Well-known authors apply for emergency funding

[Paul Whybrow]

This article is in today's Independent newspaper. It backs up recent reports on how low authors' incomes are. It's insane to me that publishers sit on a writer's backlist, refusing to promote them or ship them to book shops, and denying the author permission to buy back the rights to them - if they could afford to anyway.
This is addle-headed slavery.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...ishers-wont-re-print-their-work-a6757326.html

 

[Emurelda]

Yes selling away your rights has some serious potential consequences.

 

[Brian Clegg]

That is bad, and certainly illustrates why, if you get a book contract, you should get professional help to check it, if you aren't very familiar with book contracts. The Society of Authors offers a free checking service for members - you can join as soon as you have a contract offer - and I'd very strongly recommend using it if you do potentially get signed up.

As someone with plenty of traditional book contracts, it's not necessarily a bad thing at all, but you do need to check these key points. These days I always expect a reversion clause that says rights revert to the author if less than a certain number of books sell or it's out of print (and specifying that having an ebook still available doesn't constitute being in print). Mostly publishers do put that in as a matter of course now, but they still need to be checked, and it was unusual ten years ago.

 

[Carol Rose]

What @Brian Clegg and @Emurelda said.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Thanks for all the great advice, guys — and for sparing some of us here the pain of learning the hard way!