This is great outline of a solid copywriting contract. Thank you for sharing your person foibles as well.

There are a lot of people out there that are willing to screw over a small business owner and contracts can help keep that in check.

-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire

Another good point Sally.

This I also automatically put into every contract these days, retaining the full copyright until such time as it’s fully paid for.

Wishing you and all the other copywriters here all the very best for the summer months ahead.

Best,

Mark Andrews – Internet Marketing Copywriting

I use a “copyright” clause in my contract as follows:

“Copyright for all work produced by text-centric remains the property of Charles Cuninghame until all monies due under this agreement have been paid in full.”

I’m not a lawyer either (although I do have a law degree!), but it’s my understanding that copyright laws are more powerful and immediate than contract law.

If some deadbeat client publishes your unpaid-for copy on a website, they’re infringing your copyright. So you could, for example, contact the website host and inform them of the copyright infringement and demand the offending pages/site be removed.

Hopefully that would encourage the client to pay. If not you could sue them for payment as well.

Ultimately it’s still a hassle, but the copyright angle gives you a bigger stick than suing for payment alone.

The other thing I think is important to include is a clause about kill fees. Here’s mine:

“Should you choose to cancel or put this project on hold at any time and for any reason, I will be entitled to full payment for all time invested to that point. ”

I also prefer to call my contract an “agreement”. Sounds less threatening.

I also include something about how I retain copyright until I get paid. For some reason that seems more ‘legal’ for some people.