Article: The Publishers are as bad as Amazon.

[TCSimpson]

Seeing that there's always a lot of Amazon vs traditional publishing back and forth going on, this might interest a few here. Some things do open eyes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas...b_5587407.html

[SteveEisenberg]

This could have been a good article with more editing.

The headline makes little sense, as there is no evidence given that Amazon Publishing departs from the standard contract. Of course, I mean Amazon Publishing, not Kindle Direct Publishing. As for comparing what's bad about the most common big five contract terms, and what bad about Amazon having such a big market share in book retailing, the two subjects are disconnected.

The other problem is conflation of the most common contract terms with features that "publishing contracts now often contain" and that "in some instances" are included. How often is "some," and how often is "now often?"

As for the substance:

-- Some of this does not outrage me:

If the publisher buys the book proposal and pays the advance, and then the book is no good, it seems fair to everyone (including readers) that the author keeps the advance paid to date, with the book remaining unpublished. Now, if the complete book is submitted to the publisher and the publisher reneges on the agreement to publish for some reason other than plagiarism, that's bad for everyone, including the publisher's stockholders. But does that really happen? I guess it might also happen with a highly topical book where the author is late. Whether I feel bad for the author would depend on how late the book is.

What about a nonfiction book where the book proposal is accepted, the completed book turns out to be bad, and the book is totally rewritten by the publisher's editorial staff? That hard example seems to fit with some of the bad-sounding contract terms. I'd say the publisher pay the author in this situation, but less. Does the standard contract do that?

The financial terms described do not outrage me because I would have to consider the overall package, and whether the publisher is making out sized profits. If a low advance is combined with financial terms arranged to prevent making any money from royalties, and the publisher is profitable, yes, that sounds unfair.

-- Some indeed is, as described, wrong:

I'm against restraint of trade. What's happened when authors did switch publishers for their second book? Have they been successfully sued by the first publisher?

-- Some is impossible to judge without being given specific examples where an author has been mistreated:

In some instances, the publisher can even settle a lawsuit without the author's consent and charge the author for the cost of settlement whether or not the author has done something wrong.

I'd have liked to be given two examples.

As for Amazon vs. publishers, the question is not who is worse, but what would possibly make the situation better, and what would make the situation worse yet.

[pwalker8]

I guess the best answer is if you don't like the contract, don't sign it. It kind of sounds to me like the author wants to have his cake (up front money, etc) and to eat it too (not be tied to a contract when he can make more elsewhere).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I guess the best answer is if you don't like the contract, don't sign it. It kind of sounds to me like the author wants to have his cake (up front money, etc) and to eat it too (not be tied to a contract when he can make more elsewhere).

Yep. If a publisher invests money in an author and makes them a household name, then obviously they're going to want some return on that investment. Some authors seem to want it both ways: use a publisher to get known, and then jump ship to make more money.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I guess the best answer is if you don't like the contract, don't sign it. It kind of sounds to me like the author wants to have his cake (up front money, etc) and to eat it too (not be tied to a contract when he can make more elsewhere).

Which is the exact same thing people have been saying about the Amazon/Hachette dispute. This article is pointing out how hypocritical Hachette's PR campaign has been.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yep. If a publisher invests money in an author and makes them a household name, then obviously they're going to want some return on that investment. Some authors seem to want it both ways: use a publisher to get known, and then jump ship to make more money.

But what about the authors who know they'll never be household names--say because they write historical fiction or litfic?

What do publishers bring to the table that justifies a life-of-copyright contract with low royalties, abusive first-refusal and non-compete clauses, and deep-discount royalty de-escalators? A 4-digit payday loan?

"Don't like the contract, don't sign it" was a great strategy for tradpub when "don't sign it" meant "go home and forget about it" because there was no alternative and, because there was no alternative, nobody dared challenge the contract terms. Today? Not so much.

People challenging tradpub predatory contracts are actually trying to help publishers adapt to the new reality so they can survive in an age of transparency and true professional contracted publishing services (not to be confused with Author Solutions and their many potempkin fronts) and don't end up as yet another imprint in the megacorp publishing empire.

