SIX VOLUMES — ONE PER WAY IT GOES WRONG
Find the one
you're in.
Client work goes wrong in six directions. Each volume takes one of them, from the first small sign to the last resort, with the email already written at every step.
START FROM WHAT HAPPENED
Not a category.
A Tuesday.
Three of the situations from each volume, written the way they actually arrive. If one of them is your week, that is your volume.
- The invoice's due date passed today. You haven't sent anything yet, and the client hasn't reached out either.
- The client responded to your invoice with "Accounting is processing it" — no date attached.
- The client paid half the invoice and said the rest would come "later" — no date given.
- This is the third small out-of-scope request this month — each one reasonable alone, but they're stacking up.
- The scope has grown over the last few weeks, but the original deadline is still on the table, unchanged.
- A new stakeholder has joined the project and wants to revisit decisions that were already signed off weeks ago.
- You sent a quote or proposal, and it's been quiet since — no reply, no questions, nothing declining it either.
- You sent over the latest round of work, and there's been no feedback yet — no approval, no requested changes, nothing.
- Emails to this client go unanswered, but they respond quickly on text or messenger when something comes up there instead.
- In a meeting with the client's team or manager present, the client blames you for something without any basis in the record.
- The file sent to the client has a mistake in it — something missing or a typo — that you noticed shortly after sending.
- The client's own onboarding document covers deliverables and timeline in detail, but says nothing about expected contact hours.
- Before any scope has been discussed, the client leads with a fixed budget number and asks what can be done within it.
- This client got a discount on the last project, and now a new project comes with the same request for a lower rate.
- A quote with a real number was already sent, and the reply proposes trading that payment for something non-monetary instead.
- This client was already warned once about a recurring pattern, nothing improved, and it's time to end the engagement.
- The termination came suddenly with no explanation, and the relationship had already soured before this point.
- Dissatisfied with the settlement, the client implies that a bad review or damaged reputation is coming unless terms change.
Two of these describe the same client? That is what the System is for — it keeps one history across all six.
THE SHELF
158 situations.
364 drafts.
Priced by what is actually in them. The thick ones cost more because they are thick.
Late, partial, and silent — with the escalation ladder.
22 SIT49 DRAFTS$18 Scope Creep
The "just one small thing" that became three weeks.
40 SIT98 DRAFTS$25 Ghosted
Silence at every stage it can happen.
23 SIT46 DRAFTS$18 Difficult Client
Blame the record doesn't support — including when the mistake was yours.
25 SIT50 DRAFTS$18 Lowball
Budget-first asks and the discount that was supposed to be one time.
29 SIT83 DRAFTS$22 Breakup
Ending it without burning the reference.
19 SIT38 DRAFTS$16
THE SAME MACHINE INSIDE EACH
Pick what happened.
Copy the answer.
Whichever volume you take, this is what opening it is like.
- Two or three taps narrow 19–40 situations down to yours — or paste the client's email and let on-device AI place it, where the browser has one
- Two or three ways to answer each situation, each stating what it gains you and what it costs, before you commit
- The email written out in full — subject and body, with the amounts and dates you fill in kept at the top
- Three forms of every draft: the email, its bare structure, or a prompt for your own AI
- A fact-check gate on the drafts that act on contract terms — pausing work, collections, ending it — so you confirm before you send
- One HTML file. Works offline, keeps what you type on your own machine, no account, no expiry
WHEN IT IS NOT ONE PROBLEM
Four volumes cost
more than six.
Any five of these runs past $79 — and five separate files cannot see each other. The System is one file with all six inside, a router that works out which one you are in, and a single history per client.
BEFORE YOU PICK
Straight
answers.
Which one should I start with?
The one matching what happened this month, not the one you fear most. These are written for the situation in front of you — the volume you are not in yet will still be there later.
What if I buy one and then need another?
Buy the second one, or take the System. If you go to the System, the volume you already bought comes off the price — email hello@useclearbound.com from the address you bought with. One volume's worth, once.
I was looking for one of the older playbooks.
The earlier line — Client Boundaries, Late Payment, Rate Raise, Client Onboarding — is gone. Everything those covered is inside these six, rewritten and considerably larger. Find your situation above and it will be there.
Does an AI write the emails?
No. All 364 drafts are written in advance. On-device AI, where a browser has it, only helps work out which situation you are in — and everything works without it.
SIX VOLUMES — FROM $16
You already know
which one.
Take the volume for the thing that is happening now. Single file, opens in any browser, stays yours.