Breaking and Entering 129 Getting Paid Large companies use a voucher or invoicing system. Some of them provide you with vouch- ers, which are a type of invoice that you submit when you turn in work. Other publishers might require you to invoice on your own letterhead, and at other companies the editors may take care of the invoicing for you. You'll have to find out what the procedure is for the com- pany that hires you. It will be up to you to track pending payments to make sure you get paid on time. When it's a work-for-hire situation, you'll receive a contract first. Your contract must specify how your payments are broken out, what you have to turn in for each payment, how long they can take to pay you, and whether they have to accept or approve your work before you'll be paid. Be sure your contract sets a specific time for approval or acceptance of work that's turned in. Otherwise your payment could sit in limbo while you wait for an editor to accept your work or ask for revisions. The larger companies offer royalties or incentives that will be based on how well your book sells. You might have a royalty that kicks in only when your book sells a certain num- ber of copies, so you should do some research and try to determine how well certain books sell (this is not easy info to come by, I should add). Sales of comics have fallen tremendously over the past couple of decades. Setting a royalty that doesn't kick in until a book sells five hundred thousand copies a month, for example, means it's highly unlikely you'll ever see a