Hm, contracts, hm...

[ken_schneyer]

I wonder sometimes if I'm too much of a lawyer.

I had a story accepted about a year ago.  The publisher sent me the contract, which I expected to sign, but, having spent all that money on law school, I thought I'd actually read the thing.

I hated it.

It wasn't as outrageous as some contracts I've seen, but there were terms that seemed unfair,

Comments

[jongibbs]

Crappy contract = crappy publisher. No matter what their public persona/reputation.

I'd say your well shot of them.

[ken_schneyer]

Thanks, Jon. Good way to look at it.

[ann_leckie]

What? Why would anyone use a contract like that? I mean, seriously? There's no point to some of that stuff. So why ask for any of it?

And there's a SFWA pro market that buys all rights? Seriously?

I wonder whether I can afford to turn down any offer of publication.

Offers like that? Yesirree Bob. You can definitely afford to turn those down. IMO, of course.

[ken_schneyer]

Thanks, Ann.

In fact, Odyssey buys "all rights", or at least they did in 2009. (Interestingly, Eugie tells me that other Carus Publishing markets, notably Cricket, don't buy all rights. So go figure.) I tried to talk them out of it, but they're primarily a nonfiction mag and they do a lot of work with collections, repackaging, etc., so they don't feel they can do without it. To be fair, the pay-per-word was superb, and I got a lot of assurances that if I ever wanted to use the story, say, for an anthology, it wouldn't be hard to get permission.

[ann_leckie]

Ah, that's a better deal then, I'm glad to hear that.

[girlspell]

I laughed over the part about rights to your signature. They want to write your checks! Read your mail. Be pretty good if they paid your bills...and your taxes. But we can't have everything.

[ken_schneyer]

Thanks, Rachel. We can only hope.

[amamama]

WOT? That's some contract. Reminds me of the contract a certain kitchen equipment manufacturer presented to us when we wanted to become their agents in Norway. They wanted to be able to work directly with key accounts, without compensation. Basically, we should work like *bleep* to win those major distributors/shops, and not get paid. Not very likely. So we told them to change it, and never got a reply. 10 years later they're still not in the Norwegian market. *g* Not that we care. (But we never expected a German company to behave like that. Dutch, yes, German, no. Life is full of surprises)

[ken_schneyer]

Indeed. How are you doing?

[mmerriam]

You did the right thing by turning that down.