John Scalzi reveals a contract every writer should run from, and it raises a very important point. It doesn’t matter that the publisher’s name is on everyone’s lips. It doesn’t matter that the publisher is or has been a respected industry leader forever and ever. Read. The. Contract. And don’t be dazzled by having that name on your book. Sometimes, it’s not worth it.
So, don’t ask me how, but I have in my hands (from what I consider a reputable source) a contract from Alibi, which is the sibling imprint of Hydra, the Random House imprint that I thumped on roundly in the previous entry. You will recall that I thumped on Hydra because its contractual terms were so heinous to authors (including, but not limited to, offering no advances). Well, it appears that Alibi’s standard boilerplate contract is no less horrible than — or, more accurately, it appears to be exactly as horrible as — Hydra’s contract was reported to be. This suggests to me that the contracts for Flirt and Loveswept, Random House’s other two eBook imprints in this grouping, are likely to have similar boilerplate.
Shall we dive in? Oh, let’s!
But before we do, just to have this out there:
THIS IS A HORRIBLE AWFUL TERRIBLE APPALLING DISGUSTING CONTRACT WHICH IS…
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Dangling on the Edge of Insanity 