The key is transparency.
To those in Traditional Publishing, indie publishing looks like a shadow industry because they can't see its sales, only the effect on their sales and submissions.
But to authors, indie publishing is transparent as glass:
- professional (original) covers can be bought for as little as $300, though $500 is more typical.
- professional editors? $500 is typical, $1500 if the manuscript needs majir "nurturing".
- layout and design? A few hundred at most; for text only genre books, you can buy a template to reuse for an entire series for a one time fee.
- marketing? There's dozens of services available at reasonable prices and one, Bookbub, is so effective it is being flooded with BPH titles...
- print editions? Access to B&M bookstores? Aside from the fact that many tradpub contracts no longer guarantee an actual print edition or the shrinking self space issue, there is the fact that the major distributors are now offering print distribution to indies on reasonable terms,in some cases through their own subsidiaries.

Everything tradpub offers can be obtained, unbundled, without the predatory contracts, as one-time upfront purchases from the same people working for the corporate publishers. Many used to work at the corporate publishers and got laid off. Tradpub is not the only road to market anymore so walking away is very viable... for the author. For the (smaller) publishers, though, it is poison. And in some regions they are already falling like flies.

The big corporate publishers have big backlist catalogs (making up 30% of their sales these days) but smaller publishers don't have that option; they need a stream of new content to stay in business and there is an entire cohort of new authors who are simply bypassing the entire traditional pathway and ramping up their careers on their own. Some of them might become successful enough to be offered tradpub contracts but the ones who don't laugh off the offers are going to be very expensive to sign. Not a game for smaller publishers.

If publishing isn't to evolve into "megacorp vs a million indies" the midsize publishers really need to purge their contracts of those toxic terms before it is too late. And right now, too late is already on the horizon...

[TCSimpson]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Which is the exact same thing people have been saying about the Amazon/Hachette dispute. This article is pointing out how hypocritical Hachette's PR campaign has been.

[TCSimpson]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

But what about the authors who know they'll never be household names--say because they write historical fiction or litfic?

What do publishers bring to the table that justifies a life-of-copyright contract with low royalties, abusive first-refusal and non-compete clauses, and deep-discount royalty de-escalators? A 4-digit payday loan?

"Don't like the contract, don't sign it" was a great strategy for tradpub when "don't sign it" meant "go home and forget about it" because there was no alternative and, because there was no alternative, nobody dared challenge the contract terms. Today? Not so much.

People challenging tradpub predatory contracts are actually trying to help publishers adapt to the new reality so they can survive in an age of transparency and true professional contracted publishing services (not to be confused with Author Solutions and their many potempkin fronts) and don't end up as yet another imprint in the megacorp publishing empire.

The key is transparency.
To those in Traditional Publishing, indie publishing looks like a shadow industry because they can't see its sales, only the effect on their sales and submissions.
But to authors, indie publishing is transparent as glass:
- professional (original) covers can be bought for as little as $300, though $500 is more typical.
- professional editors? $500 is typical, $1500 if the manuscript needs majir "nurturing".
- layout and design? A few hundred at most; for text only genre books, you can buy a template to reuse for an entire series for a one time fee.
- marketing? There's dozens of services available at reasonable prices and one, Bookbub, is so effective it is being flooded with BPH titles...
- print editions? Access to B&M bookstores? Aside from the fact that many tradpub contracts no longer guarantee an actual print edition or the shrinking self space issue, there is the fact that the major distributors are now offering print distribution to indies on reasonable terms,in some cases through their own subsidiaries.

Everything tradpub offers can be obtained, unbundled, without the predatory contracts, as one-time upfront purchases from the same people working for the corporate publishers. Many used to work at the corporate publishers and got laid off. Tradpub is not the only road to market anymore so walking away is very viable... for the author. For the (smaller) publishers, though, it is poison. And in some regions they are already falling like flies.

The big corporate publishers have big backlist catalogs (making up 30% of their sales these days) but smaller publishers don't have that option; they need a stream of new content to stay in business and there is an entire cohort of new authors who are simply bypassing the entire traditional pathway and ramping up their careers on their own. Some of them might become successful enough to be offered tradpub contracts but the ones who don't laugh off the offers are going to be very expensive to sign. Not a game for smaller publishers.

