I feel like I must have covered this topic before but I just did a search of this blog and didn't spot it. Forgive me if this is a rerun. If it is, I bet I say pretty much the same thing I said the last time because this is a topic about which I've long held strong feelings.
Financial technology continues to improve in this country. I can sit at this here computer and transfer funds between my accounts or to the accounts of others. I can purchase stocks or securities in an instant. I can pay my property tax and my cable bill in five seconds. It's really amazing how rapidly people can now handle financial transactions.
But you know what transaction isn't speeding up? Paying writers.
I have been, as you may be sick of hearing me remind you here, a professional writer since 1969. I have worked for at least four hundred different companies including both publishers and producers, and I would guess that in less than twenty relationships, I have been paid with the same promptness they expect of me in turning in the work.
Matter of fact, a surprising (well, maybe not so surprising) percentage of the time, I find myself working for this kind of operation: They get hysterical at the sheer possibility that my script might be a day late…and then the part where they pay me is done with the attitude of "Hey, we'll get around to it one of these months."
It has never been too bad for me in TV jobs covered by the Writers Guild, especially when I had an agent who didn't get his cut until I got my pay. It has sometimes been very bad in magazine work, comic books and non-WGA animation work…though never on those shows I write about the lasagna-eating cat. Years ago on a panel about comics, someone asked us to list some of the qualities of a good editor. We all talked a lot about wisdom and efficiency and understanding…and I added this one: When your check is late, a good editor doesn't say, "That's some other department. I have nothing to do with that."
I worked for one company where you'd hand in the work and you were lucky if the check got to you before your sample copies of the published book. I asked the head guy there once why they couldn't just set it up so that if we turned in an assignment on Monday morning, someone wrote a check on Monday afternoon — or Tuesday at the latest. He grinned, said that wasn't humanly or otherwise possible, and with a certain glee, launched into an explanation that sounded something like this…
We worked out a very efficient system. When you hand in a script, the assistant editor fills out a blue form which is then initialed by the editor and it goes to our editorial coordinator who assigns a pay number to the job, then sends it down to Beulah in accounting. Assuming Beulah isn't on one of her bi-monthly jaunts to the Barbados, she stamps the blue form then makes out a check requisition form which goes back to the editorial coordinator who verifies the pay number, signs off on the form and then sends it to the outside accounting firm that processes our checks. Every Thursday afternoon at 3 PM, a man named Pedro at the outside firm processes all the check requisition forms he's received in the past week. If one doesn't bear the proper signatures, it of course has to be kicked back to us and made out again but if it does, he enters the data in the computer which prints out the checks downstairs for handling by a woman from Luxembourg named Helena. Helena checks the printed checks against the blue forms which have been sent over separately and if they match, she passes them on to the head of company who stops by every so often between hair transplants to okay the mailing of the checks. Once okayed, the check goes to the mailing room for addressing, which is done every third Monday of the month except for April, August and October when the mailing room closes for internal auditing. Once addressed, the envelopes and checks are matched up and they go to the sealing department where there's a whole staff of people with moist tongues to seal the envelopes, affix the postage and then one of them drops the checks in a mailbox on his or her way home. If they remember.
You can do it that way. Or you could just have one person write and mail a check.
That is a lot more do-able than they admit. When I ran the Hanna-Barbera comic book department in the seventies, I insisted on speedy payment and it was no trouble at all to set that up. I would fill out a little form and drop it off at the payroll department. If I got it in before 2 PM, the check would be ready within an hour. If I got it in after 2 PM, the check would be ready the next day. Some freelancers who worked for us would come in, drop off the work and go home with a check. At worst, they'd receive it by mail in two days.
A number of the artists drawing for us were super-reliable — folks like Paul Norris, Mike Royer and Dan Spiegle. Mike and Dan mailed their work in but Paul usually delivered it in person. I'd put through the form a day or two early and then when he handed me the pages, I'd hand him the check. Or if I hadn't put it through early, he'd come in before lunch, we'd go to lunch and then when we got back to the office, his check was waiting.
We did not do it this way because Paul (or most of our freelancers) desperately needed the check immediately. Most could have waited a week or three without missing a meal or a mortgage payment. It was just a courtesy to the reliable ones, a way of thanking them for delivering on time. It also, I'm quite sure, spurred the semi-reliable ones to be more reliable…and prolific. There was one artist who was drawing for us and also working for Western Publishing on their Gold Key comics and I wanted him to do more for us. He did once he realized how fast we paid. The rates were the same but Western took 2-3 weeks to get him a check.
I don't like being in a position where I'm responsible for people getting paid but when I am, that's how I try to arrange things. When I edited/wrote DNAgents and Crossfire for Eclipse Comics, I paid the artists immediately and then Eclipse paid me after I delivered the finished issue. On The Garfield Show, the cartoon I produce and voice-direct, we record shows on Monday and/or Tuesday. A payroll company out in Burbank prints out the checks on Thursday and messengers them to me for distribution to the actors' agents. Once in a while, an actor who's short on funds will come over and get his or hers that day or I'll have my assistant drive it over to them or their agency. I'm sure in these days, we could even set up direct-deposit if a payee wished it.
Still, when I've suggested this to many animation and comic book companies, I've gotten back looks of horror. "It can't be done," they'd say…and I understand why a few of them said this. They didn't want to pay promptly. They either didn't have a good cash flow or they liked the idea of making another nickel in interest off that money — and that's about how much they could make — by keeping it in the bank another week or two before paying it out. There was one publisher who seemed to like the sense of subservience (he obviously thought) it instilled in writers.
Mostly though, they just don't seem to think it matters. "People are clamoring to work for us," one animation producer said when I suggested same-day checks. Well, it matters to the folks getting the check. It also seems to improve accuracy to have the money paid immediately without passing through a dozen hands and departments.
It especially matters (and would help) if you were running a small, new publishing firm. Writers and artists like working for big, established outfits because they figure that, no matter what happens, the money will be there. You may not be paid for a few weeks but you'll be paid. It's tough to write or draw something if you're nervous that isn't going to happen; that by the time you hand it in to the company, there won't be any company. A small company could counter that worry to a large extent by being super-prompt with payments. I wish more of them would try it. I wish everyone would pay writers more promptly because, damn it, we deserve it. Some of us, anyway.