Writer beware!

[trboturtle]

With the explosion of e-publishing, there are people who are out to take advantage of new writers. Not all are fly-by-night operations. Here, John Scalzi discusses a contract from a new E-publishing imprint that is part of a major publisher. The terms are, to say the least, terrible:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/03/06/note-to-sff-writers-random-houses-hydra-imprint-has-appallingly-bad-contract-terms/
And just to show this isn't a one-time thing: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/03/06/a-contract-from-alibi/

So, iof anyone goes with a pubsiher, READ THE CONTRACT. Better yet, hire a lawyer with contract experience to read it, because if these contracts are real, any writer who signs a contract like this is going to get hurt....

Craig

[LizW65]

I may have mentioned it before, but I've received cold calls* from something called Bookwhirl.com, which claims to do marketing for independently published works, but appears to be an Asian-based scam site. Their "services" start at about $800 and appear to consist entirely of spam emails. A quick Google search fails to turn up a single positive mention of this company. Writer beware, indeed.

*Very poor connection, difficult to understand, and seeming to originate from some offshore site though they claim to be based in Wisconsin.

[Snowleopard]

With the explosion of e-publishing, there are people who are out to take advantage of new writers. Not all are fly-by-night operations. Here, John Scalzi discusses a contract from a new E-publishing imprint that is part of a major publisher. The terms are, to say the least, terrible:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/03/06/note-to-sff-writers-random-houses-hydra-imprint-has-appallingly-bad-contract-terms/
And just to show this isn't a one-time thing: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/03/06/a-contract-from-alibi/

So, iof anyone goes with a pubsiher, READ THE CONTRACT. Better yet, hire a lawyer with contract experience to read it, because if these contracts are real, any writer who signs a contract like this is going to get hurt....

Craig

That's just NASTY.
Thanks for the heads up.

[trboturtle]

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/the-author-exploitation-business/

The blogger talks about Author Solutions, a company that should be avoided if you're looking for an on-line publisher.

Craig