Life, Interrupted

If you haven't gotten around to reading any of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's excellent books on the business of writing, here's another example of why you should be reading (and tipping) her blog. Do you have the right to audit your publisher, or your agent? Regularly? Why not?


"It doesn’t matter how much you trust your editor or your agent, they’re not the ones handling every aspect of your career. You are. You are responsible for your career. And as such, you need to trust but verify.

In other words, you need to run your business as a business.

When I negotiate contracts, I always imagine that I’m negotiating with someone worse than the person I’m actually negotiating with. The easiest way to do this is to imagine that the person handling the other side’s negotiation gets fired or dies or moves to a better job, and gets replaced by a savvy spawn of Satan. That spawn of Satan will take every innocently drafted clause of the contract and twist it to his advantage.

My job, if I do it correctly, is to make certain that the clauses can only be interpreted as written."

I suggest that you stop by and read this one. Because finally, after all too many years, most of us have agreed that we need to run our writing businesses as businesses, no matter what NY publishing is doing over There. And that includes recognizing that having an audit clause (among other things) is just good business.

My version of Kris's scenario is "Ten minutes after you sign that contract, you and your editor will both be hit by a bus, and your heirs will hate each other like poison."

NOTE: This is more free-wheeling, but it explains where the lightning hit Kris and she realized what is currently happening and is at stake in the numbers game of publishing. Her contracts have right of audit. Do yours?

From the SFWA mailing on the topic:

"*iBooks Bankruptcy -- Proofs Of Claim Due"

( web site listed behind the cut )