Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
That is the case for anyone who negotiates a contract with anyone else. If there is something that you want, you have to make sure that it's in the contract. The more they want you, the more leverage you have. The standard contract for any business tends to be very much slanted towards the "company". Would you walk into a car dealership and take the first car they pushed you towards without any negotiation?
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Yes, I would, if I happened to believe that I had no rights and no bargaining power and this was the only car I would have offered to me. Because at the end of the day, I really, really need a car.
Until recently, there were no options for a prospective author who didn't like the mostly generic terms offered by tradpubs. Now, they can go indie.
A lucky few had a hot commodity in a story that was billeted to be the Next Big Thing, and tradpubs extended much better offers in an attempt to steal the deal from other publishers.
Many prospective authors even today are skeptical of indie publishing and feel that their only option is to land a tradpub contract. They are easy targets, because they feel lucky to get anything.
In general, a new author doesn't have anything special on the table, and (historically) doesn't have any particular reason to think they can hold out for anything better. The tradpub doesn't care, because there are plenty of other fishes at that skill level.
The car dealership equivalent would be if there is a long line of people walking into a car dealership all wanting the same handful of cars. The dealer can be assured there is a sucker in there for each car, and has no reason to negotiate. Thus, the prospective customer knows he has less bargaining power, and has to outbid the suckers if he wants to get a car. Then it becomes a matter of, is it better to be carless (jobless in the author world) or to get an unfair deal (tradpubbed in the author world).