The poor publisher, they are so abused by authors.
It’s not just authors who are experiencing fear at the changes in traditional publishing. Author Kiana Davenport has encountered not just a panicking publisher, but one who is actively doing their best to fully control every action of her professional life. Read Kiana’s account on her blog post Sleeping With The Enemy: A Cautionary Tale to see how far some publishers are starting to go.
Instead of seeing what Kiana’s done to create interest in her books and leverage that with the book they contracted her for, they see ebooks and her efforts at self-promotion as the enemy and are out to deny and destroy every facet of their existence. Like the music industry, publishers like this are more than willing to cut their authors livelihoods off in order to save a few print sales, conveniently ignoring the recent facts that ebooks are now outselling printed versions by a small margin in the last quarter.
We’ll see much more of this in the future. So if you are a contracted author, review the terms under which you have signed, and if your traditional publisher starts throwing their weight around, get yourself an attorney ASAP. You have rights and you shouldn’t be bullied into giving them away due to coercion from your publisher. The Passive Voice blog has a series of posts on reading and understanding contracts, it would behoove you to read and understand just how publishers can manipulate them.
Oh, and remember, agents are in the same sinking boat as traditional publishers. Don’t let them bully you into accepting contracts or going along with unreasonable demands simply because they ask.
