Caveat Scriptor
Mar. 8th, 2013 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigerfortJust in case any of my writing-oriented readers aren't already aware from other sources, I thought this might be worth providing some extra signal boost for.
Random House recently announced that they were starting up a whole bunch of e-book only imprints for various genres of fiction: Hydra (Scifi), Alibi (Mystery/crime), Flirt ("New Adult", apparently) and Loveswept (presumably Romance).
Contracts offered by these imprints have now started to surface, and if I had to describe them in one word, it would be "avoid". Other people, with more useful arms, have expressed themselves using greater numbers of words, however:
Writer Beware regards them as "second class contracts", while the words used by the SFWA include "outrageous", "egregious", and "exploitative". John Scalzi summarises them thus: THIS IS A HORRIBLE AWFUL TERRIBLE APPALLING DISGUSTING CONTRACT WHICH IS BAD AND NO WRITER SHOULD SIGN IT EVER. (His caps.)
The highlights include a total lack of advance payment, a terrifying rights grab (all primary and subsidiary rights for the life of copyright, with no meaningful reversion clause) and Hollywood-style accounting that puts a whole bunch of (specified and) unspecified costs you'd normally expect the publisher to cover from their share ahead of the author in getting paid.
As a related issue, people may be interested to know that the Society of Authors offers a contract advice service to members; if you've been offered a contract, the society will be more than happy to accept you as a member by email and check your contract immediately. (As it happens, this was the point in the publishing process at which I joined - I didn't have an agent, decent specialist lawyers are very expensive, and having your contract checked over thoroughly by someone who really knows the business inside-out is essential.)
Random House recently announced that they were starting up a whole bunch of e-book only imprints for various genres of fiction: Hydra (Scifi), Alibi (Mystery/crime), Flirt ("New Adult", apparently) and Loveswept (presumably Romance).
Contracts offered by these imprints have now started to surface, and if I had to describe them in one word, it would be "avoid". Other people, with more useful arms, have expressed themselves using greater numbers of words, however:
Writer Beware regards them as "second class contracts", while the words used by the SFWA include "outrageous", "egregious", and "exploitative". John Scalzi summarises them thus: THIS IS A HORRIBLE AWFUL TERRIBLE APPALLING DISGUSTING CONTRACT WHICH IS BAD AND NO WRITER SHOULD SIGN IT EVER. (His caps.)
The highlights include a total lack of advance payment, a terrifying rights grab (all primary and subsidiary rights for the life of copyright, with no meaningful reversion clause) and Hollywood-style accounting that puts a whole bunch of (specified and) unspecified costs you'd normally expect the publisher to cover from their share ahead of the author in getting paid.
As a related issue, people may be interested to know that the Society of Authors offers a contract advice service to members; if you've been offered a contract, the society will be more than happy to accept you as a member by email and check your contract immediately. (As it happens, this was the point in the publishing process at which I joined - I didn't have an agent, decent specialist lawyers are very expensive, and having your contract checked over thoroughly by someone who really knows the business inside-out is essential.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-09 01:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-03-09 05:58 am (UTC)