Publisher Alert
Mar. 1st, 2013 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdAll right, folks. I have done something stupid.
I signed a life of copyright contract with Ellora's Cave.
My fault. I was focused on reading the known problem clauses, and I missed section 1.
Author, on behalf of herself/himself and her/his heirs, executors, administrators, successors and assigns, exclusively grants to the Publisher during the full term of copyright and any renewals and continuations and extensions thereof, the right to print, publish, sell and license the Work throughout the world, and in any and all media and forms of expressions now known, and all subsidiary rights granted in the Subsidiary and Secondary Rights clause hereunder.
READ YOUR CONTRACTS! This is from a publisher I've been with 5 years. They made this change within the last 2.
They also reduced print royalties, and reduced the word limit in their "Right of First Refusal" clause to 7500, which means you can't even submit to many anthologies!
This is where I weigh things:
Do I want to make money or do I want creative control of my creation?
This is the ONLY place I consistently sell het.
This is the place I make the money and the sales, although it has fallen off sharply in the last four years.
I have sent this house one last piece, as I am obligated to under the First Refusal clause. After that, I think I'm quits. Even if they offer a contract, I'm going to ask that Life of Copyright be changed. Should they not, no more books. I will put this piece out through Inkstained or Amber Heat.
AUTHOR BEWARE
I signed a life of copyright contract with Ellora's Cave.
My fault. I was focused on reading the known problem clauses, and I missed section 1.
Author, on behalf of herself/himself and her/his heirs, executors, administrators, successors and assigns, exclusively grants to the Publisher during the full term of copyright and any renewals and continuations and extensions thereof, the right to print, publish, sell and license the Work throughout the world, and in any and all media and forms of expressions now known, and all subsidiary rights granted in the Subsidiary and Secondary Rights clause hereunder.
READ YOUR CONTRACTS! This is from a publisher I've been with 5 years. They made this change within the last 2.
They also reduced print royalties, and reduced the word limit in their "Right of First Refusal" clause to 7500, which means you can't even submit to many anthologies!
This is where I weigh things:
Do I want to make money or do I want creative control of my creation?
This is the ONLY place I consistently sell het.
This is the place I make the money and the sales, although it has fallen off sharply in the last four years.
I have sent this house one last piece, as I am obligated to under the First Refusal clause. After that, I think I'm quits. Even if they offer a contract, I'm going to ask that Life of Copyright be changed. Should they not, no more books. I will put this piece out through Inkstained or Amber Heat.
AUTHOR BEWARE
no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 07:12 am (UTC)Years ago I worked for ACAS, which is a government agency in the UK that deals with employment rights and disputes. So many of the enquiries we had were to do with things that were in people's contracts - which they had never read!
Since then I've been very strict on "you must always read your employment contract before you sign it." So when I came to have a publishing contract I took the same attitude.
Of course people can read a contract and still not spot the problems because they aren't lawyers and don't understand the implications of the clauses because of the legalese language. That's where a bit of online research comes in if you can't afford a specialist lawyer.
So, yeah, writers, when you get that first contract, take a breath before you sign and check things out carefully.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 02:26 pm (UTC)READ IT ALL.