Terms & Conditions

1. What these Terms and Conditions are
By contracting with me to write for you, you acknowledge that you have been offered the opportunity to read these Terms and Conditions and agree to be bound by them. When you contract with me to write for you, you acknowledge that as the basis for the contract between us, these Terms and Conditions take precedent over any other Terms and Conditions, (and Purchase Order Systems Conditions which form part of and are subject to your own Terms and Conditions) express or implied, and regardless of whether it is your general practice to conduct similar engagements under your own Terms and Conditions. If you hire me to write for you, you are contracting with Oliver Henderson, a UK Sole Trader who trades as 'Olicopy'.

3. Contracting with me if you work for a marketing services or web development agency
If you contract with me on behalf of a marketing services, IT consultancy or web development agency of any kind, to work on a project for one of your clients, a contract will exist only between me and the marketing services, IT consultancy or web development agency, and not between me and any client of the marketing services, IT consultancy or web development agency. You agree to indemnify me against any claim by any client of the marketing services, IT consultancy or web development agency for compensation or damages brought about as a direct or indirect consequence of the use, or inability or unwillingness to use, the material which I write for you. If you contract with me on behalf of a marketing services, IT consultancy or web development agency of any kind, you attest that you are authorised to enter into a contract on behalf of that marketing services, IT consultancy or web development agency.

4. Me contracting directly with one of your clients
If you represent a marketing services, IT consultancy or web development agency of any kind, and wish me to work on a project for one of your clients, but wish me to contract directly with that client, then a contract, subject to agreement, will exist between your client company and me, and you acknowledge that I am free to conduct and further develop a direct relationship with that client without reference to you, and without compensation or commission of any kind being payable. In such a case, I affirm that I will not seek to sell to your client services, other than copywriting, which they have at any time previously purchased from you.

5. The work I do for the fee we agree
My standard pricing model is intended to be one of 'locked pricing'. That means that once we've agreed the fee, I aim to support the copy until you are entirely happy with it, without any further fee being due. This includes rewriting from scratch after you have viewed the initial draft, if you feel that that is what you'd like me to do. In order to avoid the possibility of this policy being abused, the service of which you are contractually assured for the price we agree is defined as and limited to: preparation of first draft; submission of first draft; integration of your feedback to allow preparation of second draft; submission of second draft. However, please note that revisions based on a change in the project made after the first draft is submitted may incur an additional fee. Also, unless otherwise agreed, my fee includes time spent attending your briefing/s (if deemed necessary) and any travelling expenses incurred.

6. My Guarantee
My aim is to do you a great job, for the fee that we agree, and to send you away so happy that you come back again. Indeed, the vast majority of my projects run very smoothly, and the majority of my clients come back for more work. In any creative process, however, there can be misunderstandings. If, when you see a draft, you are dissatisfied with the work that I have written for you, please discuss it with me and I will do everything that I can to resolve your concerns. In the end, if you have given me proper opportunity to address your concerns (defined as working in genuine collaboration with me through at least 3 additional draft submissions after you inform me in writing of your dissatisfaction after receipt of the second draft copy I write for you), and still consider that I have failed to deliver work which is suitable for your purpose when measured against the requirements of your brief, you will be free to terminate our contract with no payment whatsoever being due. If you have made part payment in advance, this will be reimbursed to you. This is entirely without prejudice, and no liability or admission of failure or inability to complete the contract on my part is implied. In such circumstance, you undertake to make no use whatsoever of any material contained in any draft which I have prepared for you. In such circumstance, you agree to absolve me of all responsibility for any loss of income or for any costs or damages suffered by you or by any third party as a result of any delay which has been caused to your business or to the business of any third party.

7. Payment terms
My standard trading terms are that I will invoice you either following submission of the second draft copy, or within 10 working days of submitting a first draft copy to you, if I have not received comments or amendments, under which circumstances, I will assume that you have accepted the first draft copy as it stands. Payment will fall due at 30 days unless we have expressly agreed otherwise in writing. Unless previously agreed otherwise, invoices will be sent electronically. If the entity to be invoiced is a UK Limited Company, under exceptional circumstances, I may, at my discretion, reserve the right to seek a proportion of the fee to be paid in advance of my starting work on your project. The balance will be due within 30 days of my final invoice. If the entity to be invoiced is not a UK Limited Company I may, at my discretion, ask you to pay 50% of the project fee in advance of commencement of the work. In this circumstance, the balance of the fee will be invoiced on commencement and fall due at 30 days. You will make payment by cheque to the payee and address shown on the invoice, unless we have agreed that you will make an electronic funds payment directly into my account, and you or your accounts department have taken any steps necessary to obtain from me the details required to facilitate this, or I have agreed that you will make an online payment and this has been successfully received. The existence of an 'end of following month' payment practice in your company's handling of accounts payable will in no way alter your obligation to make payment on the due date shown on my invoice. Once a project is started, the fee we have agreed between us for the full project is deemed to be incurred unless we have specifically agreed payment milestones. You have no right to withhold or reduce payment based on your critical response to, or appraisal of, the copy I write for you, and you acknowledge my right to pursue payment in full should you elect for any reason to do this.

