They got into a ton of hot water last time they tried “recommending” ePublishers because they did not check any backgrounds or see if the authors involved were actually getting paid so that organization is not first on my list for “setting any standards by”.

So good luck to you.

“September 2009 update: there have been ugly reports on other sites condemning this publisher. As far as I can ascertain, they are fallacious, a hate campaign.”

Right the author should be able to own the story and the publisher should be able to publish. That’s just professional courtesy. It seems to me that the contract should state clearly how they come to that point better than this clause which is reactive leading to confrontation instead of proactive and defining a working process since the publisher is publishing fiction not a guide to current eBook Readers or something like that.

I wish I knew the whole story behind this. I mean, I can conceive of a situation where multiple rounds of trying to edit or revise result in the revisions repeatedly returned incomplete or unsatisfactory until the publisher finally throws up their hands. The more editing involved, the greater the expense to the publisher, and if they don’t foresee any chance of getting a satisfactory product from the author, well…

I can’t imagine Samhain would pull anything like this with any of their authors–I think they’d be more likely to simply pull the book (and flushing that investment down the loo isn’t going to break them, either). But I do know that not every author will behave in a rational manner when it comes to being asked to change her own work. In a perfect world, the author should have final say on what the end product will be, and the publisher should have final say on whether they’re going to publish (or not) it in the form the author insists on.

Having the revisions clause AND the kill clause (which they’ve since removed, apparently) seems like Lyrical wanted double cover for their ass. Unfortunately, sometimes two layers just make the ass look all the more lumpy and unattractive…

Say said book has already gone through umpteen rounds of edits and revisions, all at the publisher’s expense.

Does not, in my opinion, go with this part of the story…

But there is one element of the book that simply cannot stay as is–for whatever reason (it’s legally obscene, or offensive to Muslims or Asian Americans or whomever, or the hero is fond of giving the heroine “hot Carls”, or perhaps there is a hideous orgy of baby bunny-killing every other chapter, or the hero speaks in a persistently phonetically expressed, annoying as fuck Scottish brogue, whatever).

Because if you follow that whole “several revisions” thing then the conversation about the “no no” scenes should have taken place after the first. In fact they probably showed the author a list of things they won’t accept in stories they publish even before signing her.

We know the cover does not usually show up till right before the last revisions and all that… so as I said, I don’t get the emergency here going this far with the situation to warrant the need to use that clause other than just dumping the contract and never working with that author again.

But I do tend to side with the writer so that is where my bias lay. I really don’t have much sympathy for publishers because they are the bigger dog in the fight and should have the expertise and professionalism to handle this without drama and use confrontation legal or otherwise as only a final answer to just get rid of any association with the author including the books. They are a brand new publisher so we are talking “a book” here.

Victoria Strauss did mention that clause is generally for non-fiction where you have to revise something before another printing to update the information in the book. Which made more sense to me then.

Okay, just to give them the benefit of the doubt (which I own, they may not deserve). Say said author is a fairly well-known name whose book will likely do well for the publisher, who is new and drunk on the prospect of making some serious dough. Say said author is the contrary type, or a primadonna. Say said book has already gone through umpteen rounds of edits and revisions, all at the publisher’s expense. Say the publisher has already paid for cover art and all that, and the book is eagerly anticipated by readers.

But there is one element of the book that simply cannot stay as is–for whatever reason (it’s legally obscene, or offensive to Muslims or Asian Americans or whomever, or the hero is fond of giving the heroine “hot Carls”, or perhaps there is a hideous orgy of baby bunny-killing every other chapter, or the hero speaks in a persistently phonetically expressed, annoying as fuck Scottish brogue, whatever).

The publisher has asked the author to remove the element, and the author refuses. The publisher has asked the author to rewrite it. The author refuses. Back and forth it goes, until the publisher is so frustrated they give up. But because the author is a name that will bring in readers, they’re unwilling to simply cancel the book.

Frustration and recalcitrance can lead people and companies to do stupid, hard to countenance things. And I’m not saying that this is the case here, either, just that I can envision some authors practically begging for this clause to be invoked. And the clause is there for a reason–if publishers never foresaw a possible need for it, it wouldn’t be in so many contracts.

But we also know just like any author can get screwed due to internal politics or conflict that information WILL get out and rather quickly.

So again, I have to ask why would a new publisher enact this clause and get into a mess like this with an author even an inexperienced one or one who has never had a publisher do this to them before? Is any book worth this type of bad press?

Even if the contract says they can do this which I am not arguing it was still going to get out and experienced authors seem very surprised they did this.

None of this is good for a new publisher.
None of it would make me even think “hey I should submit to them” in a million years.

Sounds to me like they did not think or they did not care. Not good.

I mean, knowing what I do about the personalities of some authors out there (people with whom you are also acquainted) I can certainly see the potential for a publisher to resort to something like this. I mean, I’ve been given the option of making a substantial change once–and it was made clear that the revision was my choice, and my decision would affect the categorization of the book, not it’s fitness for publication. And I was told this before a contract was offered.

But if they’d asked me to change something serious and could not go forward with publication without said change, and I still refused, I could understand them invoking such a clause. I’m not sure Samhain would do such a thing (or that they ever have). More likely they’d simply cancel the book, but other publishers who’ve made a significant investment in a project might make a different decision.

I think, for example, if the author in question was a certain someone with whom you and I have both had unpleasant experience (whom I won’t name here, heh), our assumptions might be that this situation was unfortunate but unavoidable.

So it really does boil down to the “who” and the “why”. And trust–because even when you have a fair contract, you can still end up feeling like you got the shaft.