John Soares, author of Writing College Textbook Supplements
We love teaching college and we love college students, and we love writing college textbook supplements and ancillaries because they help instructors teach better and students learn better.
We also love getting paid for our work, so let’s look at typical payment schedules.
Half up Front, Half on Completion
This is my preferred method and what I get nearly all the time. However, you need to have a good track record in the business before editors will be comfortable with this. Editors are loath to give money up front to a supplement author. I’ve heard stories of editors who gave money up front to a would-be supplement author, and then never got a bit of work out of the impostor.
Payment upon Fractional Completion
This is quite common and most editors will agree to it. Typically the work is divided into halves, thirds, or quarters. With quarters, for example, when you finish the first one-fourth of the work, the publisher will process payment for one-fourth of the payment.
Payment upon Completion of Entire Project
This means you don’t get paid until the entire project is complete and acceptable to the editor. Avoid this if possible, but you may need to do this if you’re just starting out. I typically only do it for editors I know and for small projects that I’ll complete within a couple of weeks. That way the paperwork for payment only needs to be done once, and it’s not a large sum of money.
Typical Payment Time
Ask your editor for the typical amount of time it takes between the time you request a payment and the check lands in your mailbox. It typically ranges between two and eight weeks, and tends toward the longer estimate.
(This article is based on Chapter 4, “Negotiating Payment,” and Chapter 9, “Accounting Details,” from John Soares’ e-book Writing College Textbook Supplements: The Definitive Guide to Winning High-Paying Assignments in the College Textbook Publishing Market. You can download the Detailed Table of Contents and first two chapters for free.)
What are your results regarding payment schedules?