8. Late Payment
I am a signatory to the Better Payment Practice Code. Where payment is not received within 5 working days of the due date shown on the invoice, I reserve the right to charge interest. This will be applied in line with the DTi 'Better Payment Practice' guidelines of 8% plus the prevailing Bank of England reference rate. The current Bank of England reference rate for the period 1st Jan 2009 until 30 June 2009 is 2%, making a total interest rate chargeable of 10%. Under the Terms of the guidelines and associated legislation, a compensation payment may also be due. Where payment is not received within 60 working days of the due date shown on the invoice, the invoice will be subjected to legal action and recovery proceedings. Note: I reserve the right to commute or cancel any ongoing writing contract I have with you in the event of a non-payment issue arising at any point.

9. Cancellation
If a project is cancelled by you after written confirmation has been received either in e-mail or letter form, but before the first draft has been submitted, a cancellation fee of 50% of the total agreed fee will be due. If it is cancelled after the submission of the first draft, the agreed fee will be payable in full. This does not affect your statutory rights, nor your rights under the terms of my Guarantee (6, above) which protects you in the situation where, after a fair and proper process of collaboration, you feel that the copy I have delivered is not suitable for your purpose.

11. Delivery dates
I do my utmost to ensure that deadlines and milestones are met punctually, and almost always manage this. From time to time, however, my workload may cause me to need to put back delivery dates a little. Where this is necessary, I will always seek to agree it with you first. I reserve the right, however, to put back any milestone or delivery date by up to 48 hours, providing that I have given you notice of this at least 24 hours before the date originally agreed.

13. Passing over of your own copy draft
As part of the brief for your project, your may ask me to view a copy draft which you have written yourself, or which has been written for you by somebody else. If you send me such draft copy, you affirm that you are the copyright holder, or that you are authorised by the copyright holder to permit all or part of this material to form a part of the new copyright work which I will create for you. In such a case you indemnify me against any claim arising from subsequent suggestion that the new work in any way breaches any existing copyright. In any situation where you do ask me to view an existing copy draft as part of the briefing, you acknowledge that the draft which I will write for you may bear similarities in all or part to this draft, but that in such a case the draft I write for you will be considered as an original work under the terms of our contract, without regard for the existence of the original draft.

14. Referencing other people's content
If you send me research or sample copy taken from someone else's printed collateral or site as an indication of what you want, I will make every effort to ensure that the draft that I prepare for you in no way breaches the copyright of the content owner. However, you indemnify me against any action arising, directly or indirectly, as a result of use of this content as reference material.

15. Your right to use the copy I write for you
When you commission me to write copy for you, you are purchasing the copyright in the work I write for you, and this is assigned to you on receipt by me of full and final payment of all fees due. I reserve the right to use the copy or extracts of the copy for self-promotion or advertising purposes unless specifically forbidden to do so by a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement.

16. If you are a copywriting agency, writing agency or other such company
If you are a copywriting agency, writing agency or other such company that commissions copywriting/writing projects, I am only liable to pay you your agreed percentage commission once payment has been made in full by the client for whom you have asked me to write. If the client pays only a partial amount of the initial agreed full fee (and no more), then I am only liable to pay you the agreed percentage commission established between us (i.e. your agency and I) at the outset of that partially paid fee by the client.

17. Errors and literals
I make every effort to ensure that copy is free of spelling mistakes and other literals. Early drafts may sometimes contain such errors, and my practice is to ensure that these are removed before a final draft is submitted to you. However, the responsibility for checking for spelling mistakes and literals is yours, and you absolve me of responsibility for any costs incurred as a result of the appearance of such errors in the final published form of any collateral in which you use the copy concerned, whether or not these errors appeared in any draft of the copy supplied by me.

18. My collaboration with other copywriters
When you contract with us to write copy for you, you acknowledge that I may, from time to time, engage the services of other competent professional copywriters to help me deliver all or part of the work which you require. In such a case, I undertake to review and amend the work before it is presented to you, and to ensure that the work is of the quality and professionalism you would expect had I written it in its entirety myself.