Gods, I hate legalese.
Mar. 8th, 2019 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkLook. There is literally NO benefit to confusing "the party of the first part" legalistic language. Well, unless you're predatory and want to be confusing. The point of a contract is to spell out exactly what two parties are agreeing to. So SAY IT IN PLAIN ENGLISH.
*grumps*
I am cranky right now. I liked Jaffa books. I made squat with them, but I was their first author, we've had a relationship for years and years, their contracts were always short, straightforward, in plain English, and they only wanted fairly limited rights. The new publisher basically wants all rights to everything (they are a tiny niche press, they only print books, they don't even do audiobooks, WHY are they asking for audio, radio, and movie rights????) and their reversion clause isn't utter shit but it's unnecessarily convoluted and ass-covering. You do not need TWO YEARS notice to reprint something that's gone out of print.
We're not living in the dark ages here, nobody has to hand-set type anymore.
Bleh.
I mean, they've said I'm free to negotiate the contract, but I don't want to even HAVE to. "Oh, we may have offered you shit, you can ask for it to be less shit" is soooooooooooooooooooooo not promising to me when considering dealing with somebody.
:(
*grumps*
I am cranky right now. I liked Jaffa books. I made squat with them, but I was their first author, we've had a relationship for years and years, their contracts were always short, straightforward, in plain English, and they only wanted fairly limited rights. The new publisher basically wants all rights to everything (they are a tiny niche press, they only print books, they don't even do audiobooks, WHY are they asking for audio, radio, and movie rights????) and their reversion clause isn't utter shit but it's unnecessarily convoluted and ass-covering. You do not need TWO YEARS notice to reprint something that's gone out of print.
We're not living in the dark ages here, nobody has to hand-set type anymore.
Bleh.
I mean, they've said I'm free to negotiate the contract, but I don't want to even HAVE to. "Oh, we may have offered you shit, you can ask for it to be less shit" is soooooooooooooooooooooo not promising to me when considering dealing with somebody.
:(
no subject
Date: 2019-03-09 06:45 am (UTC)On the other hand, I've gone through contact negotiations where I got virtually everything I asked for. So, um, good luck?