Legal procedure?

A new client (from a referral) wants me to translate a book from French to English. The problem is, the client doesn’t want to pay upfront. He offered to give me a 50% recurring commission from the book’s sales. I like the offer as the book’s idea looks good and promising. I haven’t worked with this client before so I cannot totally trust him, especially that he’s living way too far to establish a physical contact. Are there any official legal precautions I can take to hold the client accountable in case he refuses to pay me after I finish translating the book and he starts selling it?

Nerva said:

A new client (from a referral) wants me to translate a book from French to English. The problem is, the client doesn’t want to pay upfront. He offered to give me a 50% recurring commission from the book’s sales. I like the offer as the book’s idea looks good and promising. I haven’t worked with this client before so I cannot totally trust him, especially that he’s living way too far to establish a physical contact. Are there any official legal precautions I can take to hold the client accountable in case he refuses to pay me after I finish translating the book and he starts selling it?

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Depends, does he live in a country in the EU or US etc.? You need a country that actually enforces contacts, if so you could get a contract drafted and have him digitally sign in (use one of the services). Good luck

I will say no to such an offer.

Is he the copyright holder or Author of the book?
Also this isn't a good deal for you at this stage, if he doesn't have the rights to sell the book then it probably won't be available for too long.
You should charge him a fixed rate or 50% upfront and then a percentage based on sales if you prefer.

Get a contract. Either write it up yourself or hire a lawyer to do it. You can find free templates online and just modify to fit your needs. Make sure that both parties sign it, and that both parties get a copy of it with both signatures on it.

Try to determine how long it will take you to translate this thing, in terms of hours spent actually working. Do some research to see if there is even any demand for this book. If you spend 100 hours rewriting this book, and it gets only 50 sales at $20 a pop, that's $1,000 you get half of, so you're working under US minimum wage at that point.

Know that doing a no-upfront deal is risky in itself. I have been burned on that before, multiple times sadly. One of them was recently, a guy who ran a startup, and had the startup mentality, and wouldn't pay me what I was owed for reputation management work until months after the invoice was due, because I got paid after his investors paid up. I didn't want my income tied to the salesmanship of his startup, and after over a year got sick of chasing him for invoices, so I cut ties.

I suggest requesting some form of money upfront, to ensure that your client is actually serious about this project, or if this is simply a joint venture where the other party hands all the actual labor off to someone else (you) and then walks away with 50% simply for selling the thing.

People have a tendency to not give a shit about something if they don't have to put their money where their mouth is to make a working product.

He knows that royalties from the translation won't amount to dogshit as his main audience speaks and reads in English. He's doing it for status HARD PASS

If I were you, I would also tell him to go fuck himself, but that's just my way of doing things

Get a contract written up? I'd also not go on commission only. I'd set a price then ask for a lower commission price.

Could you be bothered to try and enforce a contract across borders? It probably just isn't worth it. Why not try the Escrow route. That way you will probably find he doesnt have the money to pay you until he has sold some. He needs you, not the other way around.

I completely agree with @Sherb
You cannot just work without getting anything upfront. This is 21 century, you can hardly find people who can keep promises especially when money is involved. You need to make it with a binding and enforceable contract along with some upfront money. Even the person who referred you this client cannot say anything else "sorry bro, I did not know he'll turn out like that" Spending hundreds of man hours on something and then getting nothing burns a hole in the heart for a very long time. Trust me you do not want to cross that bridge. I've done that not once but thrice! Hard lessons learnt everytime.