Dear Charles,
Please accept my sincere apologies for the late payment of your invoice.
Eulogy has recently undergone a major restructuring after the departures of our features editor and three non-productive directors. I became a director after their departures and have looked to sort out the mess they left me with. In addition, a close colleague has recently passed away after a long and painful illness.
Whilst it is still unacceptable to process your invoice so late, these are the reasons why your invoice was unfortunately overlooked. It was in no way deliberate or malicious, and it is certainly not Eulogy’s policy to delay payment to contributing writers.
I’d like to thank you again for your support of Eulogy and also for your excellent article. Of course, we would welcome future comments and ideas you and your readers might have.
A cheque in payment of your invoice is in the post. I trust that this is a satisfactory resolution and that you will make notifications through your social media to this effect.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Ryan
Dear Charles
I’m glad that this matter seems to have been resolved.
Peter says that he welcomes ideas from your readers. It is clear from his letter that everything hasn’t run smoothly with Eulogy. I would like to hear about Peter’s learning from this, to the degree that it is related to attitudes towards grief, death and dying.
Also I and some commentators on this blog seem to have formed an opinion of Eulogy in part based on comments in Media Week* that “There’s a huge opportunity for a grief brand”. This doesn’t feel quite right to me. I’d really like to hear Peter’s views on this too.
Jon
* http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/1003028/Nakeds-Thornton-launches-first-death-mag/