I Still Have Most Of My Organs, Actually

[ursulav]

So there’s this publishing horror story making the rounds the last few days-the saga of Mandy DeGeit, who submitted a short story to a small press that did anthologies and discovered that it was published with a whole lot of changes, including animal abuse, which she never saw, never okayed, and never had an inkling of until the bizillion copies

Comments

[archangelbeth]

The only small presses I've dealt with were... Lessee... ShandaFA and Sofawolf. ShandaFA didn't do anything except print what I sent, if I recall correctly, and Sofawolf consulted me on minor edits. Excellent folks!

(I have my own reasons for self-publishing these days, but they aren't for fear of editors. Fear of some contracts I've heard of, yes. Because of writing stuff that's neither fish nor fowl, yes. But not fearing editors. Editors don't scare me. I've been one -- and one where the contract said (very roughly translated), "Yes, I can totally rewrite your stuff because it's work for hire. Don't sign if you can't stand the possibility." Rar!

I can tell you a great horror story about a copy-editor who made C.J. Cherryh say unhappy grouchy things on her blog! But the real editor was entirely sympathetic to her.)

[ursulav]

Oh, well, work-for-hire's another bag of chickens entirely. But you know when you're doing work for hire, or you (or somebody!) has been shamefully negligent and needs to be kicked.

[archangelbeth]

Work-for-hire is not necessarily a kicking offense! In tabletop roleplaying games, work-for-hire is the norm (for obvious reasons), and if one is writing for a line... Well, the editor gets to enforce consistency if you turn in a so-called final draft and it has things in it that are not consistent. (Or are not grammar. I prefer to do my best to work with people on the stuff first, but if it's down to deadline and either it wasn't handed to me prior to that, or it wasn't fixed when I pointed it out before... Dude, the file's right here on my computer and I have a keyboard.)

Tabletop RPGs are definitely a Small Press, Do Your Homework area, though. Some are newcomers. Some have been around for ages, and yet may have had... spotty payment records. (Others have always tried and may even be darn good about it!)

But yeah, if doing fiction? Well... Tie-in fiction pays the bills now and then for some people, I gather (pry Ford's How Much For Just The Planet? from my cold hands!!), but anything else, off the top of my not-enough-sleep-

[ursulav]

No, no, I meant that somebody needs to be kicked if you don't KNOW you're work for hire! (Badly phrased on my part!)

I'm all for work-for-hire, done it myself on multiple occasions. Sometimes it's the good thing to do. But you have to KNOW up front, or there's the issue that arises like that one series where apparently the creator had no idea it was work for hire and flipped out.

[gabyrippling]

Yeah, work-for-hire without knowing about it would be terrible, since you don't own the copyright in your work anymore, which is particularly a kick in the nuts if you don't know about that, I imagine (especially if it becomes profitable and things like movie rights come about). I worry about how many creators don't know how to read a contract or the extent of their legal rights.

[archangelbeth]

Oh, aye, not knowing it was work-for-hire would be... EEEEEEEEGGGGGG!