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Message: <blockquote data-quote="L R Ballard" data-source="post: 6996638" data-attributes="member: 40307">Greetings,Note: Please keep in mind that I am not a lawyer. I am a university lecturer who runs a freelance editing business for academics, so this post should not be construed as legal advice. One who acts on the advice contained herein does so at his own risk and absolves me of liability.I edit and proof academic manuscripts. Before starting a project, I email my clients an agreement that states the details of the project. The details include a bulleted list of all work that I will perform. Project details assure my clients that I know what I'm doing and that they get what they pay for.The agreement also includes a deadline for completion of the project. One sentence names the governing authority that will resolve a legal case should a dispute arise, i.e., "the United Kingdom" or the "state of New York."Often, I use one or more freelancers to help me with bibliographies or indexes. A freelancer is bound to the same agreement that I email to my client. Sometimes, if my client requires a nondisclosure agreement, my freelance helper(s) must agree to the NDA. My NDA is more specific than the one given in the example above.My agreements come from top copywriters in the field of Business to Business copywriting. For example, the copywriter Bob Bly offers "The Copywriter's Toolkit," which includes a sample freelance agreement. Bly allows purchasers of the toolkit to use the agreement verbatim. I have added parts of it to my own agreement.Please see the landing page for Bly's "Copywriter's Toolkit" here:<a href="http://www.copywritersforms.com/" target="_blank">http://www.copywritersforms.com/</a> The agreement that I use in my business comes from Steve Slaunwhite's module "How to Price, Quote, and Win B2B Writing Projects." Steve's module also includes an agreement that he allows buyers to use verbatim. I have adapted Steve's agreement to fit the needs of my business.<a href="http://www.awaionline.com/b2b/pricing/learn/how-to-quote-projects/" target="_blank">http://www.awaionline.com/b2b/pricing/learn/how-to-quote-projects/</a>I know the above resources sound expensive, but they are worth it for freelance professionals. Last year, my editing business earned more than I make in a semester teaching at a top university in the US. Those agreements have helped me to help fifteen clients, most of them PhDs, publish their manuscripts with top-tier academic presses. The process always goes smoothly when I use an agreement like the ones from the products above.So, I recommend that the author of this post invest in a copywriter's resource of some kind so that he will include in his agreements information about project details, deadlines, and so forth.Best,LRB</blockquote>

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