If publishing isn't to evolve into "megacorp vs a million indies" the midsize publishers really need to purge their contracts of those toxic terms before it is too late. And right now, too late is already on the horizon...

Give that man a hand!! The only thing a traditional publisher offers to a person like me right now is the recognition and public trust toward quality that could help a new author gain a name straight away, and the availability of providing translators etc to convert the book to foreign languages for sales overseas to give an author broader reach. Yes, that last can be had for a price for indie publishers but is still very expensive.

I can't say I wouldn't take a contract if offered one, JUST to reach a broader audience, but then again, I've never submitted to an imprint. Except for the new Tor.com, which is pushing novellas and shorter works, I don't feel inclined to do so.

Right now, I pay for editors, I have beta readers and proof readers, am part of a critique group, pay for my covers, which I have been complimented on countless times. (My last cover I did myself and I was complimented on that.) I taught myself Indesign and HTML and format my own books. I am a pretty decent cartographer, using fractal terrains, Campaign Cartographer, and Photoshop.

I still find time to write, having put out 7 books since 2011. I am part of an indie collective where we pool our resources and skills to market each other. A publisher would have to order a pretty sweet contract for my longer works for me to accept. And then I'd still want to be hybrid like David Dalglish, signed to Orbit and Amazon 47North while still self-publishing other works of the same type.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by TCSimpson

Give that man a hand!! The only thing a traditional publisher offers to a person like me right now is the recognition and public trust toward quality that could help a new author gain a name straight away,

You shouldn't underestimate the value of that, though. It sounds as if you're doing everything in a thoroughly professional manner, but there are an awful lot of readers out there - myself included - who don't buy self-published books simply because the overwhelming majority of them are unmitigated crap. I buy my fantasy from publishers like Baen or Tor because I trust them to only publish decent books.

[TCSimpson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You shouldn't underestimate the value of that, though. It sounds as if you're doing everything in a thoroughly professional manner, but there are an awful lot of readers out there - myself included - who don't buy self-published books simply because the overwhelming majority of them are unmitigated crap. I buy my fantasy from publishers like Baen or Tor because I trust them to only publish decent books.

I don't underestimate it, which is why I said that is the reason I would sign and that the contract must also allow me freedom to be hybrid. Publisher already owns the right to a certain set of works but I don't want them owning me.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Which is the exact same thing people have been saying about the Amazon/Hachette dispute. This article is pointing out how hypocritical Hachette's PR campaign has been.

Pretty much, the only similarity that I can see is that both are contract negotiations. Contract negotiations between two large corporations and an author trying to find someone to publish his book are two very different things.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Barcey

This article is pointing out how hypocritical Hachette's PR campaign has been.

The first paragraph accuses the big five of hypocrisy, but never got back to it -- unless one thinks that hypocrisy and treating authors badly are identical.

One thing that really is hypocritical is Amazon's history of disrespecting price maintenance agreements on merchandise it sells (see The Everything Store, which is IMHO essential reading for threads like this) when it's obvious that Amazon itself exercises price maintenance on eInk Kindles:

http://the-digital-reader.com/2012/0.../#.U82mXvldU14

P.S. What about Amazon fighting Hachette on agency while forbidding serious discounting of eInk Kindles? I'm not accusing Amazon of hypocrisy there, in part because I haven't found overwhelming evidence that the dispute between Amazon and Hachette is over agency. It probably is, but maybe they agreed on agency on day one but disagree on something else.

[speakingtohe]

I am of two minds on the author publisher relationship.
The authors, successful or not, did sign the contracts. Many were paid advances for works not published. Many did go on to success, big, small or moderate, that they would not have been able to achieve on their own.

But it is also very much dog in the manger to hold people to contracts that you have no intention of going further with. There should be recourse, or a time limit at least.

And what this has to do with Hatchette and Amazon is a bit confusing.

Helen

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

But it is also very much dog in the manger to hold people to contracts that you have no intention of going further with. There should be recourse, or a time limit at least.

Isn't that what reversion clauses in a publishing contract are for? Not that publishers don't play games with those sometimes.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Isn't that what reversion clauses in a publishing contract are for? Not that publishers don't play games with those sometimes.

Can't say I know. If they are there why all the fuss on this issue?

helen