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Originally Posted by cfrizz
They are not interested in going back to having a large staff in-house to do all of these things. And if they can't have complete control & ownership of the book, which gives THEM money/control for 35 years rather than the author, then why bother.
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Conversely, if going with a traditional publisher contract doesn't guarantee a print edition, or meaningful marketting, or quality representative covers, or collaborative editing, or enough upfront cash to justify the risk of not getting any meaningful support, why would the author bother?
Check this one:
http://studiotendra.com/2014/01/23/e...except-except/
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What would a fair contract look like?
Fixed term, for five to seven years. If you want more, you can renew the contract for another five to seven years once the first term is up. Or, you can just pay for the privilege of a longer term. Up front.
Absolutely no non-compete clauses. If you don’t want a writer to publish other writing elsewhere, pay them enough money so they don’t feel the need to. If you can’t afford to pay that much then you have no right to complain let alone to demand non-competition.
No options or rights of first refusal. Stand or fall based on your standard of work and the strength of your relationship to the author.
The copyright always, always, stays with the author.
Both parties should have the right to unilaterally end the contract and all of the obligations it entails should there be a major change in the circumstances of the other party. E.g. the publisher should be able to end the contract if the writer is sectioned or jailed. The author should be able to end the contract if the publisher gets sold or declared bankrupt.
(The bankruptcy bit is a bit complex, admittedly, but having language in the contract that covers the scenario is always going to help the author more than harm.)
A fair publishing contract is one between peers, where the rights of the two parties are in balance.
Even if the naysayers are right and self-published titles are always objectively worse than traditionally published titles, at least with a self-publisher you can count on the publisher treating the author with respect.
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Hard to see any of the glass tower manhattan mafia agreeing to those kinds of contractual terms when their expressed preferences run more towards the RandomHouse Hydra contracts.
http://www.sfwa.org/2013/02/second-c...hydra-imprint/
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I recently saw the deal terms for Random House's Hydra imprint. A summary:
- It's a life-of-copyright contract that includes both primary and subsidiary rights.
- There's no advance. Net proceeds (defined as net income plus subrights income less the deductions detailed below) are split 50/50 between author and publisher.
- Deductions for ebook edition: "one-time out of pocket title set up costs" (editing, cover art, design, etc.), plus a "sales, marketing, and publicity fee" of 10% of net sales revenue.
- Deductions for print edition, if there is one: "actual direct out-of-pocket paper, printing and binding costs," plus 6% of gross sales revenue to cover freight and warehousing costs.
Note that authors are not being asked to pay any costs upfront (despite that scary "out of pocket" term). Hydra "advances" those.
However, the costs are deducted from sales and licensing income, and reduce the amount of the author-publisher split. This is reminiscent of what's known as Hollywood accounting, where net proceeds are made to disappear by charging expenses against profit. Authors going into a deal like this can't be certain of what they will earn on a per-book basis--while the publisher is assured that its expenses will be recouped at the point of sale.
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They (slightly) changed the terms later, under a netstorm of criticism, but that they went live with them to start with illustrates the mindset that thinks such terms would be "fair".
That is a pretty broad divide right there.