It is obvious that Scribd made
bad deals with the publishers.
Not exact matches
Making games for cellphones was the
worst place to be, he says, since they had to
deal not just
with demanding
publishers, but also
with wireless carriers that knew nothing about games.
But then when a
publisher has to
deal with something that's even
worse, like a phone carrier, it's atrocious,» says Piotrowski.
Now I could go on and on about the illusionary «support» traditional
publishers and agents say they give writers, but anyone who has
dealt with that system for any length of time knows that's just gotten
worse as well in the last ten years.
Not because the ads were
bad or poorly designed, but the brick - and - mortar bookseller audience that reads them are predisposed against self - published books, especially POD like mine, due to the inability to return unsold copies and the inconvenience of
dealing with an individual
publisher.
I've seen friends literally lose control of their books because an inexperienced agent made a
bad publishing
deal with a new
publisher who went out of business right after the book released.
As you noted above
with publishers, negotiability is going to depend on how
badly the parties want the
deal (i.e. if an agent or
publisher really wants the work and the author has options, then the agent or
publisher is likely to be willing to negotiate the terms of the contract).
Experienced authors will not sign a contract
with a non-compete clause, and
publishers aren't going to promise not to publish books that compete directly
with the author's, so it's just a
bad deal.
Of course I am unhappy
with the fact that European
publishers are translating a lot of the good, and a lot of the mediocre, and even a great
deal of the
bad books from the States into European languages, whereas our American friends are very reluctant.
I've read from other writers that this is a big
deal with traditional
publishers, and that, if you can't sell first publishing rights anymore,
deals will be a lot
worse.
While considered by many authors to be a gatekeeper in
bad cahoots
with publishers, the agent, in fact, is heavily invested in his or her clients» work and is risking a great
deal of time and effort on the hope that an author's book someday will be salable.
Trafford is the
worst publisher I have ever
dealed with.
Stat based
publishers can be the
worst to
deal with as they will only surrender their review copies to sites that obtain large amounts of visits per month, a good example being Capcom or Sega who ask for nothing less than 250,000 hits to your site per month.