Each of my books have been released in print at that other pub but only seven of my EC/CP books have been put into print…and those weren’t even the ones that have sold the best electronically. I make good money with the other publisher’s print books and that pub doesn’t have contracts with Amazon or ANY brick and mortar stores. Sales are strictly from the publisher’s website.

Juliana Stone they have a first refusal clause…it’s there….I wanted it removed, but they wouldn’t…they tried to reword it, but I was not going to sign a contract with any type of clause like that. They also wouldn’t budge on the rights clause…I thought I was being more than generous in asking for a max of 10 years, but they refused and said they wanted lifetime rights

Juliana Stone I had an agent and a lawyer look over the contract. I know what I was signing

Anon I clearly stated that IF an author didn’t sign because they thought they’d never get their rights back, or IF they didn’t sign because they thought EC would have rights to every book they ever wrote, THEN they were stupid. I stand by that, because it’s very clear per the contract that neither of those things are true. You claim you did have a lawyer explain the contract to you, so I’m assuming you DID know neither of those things were true, hence I was not talking about YOU when making my statement.

Seems they did advise her to not sign the Ellora’s Cave contract without negotiation on those specific clauses because they interfered with her New York Publisher’s contract.

At least that is my understanding. Your mileage may very.

I’m not putting down either publisher, the quality of the writers, the editors or the products they release, but I think some of the changes made by EC in the past few years *have* had a huge negative impact on sales. So much so that if an author bases her submissions choices on potential income alone, EC certainly shouldn’t be placed far and above other epublishers like it used to be.

I think you are very much aware I was talking in reference to the matter of signing contracts using loosely defined terms like “lifetime” which I would equate to ME drinking that Koolaid.

I like those standard 5 or 7 year contract terms I have seen. They make more sense for me.

And while you don’t like being called stupid, which no one did by the way, we don’t like being equated to koolaid drinking (if anyone doesn’t get the reference google Jonestown and see why it’s so very insulting), brainwashed fools, which we were.

I think I actually did mention that.

My god, Teddy, now you’re just blatantly ignoring information because you want EC to be the big bad wolf. You and others have been told that there ARE ‘clearly defined’ end dates to both the lifetime rights clause and the option clause. The lifetime rights clause says EXACTLY what circumstances qualify the book to be considered out of print and allows the author to ask for rights back with, as Anion said, a simple email. And it’s not a crazy list of circumstances either. You can’t ask for it back for a year and a half after it releases. It has to be under a certain number of sales per month. And then all you have to do is send them an email and the book is yours to do with what you will.

And that kool-aid drinking remark was just low. You go ahead and be impressed with people who turn down a contract because they didn’t like a clause. But it’s less impressive for people to sign a contract that is perfectly sane in its clauses? We’re brainwashed and stupid, because we actually READ the damn contract and realized that those clauses everyone freaks the hell out about aren’t what the naysayers said they were? If they didn’t like the clause because they thought they’d never get their rights back, then they didn’t read the thing and certainly didn’t have a lawyer explain it to them. If they didn’t sign because they thought EC would get grabby and lay claim to every book they wrote from then on, they again didn’t read the damn contract properly. That’s THEM being stupid, imo. Because one should always understand the contract one is signing (or not signing in this case).

Anion,

I personally am impressed with people like Juliana Stone who are willing to walk away from even a top ePub when contract negotiations of clauses that they find unacceptable fall through and provide that information publicly as an example.

I was talking about this whole matter strictly from my knowledge of contracts from other top ePubs and my personal reaction and decisions on such things.

Not about what decisions you have made for yourself. Those are yours to make, based on your situation which I have no knowledge of, and not my place to judge. So I apologize for offending you.