This article explains how to get paid by a newspaper or magazine for an article of yours which they have published, and it includes a pay statement for an article which I sold to a tabloid newspaper.
Firstly, you have to make sure that you have sold your article.
This might seem pretty obvious but if you are supplying several different articles to several different publications you have to check them all to find out if they have published your article.
They won’t advise you whether they have published them or not.
This isn’t because they are trying to steal your fee from you, it’s because they don’t have the time to do it.
As a matter of interest, some journalists and photojournalists work for agencies, as freelances.
These agencies check the various publications to see if they have used anything which their freelances have supplied to them.
This system works well, because freelances often don’t have time to check them.
Naturally, this isn’t a free service, the agency deducts a fee from their earnings.
But in return for this fee, they market their freelances’ work, which isn’t always easy.
Assuming that you aren’t working for an agency, you next have to send an invoice to the publication which has used your work.
Don’t supply a reference number, they will supply their own reference number.
In your invoice, state the title of the story.
This is the title which the publication has used, not any title which you may have used to describe your article.
Also, state the date on which it was published, and the page on which it was published.
You can also state the number of words in your article, and the published size of any photographs which were used.
But this isn’t essential, and it can be counter-productive, because it can give the impression that you don’t trust the publication to pay the correct fee to you.
There has to be trust, you have to trust each other.
Finally of course you supply your contact details; your address and ‘phone number.
