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The Invoice: Its Theory and Practice
(extract and ording info)

Regardless of whether you have a formal written contract with a publication or are simply leaving a one-sided paper trail on an assignment, invoicing is crucial. . . . You do not need to ask permission to submit an invoice; simply send one along to your editor when you've finished the job. No professional in any field has any right to object to submission of an invoice, and I've never had an editor object to receiving one.

Your invoice should look like an invoice, not a letter. That is, it should look like something that belongs on a bookkeeper's desk, not on an editor's. If in doubt, look at any invoice for services rendered that you get from anyone else -- your dentist, your auto repair shop, your electrician. No chat, totally impersonal: letterhead, invoice number, invoice date, client info (editor, publication, publication address), ID of job (title of essay or 5-10 word summary thereof, e.g., "Interview with Brad Pitt in Cuernavaca,"), length of essay (word count), date the assignment was accepted by you, date the final text was approved for publication by the editor, amount of payment due and terms in that regard (e.g., on submission, on acceptance, on publication, within 30 days), rights licensed (FNAPSR, or whatever), who to make the check out to, where to send the payment, and your Social Security number and birthdate.

This is everything that just about any accounting department needs in order to process a payment. Submitting such invoices will -- I guarantee -- improve your cash-flow speed and eliminate 95% of the problems you have with slow or delayed payments.

But it also serves another crucial function: It's the last and in some way the most critical scrap you leave along your paper trail. That's because in it you reiterate . .

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