› ›
Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime

Before you sign with a publisher or an agent, read this

WebboWebbo
edited July 2010 in - Resources
Before you sign with a publisher or an agent, make sure you have checked them out. There are various websites which may help you avoid publishers and agents who don’t appear to have writers’ best interests at heart. Visit:

http://pred-ed.com/ (for editors and preditors)
and
Google the name of the publisher or agent
Writers' Beware is useful to help identifying legitimate companies or otherwise: http://accrispin.blogspot.com/

The Society of Authors will vet contracts and offer general advice about publishing matters: http://www.societyofauthors.org/
An offer of a contract is sufficient to join.

NOTE
This thread is intended to help writers avoid certain publishers and agents. Please limit it to information only, and make sure what you write isn’t libellous or similar.

Comments

  • WebboWebbo
    As you'll see, this is Jay's suggested warning thread, which I will link to from the new "Welcome" thread.
    Please add anything else you think should be in this thread to the comments box, and I'll tidy it up as we go along.
  • WebboWebbo
    bump for any new comments or additions!
  • lexialexia
    Good advice and welcome to many I am sure. Thanks webbo
  • dorothyddorothyd
    can't think of anything else to add to this. Good one!
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    edited August 2010
    Excerpt from My publisher has gone into administration thread:

    [quote=KJ]A few things I'll always look out for in a contract as a result of this 'experience' are the inclusion of clauses that allow for a contract to be terminated when a publisher is liquidated or enters administration, that all rights are reverted to the author on contract termination and that a contract cannot be sold without the author's consent. [/quote]

    KJ, I'm not sure authors can legally avoid having their books/contracts/whatever seized by creditors if the publisher runs into financial difficulties (even if the contract "covers" this problem") . [Sorry about the smiley - it's not meant to be there, but it's appeared because of the punctuation. Odd - it's not on the other thread.]

    Webbo, can you shed any light on this?
Sign In or Register to comment.