job. Right?

Your problem is that your client is the marketing department, which is either subordinate to sales or actually reports to it. And you know, as does the sales VP when he or she is alone at night, that the quality of leads generated by the marketing department is the engine that drives the sales organization. Actually, I take that back, sales is not at all shy about crediting the importance of leads but in a backhanded manner. If they can’t make the sale, then it’s because the leads aren’t good enough.

You can be part of your marketing client’s survival plan by making sure the leads ARE good. You do this by writing your copy as the first step of the sales process and providing good information and sound reasons to want to find out more. Salespeople may still complain (because not making the sale is never their fault) but the better quality of leads will shine through on the bottom line.

A special sales/marketing problem comes up when you want to use an offer such as a freebie or entry in a drawing to boost response. Sales will complain the leads are no good because you bribed people to respond. The only way to resolve this objection is to set up a test. Have a lower-level support person field the registrations and, if it’s obvious the prospect responded only to get the freebie, don’t pass that lead onto sales. Then see if you have more qualified leads at the end of the day.

I once participated in exactly this test with an enterprise software company. By offering an entry to win a cool tech gadget, we boosted registrations by 24%. Of these, 10% were quickly dismissed as freebie-seeking lookie-loos. But that left the client with a 14% increase in qualified leads with basically no increase in cost.

I feel like I’ve been unusually snarky in this post. I have generally had cordial, even friendly relationships with my clients and above I’m describing worst case scenarios. But the corporate marketing world is not a relaxing or non-competitive space. You need to be careful out there.

How to get paid as a freelancer

Many freelancers are squirrely about asking for money. You build a personal relationship with a client who genuinely values your creative product, and it seems crass to go back to that person with a bill and say “I hope that you’ll pay this quickly because I have nothing but Pop-Tarts® in my pantry”. Plus appearing too hungry seems non-professional—if you were a pro you’d have the financial details worked out or would simply be above them.

The solution to this one is simple: you shouldn’t be submitting bills to your primary client in the first place. Invoices should go direct to the Accounts Payable Department which is where they’ll end up anyway after your client signs off on them. Your client has other things to do than process paperwork; the AP department doesn’t, because that’s their job. And if they get a bill they don’t recognize they’ll contact you, or their marketing department, rather than simply ignoring it. (Thanks for my friend and fellow freelancer John Wurtmann for reminding me of this strategy.)

Of course a few freelancers—very few—don’t have this problem because they insist on payment in advance. I think that’s an unrealistic expectation and you may lose a project you want because the company simply can’t cut a check in time to meet the schedule. My approach, with a new client, is to ask for 1/3 of my estimate up front, 1/3 on presentation of first round copy, and 1/3 on approval of final copy. That seems to spread risk appropriately between me and them and I’ve never had a client say it was unreasonable.

Kill fees: this is a partial payment a client agrees to give you if the work is unsatisfactory or if their needs change and the product gets stopped in its tracks. A typical arrangement is that the client will agree to pay 25% of the total, regardless of the point at which the project is stopped. A few big publishers insist on kill fees but I try to stay away from them. A stipulated kill fee introduces the scenario of possible failure into the relationship. The 1/3-1/3-1/3 arrangement I mention above protects both of us just fine.

Contracts: if you have a contract you need legal knowledge to make sure it is valid and air-tight and that means, to paraphrase an old saw, the copywriter who writes his or her own contract (or cut-and-pastes one out of a book) has a fool for a lawyer. I prefer to put as little as possible in writing. Definitely an email confirmation of project scope, schedule and price is a good idea. Beyond that I will draft a letter of agreement if the project calls for it either because it is a very large budget or (especially) a retainer arrangement. I deliberately use plain non-legalese language. I sign it when I send it and ask the client to sign a copy and return it; about 50% do.

If you are asked to sign a contract from your client, you can either show it to a lawyer (which means you are going to have to hike your fees significantly, to pay your lawyers) or make your best effort to understand it and question any sections you don’t agree with. The area that typically raises red flags for me is a non-compete clause; I can understand I can’t work for a competitor during the project, but that agreement should have a time limit. Also look at what they specify as payment arrangements and agree they are reasonable.

The big idea here is that a copy assignment is the creation and transfer of a product whose value cannot be objectively determined; if your client is out to trick you, most likely they will be successful or else you will both spend a fortune in legal fees.

Crooks, deadbeats and bankrupts: I’ve had very few bad experiences with payment in a 20-year freelance history. I once sued a client in small claims court and we settled for 50% of the total, at the expense of half a day of my time. Another client proved so difficult to deal with that I resigned the account without asking for pay. Another killed a very complex sweepstakes project many drafts in, initially said the work was off-target so he wouldn’t pay for it, finally agreed to a reasonable kill fee; I think the problem was some internal politics and he had to share the bleeding. I’ve had only one client who was an out-and-out crook who probably had no intention of paying from the get-go; I hired a national collection agency (the one you are thinking about) to go after him and they reported that the claim was “uncollectible”.

All the above problems amounted to a minuscule percentage of my total billing over the years—I would be surprised if it is 1%. If you retain a lawyer it’s probably going to cost you a lot more than that including writing and reviewing contracts and potential litigation. The sane alternative is to pick your clients carefully then work in good faith with the assumption it will be a satisfactory experience for both parties.

Having said that, I’ll close with two cautionary tales. The good: during the dot-com era I worked around the clock for one e-commerce company that wrote a $40,000 check for services rendered and went out of business the next day; miraculously the check was honored but I did not have a backup plan if it wasn’t. The bad and ugly: many freelancers I know worked for a large publisher of romance novels that suddenly went belly-up in the 1990s, not only leaving them stranded but putting an entire agency out of business.

The moral is that, as in poker or stock trading, you should never bet (in terms of uncollected receivables) more than you are prepared to lose.