Practical Meerkat Has No Patience With Your Entitlement

[lagilman]

Book Publisher Goes To Court To Recoup Hefty Advances From Prominent Writers

A New York publisher this week filed lawsuits against several prominent writers who failed to deliver books for which they received hefty contractual advances, records show.

I made the mistake of reading the comments in this, and was astounded (and yet not all that surprised) by the level of clueless entitlement in many of the responses, including a few people who should know better.

Folks, a contract is a legal document. It is binding on both parties. So before bitching about a publisher's behavior, read your contract. If you agreed to terms, and don't deliver your end of the deal (either by not-delivering or delivering something that does not match the terms of the deal, ex: was a fake) then in most every contract ever written, they have every legal right to ask for their end of the bargain (the advance) back.

This is not astounding. It is not unfair. It is business.

Traditionally, publishers have written off "bad" advances as the cost of doing business. They consider it the price of maintaining good-will, and weigh it against the cost of fighting to reclaim said advances. Tradition should not be taken for terms. If we're going to demand that publishers act like fiscally responsible businesses when it benefits us, we also need to accept that this may occasionally bite us on the (delinquent) ass. Especially when the economy is crap.

Don't like it? Don't sign the contract. Or, better yet, live up to your end of the deal. Get your book in. Within a reasonable timeframe of the deadline (where reasonable is defined by how much they want to keep you and what you can work out with your editor ahead of time).

We bitch about publishers, and rightfully so. But that does not make the author always the angel.

Comments

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

Contracts are serious business. I hear lots of stories and chatter about authors turning in books late, often very late, as if a contract is a suggestion or a guideline rather than, well, a legal document.

A contract is as binding as a mortgage, or a wedding vow. Know what you are getting into before you sign it.

yep.

[deborah grabien (from livejournal.com)]

As an author, I (and my agent) sign an agreement with a publisher, something I've now done eighteen times over the past 25 years.

That contract is a binding agreement. PERIOD. Penguin isn't suing to recover money for lack of sales; they're suing to recover money from authors who didn't deliver.

The idea that a writer and/or his or her agent would assume that the cheque-writing end of the agreement is somehow obligated to let the non-delivering end of the bargain keep the money anyway is boneheaded enough to be nauseating. Self-entitled, much?

Sorry. I'm notorious for having almost zero patience with mainstream publishing, and I have plenty of issues I can and do object to about they way they do business, but this isn't one of them.

Signed a contract? Promised to deliver a manuscript? Cashed the cheque?

Deliver the manuscript or give back the money. That's how a legal agreement works.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

Considering the people in the sample list have had more than enough time to deliver (four years was the shortest time), I'd say that Penguin does have a beef.

I'll be honest in that the first person I thought of when I read the title was George R.R. Martin. Of course, he did come out with a book (finally).

[lagilman]

The length of time a publisher is willing to wait for a book past-deadline is often a formula of (size of advance) measured against (past sales) and (predicted future income).

This is why "celebrity" authors are actually more at risk than novelists: their viable shelf-life is shorter.

[blitheringpooks.livejournal.com]

That thought never occurred to me, but it makes sense.

Your fifteen minutes of fame are up, Mr Bieber.

Of course as a friend of mine used to point out, contemporary romance novels have the shelf life of a banana. (But the authors themselves, different matter.)

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

You read the comments? Seriously-- you should know better. I wasn't going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. As it is, I get crazy enough with publishers offering ridiculous contracts to individuals who aren't writers or who haven't proven they can deliver a full manuscript, and then am left shaking my head when the publishers behave in a shocked manner when these people don't/can't deliver or deliver a sub-standard product.

So yeah, you bet your sweet bippy that I'm going to think that money should be returned. That same publisher made me pay back my advance when they opted not to take delivery of a manuscript I delivered on time by invoking a boilerplate clause in my contract stating that I had failed to deliver a publishable manuscript.

Keep in mind, this is the same manuscript that in very nearly the same stage as it was when rejected by that publisher, was bought by another and went on to win some pretty decent awards.

My point being, if *I* had to pay back the money because of a clause in my contract, despite all evidence to the contrary, then absolutely yes, those authors should have to pony up.

< /rant>

[lagilman]

yep - the "we didn't like this" clause is a bitch and a half on steroids. But it's not what this particular lawsuit is about, which is why Gottlieb's comments in particular annoyed me

(dude, if you don't like that clause, don't let your clients sign it. End of story).

Also: don't assume it's all and always first-timers who don't deliver.... (oy. the stories I've heard....)

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

No, I don't make that assumption- in fact, within that story, one of the authors cited had already published. And believe me, I've heard some hair-curling stories about established authors with large advances. *shakes head*

Publishing, she is craxy, man...

[lagilman]

Yep.

Oy.

My main bitch about the comments actually isn't from writers, but from the Major Agent at a Major Agency who started talking about the non-acceptance side rather than the non-delivery side, without clarification, as though this would somehow enable publishers to reject more things because they didn't want to pay for them, rather than it being, well, their contractual right.

He also pulled out the "we will cut them out of the submission process" threat, which is sabre rattling of the most obvious sort, and NOT what he should be doing in the comments section of a Smoking Gun article.

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I saw that. And groaned. Admittedly, said agent is rather fond of talking to hear himself talk, but yeah... NOT a smooth move a'tall.

[jemck.livejournal.com]

I agree, entirely.

It would be nice if publishers also stuck to their end of the deal as per contract.

This is drive-by snark from someone in the middle of the 48 hours she has been given to proof read her 150,000 word text before it goes irrevovably to print, rather than the fourteen days she is contractually entitled to.

I have already found errors *introduced* by the offical 'proof reader' and glaring typos missed...

[lagilman]

Agreed. But that is a different rant with heavier ammo...

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I am so not surprised that Elizabeth Wurtzel is the first author listed. That woman makes a living out of being an entertaining disaster - sort of like the literary Courtney Love.