It’s a good idea to have a contract in any business arrangement. When you hire a freelance writer, a contract protects your business and will make the writer feel more comfortable about the arrangement, too. Most professional freelance writers fully expect contracts.

A contract should outline:

• Your needs for the project
• Deadline
• How many rewrites (if any) are included before you incur additional charges
• What happens if the deadline isn’t met
• The pay rate
• What publication rights you are purchasing
• What happens if the work is not acceptable or you decide not to use it for any reason.

In some cases, clients offer a “kill fee” (a percentage of the total cost of the work) if they decide not to publish the articles even though the quality is acceptable and the writer followed all guidelines. If the writer doesn’t meet your needs or produce quality work to your specifications, the contract should put you under no obligation to pay him.

If you work with a quality content marketing agency, we will make sure you’re protected and will receive quality work from our talented staff of freelance writers.

Dawn Allcot is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.

Image from emuparkmuseum.org

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.