Hi Reader! Do you ever avoid clear language because you want to keep things friendly? Sadly, skipping this up front is exactly what makes things tense later. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Where collaborations start with everyone trying to be nice, friendly, and avoid being the one to “make it formal”. And six months later, all the little things added up, and they felt burned or upset with the collaboration. Because clarity is not about making things legal or formal. It’s a gift you…
Starting a collaboration conversation doesn’t need to be awkward. These three short scripts help you start the collaboration, keep things moving forward, or regroup when the scope starts to shift.
Hi Reader! As I mentioned last week, the length of your contract should be proportional to the risks involved. This is something that many lawyers do instinctively after years of practice, but isn’t taught in law school. (And some lawyers never seem to learn this lesson!) The reality is that for short, one-off, low-risk relationships, a single-page contract often will suffice. But you might need a 3-4 page contract to cover all the important points in a longer, ongoing, higher-risk…
A collaboration contract does not have to be long or scary. In this video, I share a minimal collaboration agreement that’s just 14 sentences.
Unlock the mysteries of the public domain without legal jargon. In this guide for creatives, discover how to use, adapt, and create freely.
Hi Reader! The goal of a contract is to pre-determine what will happen when likely hiccups occur. But you can’t foresee everything. A contract also shouldn’t include ALL the unlikely hiccups that might happen, because then every contract would be dozens of pages long. So your goal needs to be to balance the length of your contract with the risks involved in this exact project. This means maybe in your formal client contracts, you want them to be several pages long so that you can cover all…
Three small mistakes cause big problems in collaborations. Learn what they are and the simple sentence you can use to fix each one right away.
Hi Reader! Collaborations are supposed to be fun, which is why we approach them differently than client work. With clients, we worry that they will treat us poorly. But with collaborators, we assume that everything will go smoothly. And so we don’t have the same conversations (or put the same contracts) in place before we dive in. That’s exactly what breaks most collaborations: unstated assumptions. And we only realize that we had different assumptions when something happens. When they use…
Learn the simple disconnect that causes most collaboration hiccups and the 6-sentence email script you can use to keep creativity moving.
Hi Reader! One myth that I try to dispel is that smooth working relationships are just plain luck. They are about putting the right guardrails in place, so your clients know what to expect and aren’t making assumptions about what you want/expect/need from them. Most clients aren’t bad. They just don’t know what “good” is to you. Which is why when I write contracts, I start our kickoff meeting with the question, In a perfect world, what’s the exact process someone would go through from the…
You do not need six separate documents to protect your creative business. You need a single, well-structured contract that matches your working style. Learn what it looks like and why it’s the foundation for a thriving creative business.
Most clients aren’t “bad”, they just are unaware or unsure of your boundaries. Why? Because your contract doesn’t hold up when things get messy. Learn how to write contract clauses that predetermine outcomes and protect your time, so you don’t end up renegotiating mid-project.
