Slashdot Mirror
When Publishing Contracts Go Bad
drmofe writes: "It's not just recording artists who are getting screwed over royalty payments and publishing rights. MediaChannel has an op-ed piece asserting that standard publisher-author contracts are now so restrictive that they might in fact be "restraint of trade" under the US anti-trust laws."
There already is one. I use it on my work, "The Japanese Art of War." I think the real upshot of this story is that more and more people will consider using vanity press. It would be difficult to publish as many books that way, but if you are not going to get paid for it, then what is the problem? If you make more money selling 10,000 books via vanity than selling 1 million books via a publisher why wouldn't you accept the risks of a vanity pressing? At least you get total control of your book before, during and after publishing. Look at ID - those guys did great selling doom on their own. In the end they made more money selling via Activision -- but I think the deal they got there was much sweeter.
Are you aware of Tad Williams' Shadowmarch? (Also see slashdot story 1 and 2) :) :)
It's his latest fantasy story, but he's publishing it online - completely on his own, no publishers involved. ($18 for a subscription of a year (first 5 episodes can be read for free), for which instead of proprietary formats used by far too many epublishing projects, you get regular HTML files - it's so good to be able to grep through your local copies to quickly find other references to characters or events.)
And although he's making far less money with it than with regular books, from what I know the site should be paying for itself. Which makes this a very interesting development for all authors wanting to do without publishers. Once you're a big name author, it is possible.
And I'm thinking, the more projects like this that will actually be somewhat succesful, the sooner people will be willing to give less known authors a try as well. Every satisfying experience will create more demand for similar projects, and will make other authors consider doing this sort of thing as well. Who knows, we might just not be doomed to eBooks after all...
As you also mentioned, the almost immediate reader feedback on what he writes was one of the major reasons to start this project. And I as a reader just love seeing how remarks and suggestions made about previous episodes have a noticeable impact on new episodes.
Actually, they do have something -- a pool of people who may not be the "best", but who are willing to work cheaper and give up copyright.
Up until the late 90s, I was always able to politely ask, "Can I retain copyright, and can we strike the 'future works' clause?", and the publisher would kindly modify the contract. That has since changed.
The world is changing, and it isn't for the better...
All about me
GET AN AGENT.
Yes, the publisher will screw you if you sign that contract. That's because they don't seriously expect you to sign it; it's the first step in the negotiation process. If you get an agent, that agent will know all about this, and will get you a much fairer contract in practically no time. That's what the agent is for.
A good agent can get you a far better deal than you can. All professionals use agents. (Unless they're lawyers writing in their spare time... does happen.)
GET AN AGENT.
(Disclaimer: IAmNotAnAuthorIJustPretendToBeOne.SeeALicensedProf essionalIfSymptomsPersist.)