Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

I received two publisher alerts and want to share them with the community. One relates to a Yaoi publisher closing shop and the second is Tokyo Pop’s Manga Pilot draconian contract.

Iris Print:

Iris Print is a Yaoi publisher who apparently closed up shop and failed to tell its authors. Giapet.Net first reported this on May 17:
Something I didn’t mention in my Yaoi Press report was that Yamila Abraham, when asked about publishing yaoi novels as well as comics, said that it tends not to work very well, and pointed to Iris Print as an example– saying that the company has actually closed up shop.
Emails to the owner of Iris Print have seemingly gone unanswered. From an Iris Print author:
Well isn’t that swell? Iris Print closes up shop and doesn’t bother to tell the creators they have under contract. Nice. So what about our books? What about our titles? :/ I don’t know what to say about this, except that I’m truly disappointed. I’m beyond pissed; I wonder though, where is Amazon getting their re-stock if Iris is out of business? What about all those people who paid pre-orders for Queer Magic? It would’ve been nice to know …

Just as a prefatory matter, I want to explain a bit about copyright law and how that works in relation to authors. Authors create a unique work to which they own a copyright. That copyright gives them the right to copy and distribute that work. Authors sell that right of copying and distribution to publishers. These rights can be very specific, i.e., U.S. hardcover rights which means the publisher who purchased the rights can only distribute the book in the U.S. and in hardcover format.

Most rights are more general and these days include all formats, including e-formats. In return for the bundle of rights granted to the publisher, the publisher pays the author money in the form of an advance. If the author earns out the advance (sells enough copies so that her royalties meet the advance), she then is entitled to royalty payments. The advance is really a prepayment of royalties.

Most contracts state that if there is a matter of time in which the book is not in print, these bundle of rights revert back to the author. Such is the case with author Michelle Albert. The rights for two …