Shane Ross at Little Frog in High Def wrote a post the other day titled HALF UP FRONT. It’s just some thoughts on a recent job he had done where he was paid half up front with the rest to be paid upon completion. Well it seems like the job won’t be finishing (Hmmm… imagine that in independent filmmaking) so Shane isn’t sure if he will be paid the remaining half or not. This is not at all uncommon in the freelance business and the half up front type of payment plan isn’t that uncommon either. Shane brings up a great point of discussion about how to charge for jobs and how to deal with getting paid.

The best part of the discussion though comes in the comments with posters telling stories about non-payment and how they have dealt with it. I think there’s a place out there for a while website devoted to stories no how self-employed people have tried to collect on outstanding invoices. Of course no one is saying one should take the law into their own hands and commit to practices that are unethical but there is something about being denied payment for a job you have worked hard for that just makes one extra angry. There’s two stories told in the comments on Shane’s post thus far (one of them being the peanut comment that I posted) so if you have any good, juicy stories of collecting (or trying to collect) for outstanding invoices click on over to Shane’s post and tell it in the comments. That’s as good a place and any to gather a bunch of them up! (Hope that’s okay Shane).