2005 - 09-15-05

One last thing on this subject: Recently, we
had a truly "banner" day for news. More bodies were being uncovered
in New Orleans. The problems caused all along the Gulf
Coast states were being covered in minute detail. Hurricane
Ophelia was pounding North Carolina with a vengeance. A very
large tropical disturbance was brewing in the Caribbean, and it looked like it was going to morph into a strong hurricane, and
head straight for Florida (it's almost here now), and
eventually make other landfalls along the
coastline of the United States. (Not much mystery about this
hurricane. It, like the others, is going to tear the ass out
of us once again.) Plus, other headline news that day were there were more casualties in Iraq
than any day since the war began. Also, two major
airlines filed for bankruptcy. I can guarantee you, there
was a
whole lot more horrible shit happened of which I am
blissfully unaware.

It doesn't seem to be getting better. So, you know what? I'm going to do my best
to put these tragedies out of my mind (at least until "Rita"
blows me off my balcony) and get back to doing what I do
best... which is... teaching people how to be more
effective at...

Operation Moneysuck!

Let's say you are a copywriter and you want
to make a lot of money from the words you write. One way to
do this is to simply be a freelance copywriter and sell your
work to one or more clients. You can write for a set fee... or...
you can write and get paid a percentage of gross or net
sales... or... you can do a combination and charge a certain
amount up front plus X percentage of gross or net sales.

There are a lot of good clients out there who will pay you a
good amount of money in return for you creating good advertising
copy for them.

But, there are also a lot of bad clients who will screw you one way or another out of the
financial rewards of your hard-earned work. How shalt thy be
screwed?

There are two main ways:

#1: "Simple Theft"

You do the work, give it to
the client and he simply doesn't pay you. Or maybe he will
pay you your up-front fee but not the percentage from the sales
you are supposed to get (which can amount to an awful lot of
money). Almost every copywriter I know has been screwed in
this fashion. But the truth is, "Simple Theft" is the least significant
way you get screwed.