Hi,
I don't see why escrow.com wouldn't work for you (with one basic
exception, see below):
Customer checks your site and decides to use your service;
Customer sends you manuscript;
You make a fixed offer for your editing and set a delivery date (1);
Customer accepts and makes escrow deposit;
When you have been advised of this, you do your thing;
You deliver edited text;
Customer releases escrow deposit;
And you have your money.
(1) "fixed offer" or one based on something measurable from the
text; lines/pages edited. Time worked can't be a measure, since the
customer would have no way to control that.
Now the exception: Your product cannot be examined in advance since
it is tailor made You do great work, and the potential customer is
satisfied from what he has seen of your past work, but he can't be
sure that your work for him will be that good, and he won't know until
you have done it. If he is disastisfied, or only claims that he is
...? You're out the time spent.
I don't know how you deal with this eventuality now, if you are already in
business, but it seems to me that you should require a healthy
downpayment, 1/3 or 1/2 of your fee: enough to induce you to take the
risk of starting the job, enough to make him think that it is cheaper
to go ahead and accept your work and release the escrow for the
balance of your fee, rather than starting all over again with another
editor. If he uses your edited text without releasing the escrow, you
will have evidence to justify claiming it.
But maybe I am worrying about a hypothetical problem, but it could easily occur.
BUT any other escrow system would still have to deal with this
problem, so I don't think that there could be one better suited for
you.
Am I completely off-track? |
