I am a long-time writer who was laid off from my job, and admittedly desperate. I saw that this company was seeking writers for books on a variety of topics on a journalism job site. I applied and was hired immediately, without an interview or request for references, to write a "how-to" book. I signed a contract stipulating that I would be pair $1,400 for the book, which seemed like an easy subject. After I signed the contract, I was informed that another writer had previously been assigned to this book, but had dropped out because she just "couldn't handle it, " a company rep told me. The company sent the outline the former writer had composed, and I realized that this was not an "easy subject" by any means, nor was this designed to be a "how-to" book and, under the circumstances, the deadlines were insane. It was to be very involved, and time-consuming. So I began to get suspicious. The company also proceeded to alter the deadlines, asking that I submit my work sooner than the contract stipulated. I did complete the first stage, which was an outline, and submitted it. The contract stipulated that I was to be paid for the work within three days, but I was not paid within that time frame. The project manager claimed that the company was "backed up." Meanwhile, the second stage of 20,000 words was due in three weeks. Considering the complexity of the book, which I had not been aware of when I accepted the assignment, I realized this was unrealistic. So the company "compromised, " by asking me to have 10,000 words submitted instead of 20,000, but a week earlier. Meanwhile, I still hadn't been paid for stage one, and the project manager then encouraged me to send in what I had done thus far (which was 5,000 words) a week before the deadline for the 10,000 words. I balked at this because I still hadn't been paid for what I had already completed (the outline). She claimed she was just doing me a "favor" by looking at this. Then the alarms really started to go off. That's when I did a search and found the complaint against this company on this site. I informed the company of this, and asked that they renegotiate my contract. I immediately received an e-mail saying that the company had decided not to go ahead with the book because they weren't aware of just how complex it would be, but I would be paid for stage one, a whopping $140, after working my butt off for a month.in addition to working insane hours, I had also interviewed a number of well-known experts. I was so embarrassed! Thank goodness I didn't send the company anything more than the outline. Otherwise, I would have been in quite a lot of hot water. Beyond that, considering that I poured my heart and soul into this project, this is utterly heart-breaking. I hope to help others avoid the same fate.
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