I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again-

Never be so desperate to sign a contract that you sign a bad contract

Okay?

Okay, then.

Apparently James Frey-remember him?  Of A Million Little Pieces (or whatever the title was) fame?  He was the writer who wrote a memoir that wasn’t really a memoir?  Anyway, he’s apparently come up with brilliant nasty idea that will have him owning a million little pieces of newby writer souls, if they are naive enough to sign the contracts.  And it’s one lousy, sucky contract, IMO.

Full of various nastiness*IMO* from what I can tell, although one particular nasty piece?  No auditing provisions, which is standard-so no way to prove they are actually paying what they truly owe.

If I’m reading the language right, it would appear they can also force you to write more books… not give you the option, but make the writer write more.

Um… excuse me?  Make?

Choke. Sputter.

Okay, admittedly, I haven’t seen many work for hire contracts.  I don’t know what’s standard.  But it can’t be this.

And yeah, yeah, I know some are going to argue, but nobody is making anybody sign it…

Well, that’s true.  But you put somebody who is really, really good at selling snake-oil in a room full of young adults who don’t quite understand how the publishing world works.  And honestly, there are plenty of educated, intelligent adults who don’t understand how publishing works.  It’s easy to dazzle and daze and befuddle-very easy.  These young adults also don’t have anybody really educating them on how publishing really works, from what I understand.

So, are they being made to sign?  No.  They aren’t being made to sign, but they also aren’t being educated on just how bad an idea it is to sign.

These young adults need to be educated and hey, maybe that’s why so many writers are speaking out.  An attempt to do just that-educate.

Just a little public service announcement…