Net payment terms · Writing
Net payment terms in writing: what is normal
Net-30 on acceptance is the healthy target for writers; the real trap is payment tied to publication, not a long net window.
Typical range
Net-15 to Net-30 from acceptance of the piece. Content and copy work often pays faster (on receipt to Net-15); editorial and larger publishers tend toward Net-30.
Off-market
"Payment on publication" with no outside date, or Net-60+. Payment on publication lets the client hold a finished, accepted piece indefinitely and owe nothing until they decide to run it.
One-line fix
"Payment is due Net-30 from acceptance of the manuscript, regardless of publication date."
What we see
For writers, the payment-terms problem is usually not the length of the net window but what the clock is attached to. "Payment on publication" is the clause that does the damage: a writer can deliver an accepted, edited piece and wait months, or forever, because publication is entirely the client's decision and there is no deadline on it.
The fix is to move payment from publication to acceptance. Acceptance is a question the writer can satisfy: did the work meet the brief. Publication is the client's business call. Separating the two means the writer is paid for doing the work, and the client still controls when or whether it runs.
Where a long net window genuinely applies (larger publishers often run Net-30 as a matter of accounting policy), that is usually fine as long as it is Net-30 from acceptance. The combination to refuse is a long window plus a publication trigger, which stacks two delays on top of each other with no guaranteed end.
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