In John Scalzi's latest blog post, A Contract From Alibi, he writes that Alibi's contract terms are so heinous he wouldn't recommend them to his worst enemy.
John Scalzi: Do Not Sign With Alibi
At least, do not sign the their standard, boilerplate contract. Scalzi writes:
I want to be clear: I can say, without reservation, that this is the worst book contract I have ever personally encountered. Not only would I never sign it — which should be obvious at this point — I can’t imagine why anyone whose forebrain has not been staved in by an errant bowling ball would ever sign it. Indeed, if my worst enemy in the world was presented with it and had a pen poised to scratch his signature on it, I would smack the pen out of his hand and say to him, “I hate you, but I don’t hate you this much.”Alibi is a digital imprint of the Random House Publishing Group.
In his article John Scalzi steps through some of the more egregious sections of the contract and, colorfully and with wit, tells authors why they should run, not walk, away from this company.
John Scalzi is best known for writing science fiction, for which "he won the John W. Campbell Award (2006) and has been nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel (2006, 2008, 2009). (Amazon Author's Page)"
If you're thinking about submitting work to any of the new digital imprints (Loveswept, Alibi, Hydra, Flirt) A Contract From Alibi is a must read. Heck, even if you're not thinking about submitting to them, it's good to know what to look out for in the industry.
Thanks to Dean Wesley Smith for blogging about this. Here is a link to Dean's post: Another Bad Publishing Contract.
Other articles you might like:
- Amanda Palmer's TED Talk: The Art Of Asking- Moby Dick And Amazon One Star Reviews
Photo credit: "Dream" by seyed mostafa zamani under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
