Public Service Announcement -- aspiring authors division

[jhetley]

"Don't give up the day job" version # 238...

Have just been advised by Nice Agent Lady that the French publisher continues to play "Texas hold-em" with other people's money.  Advance check notable by its absence -- "as they're late with all payments actually".

I'm sure that somewhere, perhaps in an alternate universe, some publisher doesn't include "stiffing the author" as part of their business plan.

Aspiring authors have been warned.

Comments

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Right there, you hit one of the biggest reasons why I quit writing. Before I quit, I got so tired of publishers who thought nothing of paying themselves on time, but had no problems with waiting six months to a year to pay on a contract that specifically stated "payment within 30 days of receipt of contract." Truth be told, I suspect this sort of shell game is the only thing that keeps the publishing industry afloat: I see chain bookstores that pay their bills whenever they damn well feel like it, indie bookstores that need regular threats of physical violence to get them to pay their bills, distributors who take money from publishers for advertising in order to pay the ones threatening to cut them off, and publications too busy trying to get the editor's college buddies on the payroll to pay the contributors. Oh, but it's okay to stiff the writers: if any complain, they can always be jettisoned for others that will do anything to get published.

This is why I'm watching very closely for what happens if Borders has to declare bankruptcy after this Christmas season. If Borders's suppliers start demanding payment up front before delivery (as what happened with Crown Books before it went under), I have a bad feeling that the resultant shooting-Peter-to-pay-Paul game might take out about half of the big publishers in the business, as well as about three-quarters of the booksellers in the US. I'm honestly wondering if this isn't a bad thing.

[xengar.livejournal.com]

The real problem is that this is not a problem confined to the publishing industry. At my previous job, the boss ended up hiring someone for a full time job that basically consisted of tracking unpaid bills. my boss also would have loved to switch to working only on business machines, because there just isn't much money for the time involved in working on home machines. However, individuals usually paid there bills, and that minor cashflow was necessary to keep the business going. After all, only three of the major business accounts paid before they were threatened with being sent to collections.

And then there was the sub-contract work. You know, being the hands for a national or international corporation's onite contract work. Every month my boss or two my boss put another one on the "do no accept work from" list because of failure to pay at all. I honestly think that if my boss were to win the lottery, he would spend most of the money on taking every instance of that to court, even though it's almost guaranteed that it would cost more than he'd get out of it.

Of course, with a government that hasn't even tried to balance it's budget in my life time, I suppose none of this should come as a suprise. Bad example and all that.