It was a letter of apology and a check. I suppose I should be grateful, but I'm not. You see the check was for 1/5 the amount it was supposed to be for!
Back in July of last year I wrote an article for .NET Magazine about .NET Remoting (I'd link the article if I could figure out how to get to the magazine archives). The article was published in the November 2002 issue.
So, for you math wizards out there I have a math problem for you:
A developer turned author writes an article for a magazine in July 2002, the article is then published in November 2002. The developer gets 1/5 of his payment for the article in June 2003. When will the developer get all the money he is due?
If anyone out there has the answer to this question I'd love to hear it; because at this rate I should have all my money about the same time Longhorn ships!
Now don't get me wrong. It was nice getting a letter that was singed by James personally apologizing for the delay in payment (I'm sure he had to sign 5000 of them), but I want him to know something: Times are bad for everyone! Not just Fawcette. The quickest way for your magazine to tank is to not pay the people who provide you content!
I would love to write for Fawcette again. In fact, after I submitted the article on .NET Remoting I was preparing another article. But once I saw I wasn't getting paid I stopped working on it. Now I blog.
I'd rather do this anyway... =)
Update: Thanks to Phil for locating the link to my article, and for providing a little insight on FTP's position. If someone at FTP would have explained it that way a long time ago, I wouldn't have so much pent up anger at them... I cannot tell you the number of times I've called FTP, left messages, only to not recieve a call back (it's way more than 30). Thanks Phil!
[Listening to: Skinny Puppy - Too Dark Park]