May
6
0

Change of book plans: online release eminent!

Author Eve Dmochowska    Category Life     Tags

As I have mentioned before, Gino and I are working on a book for a UK publisher, on the topic of Social Media. Actually, that should now be phrased in the past tense.

I had a careful look at the contract, and was horrified to consider the implications of some of the terms:

  • We would be lucky to see any money before December NEXT year
  • We were obligated to provide the publisher with updated versions for future editions at her request (and we know how often social media topics need updates!)
  • Should either one of us die, the estate would not receive royalties for future editions
  • Should the publisher successfully sue a copyright infringement case, she would keep all of the proceeds.

Quite a cheek, if you ask me. I kick myself for not reading the contract much more carefully before, but at least now I have a semi ready manuscript to take to market. Since neither Gino nor I expected to make big (or any) bucks out of this, we have decided to do the next best thing: issue the book online!
The original book would be about 60 000 words, which is a bit hefty for an e-book (I think), so we are probably going to split it up into the respective chapters that each of us wrote, and publish two separate books, under our individual names.

We hope to release the books concurrently, and although each of us is now responsible for their own book, we are assisting each other with the editing, the flow and the general tone. May I say that we have drunk far too many coffees during the process!

I am very happy that due to the nature of the book, the online medium seems the ideal space in which to distribute it. But I cannot help but wonder how many authors, who have penned their great masterpieces, have been conned or pushed into a tight corner by one sided contracts. It is my understanding that the book industry is a tough one, and maybe this is a clue as to why.

By the way, none of this has any huge impact on the Social-media-for-South-Africans book that I announced earlier. The format might change slightly, but the book will definitely appear soon on a shelf where all good books are sold ☺

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