Writing Blog

20230929 Reverse Rejection

September 29, 2023, 2:15pm

Well, this rejection is something that's happened before, but I thought I'd go through the process to explain where I am coming from.

This was a "reverse rejection".

So...

I received an offer for a book to be published by a mid-sized publisher. Royalties were based on cover price: 25% of print, 50% of ebook, 33 1/3% of audiobook. So far, so standard for a traditional publishing contract for a not well known author.

However, there were two clauses I was not sure about.

First was that any translations would see me get 5% of cover price in royalties because of the costs associated with translating the text.
Second was that I would not be party to any negotiations for further uses of the work. This included, but was not restricted to, translations, adaptaions (visual media), games, etc. Basically, I was giving them carte blanche to do what they wanted with my work. I had not seen this before, so I contacted the Australian Society of Authors.

They told me that not only could they do what they wanted, but that, apart from translations, I would not receive compensation. So they could sell my book to, say, Netflix, and I would get nothing.

They also said the fee for translation was low; they would assume a reduction of 10% in royalties.

The ASA told me NOT to sign the contract.

So I wrote back to the company, with the advice from the ASA legal department, explaining why I would be turning them down, but that I was open to negotiate.

They replied with something along the lines of I should be grateful I was being published at all.

In apologised, but said I was going to follow the legal advice and unless those aspects of the contract were chanhged or clarified, then I could not accept their offer.

They emailed me this morning to say the deal was off, and sent me a legal letter to the effect they were relinquishing any hold on the work. They also informed me they would not consider another of my books or any of my short stories for any of their anthologies, so not to submit to them again.

Fine; they'd only published one short story, and I got $US25 for it, so they didn't pay brilliantly.

Anyway, the reason I am putting this out here is that as authors, we work hard on what we create. Publishers who think they own us and our work and play on the desperation of would-be authors are not to be trusted. Don't just accept any contract because it's a contract is what I am saying. Make sure you know what you are signing.

I have informed the Writer Beware site of this as well, and sent them all the relevent documentation, so hopefully this publisher will be put under pressure to change their ways.