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

[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.