In a similar way many of you here have heard me talk about before, and heard Kris talk about in varied articles, and heard The Passive Guy outline clearly, Joe Konrath is now also talking about publishing contracts and the clauses that take advantage of writers. (It’s a very long post about many contract clauses.)
I said before that I respect myself too much to ever give away all my rights to a traditional publisher ever again. (Or give all my money and paperwork to a stranger, but that’s another topic.) I have tried to negotiate the “forever” rights clause and the reversion clause and the warranty clauses, without much luck. Traditional publishers want everything and promise to do almost nothing, and give us no way out of any contract if they do not do even the basic things as promised.
Again, I have no issue working with traditional publishers if they will just treat me with a little respect in the process. And let me balance the contract a little by keeping the aspects of my book they do not need or will use. And only agree to a decent term of years. I do not need more money, just some respect.
Go read Joe’s new blog. Worth the time. http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/05/unconscionability.html
Well, keep in mind, the terms Konrath is citing in his blog are so bad, I’ve never signed anything like that. Certainly not when having my contracts negotiated by an attorney, and also not even when having my contracts rather ineptly negotiuated by “big” literary agents. Nor did I have such bad terms 20+ years ago as a new and unagented writer dealing with a house (Hq) that declared 99% of its contractual clauses non-negotiable.
I’ve seen or heard of contracts with clauses as bad as the one Konrath discusses in this piece. But it’s not as if it’s a given that you sign something like that if you work with a publisher; just as it’s ot a given that you’ll have an unfaithful spouse who’ll beat you and give you venereal diseases if you get married. Yes, there are publishing deals like that, just as there are marriages like that; but only if you choose really, really badly when making a commitment–and then don’t do what it takes, upon realizing your mistake, to buy your way out of that bad situation.
Laura, I agree. I’ve signed a few of those terms, but not all together. And I often had them shifted in other areas of the contract to blunt the problem. But I have seen a ton of the contracts Joe uses from our writer students. Trust me, they are that ugly these days and worse. Not kidding.