2005 - 09-15-05

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.

The preponderance of how you get
screwed out of money from clients is...

#2: "Under-Exploitation Of Your Work"

What I
mean by this is, you write something with a high ROI
(Return On Investment) but your client proceeds with almost
criminal caution. If it's a direct mail piece, maybe he'll
mail 5,000 letters and get $5 for every dollar he spends. But then he won't want to mail any other letters until he
tests a blue reply envelope against the white reply envelope
used in the test.

Or, maybe he will fear getting an
abnormal amount of refunds and he'll wait forever to make a
second mailing until he feels safe he's not going to
get a 70 or 80% refund rate.

Or,
maybe he has a merchant account with an absurd limit of only $10,000...
and...
you have given him a mailing piece, newspaper ad or website
that will gross much more in half a day.

Or, maybe he
will be stupid about customer service and making refunds and
get closed down by an alphabet agency before he really gets
the project going.

Most likely, however, your client will
suffer from a built-in mental barrier which makes him very
uncomfortable if he happens to be taking in large amounts of
money.

Of all the times you get screwed by clients from
simple theft... you will get screwed 50 times as often... by
people who don't have the brains, the balls or the skills to
properly exploit the money-making possibilities of the
advertising you have given them.