Don’t Throw That Contract Away!
We’re always told to keep our workspaces clean, and in the interest of getting rid of extra paper, it might be tempting to toss out freelance contracts once the article has been published and the check has been cashed.
However, if you ever want to negotiate rights, ask for an increase in pay or see if you can re-sell your work, you’ll want to hold onto all those old contracts.
Granted, though, that is a lot of filing, especially if your freelancing career is long and illustrious. I asked a few writers how they organize, though. “I have all my contracts dating back to the mid-eighties, along with comp copies of the magazines and newspapers, filed. The oldest ones are stored, but I keep my most recent ones, say five years old or so and up, where I can get to them if I need to (for reprint rights info, etc.)” says writer Anne C. Watkins.
Elizabeth Hanes says, “I like to keep my original contracts as a historical record, and I figured keeping them with my tax returns was a safe bet, to refresh my memory about income sources in the event of an audit! Each year, I photocopy that year’s batch of contracts, then I attach the originals to my income taxes for long-term storage (I don’t file the contracts with my taxes; I keep them like business-related receipts), and the rest I file alphabetically by market name in a “contracts” file.”
“I keep all of them and will forever. It helps me to remember which rights I sold! I staple the contract to the back of a manilla folder, add any interview material or notes and file,” says freelancer Catherine L. Tully.
The point is, hold onto these documents, because you never know when you might need to reference them again.
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