Skip to content
FixMyContract
All guides

For writers & authors

Before you sign that writing contract, check these three things.

A writing agreement names a word count, a deadline and a fee. The clauses that matter more are further down: which rights the publisher takes and for how long, what happens if the piece is not used, and whether you can publish related work elsewhere.

Freelance Article Agreement.pdfPage 1 of 3
Example
High risk— review carefully before you sign

This writing agreement takes every right in the article and pays only if it is published.

Lower riskHigher risk
Against youHigh · IP

All rights, everywhere, forever

This is every right the article has, with nothing coming back to you: no reprint, no anthology, no later collection.

Ask for

Ask for first publication rights, or an exclusive period after which the rights return to you.

  • Paid only if it is publishedMedium · Payment
  • “Similar work” with no end dateMedium · Restrictions
See the full sample analysis →

The numbers

In May 2025, there were 47,940 wage and salary jobs for writers and authors in the U.S., with a median annual wage of $76,910.

Median hourly wage, U.S., May 2025: writers and authors ($36.98) and 28 other occupations these pages cover. Each dot is one occupation's median.

These figures count jobs, not people, and do not include self-employed work — so they say little about how many writers and authors work freelance or run their own business.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025, national estimates for SOC 27-3043. Public domain.

Rights granted, kill fees and competing work

  1. Rights granted — “All rights, in all media, worldwide, forever” is very different from first publication rights. Check exactly what is granted and whether any rights come back to you.
  2. Kill fee — If the piece is accepted but not published, or dropped after you deliver, look for a kill fee rather than nothing.
  3. Competing work — A clause barring “similar work” with no end date can limit what you write next. Check its scope and length.

Check the agreement before you file

Writing contracts are often decided by one sentence about rights. Free: one analysis every 30 days, no card. Each analysis gives a risk read of the key clauses, quotes the contract's own words for its findings, and turns each flagged clause into a specific ask.

Analyze my contract — free
  • Encrypted in transit & at rest
  • Files auto-deleted after 30 days
  • Never used to train models
  • Informational — not legal advice

Keep reading