July 19, 2006
POD Files Held Hostage for $1500?! If You Pay For It, You Should Own It! By Angela Hoy
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DISCLAIMER: We own Booklocker.com, and compete directly with iUniverse.
Two things happened last week that disturbed me. First, an author I know wanted to hire a certain cover designer, but the designer refused to design his cover unless he published his book through the designer's "publishing company." Second, another author I know wanted to terminate her contract with iUniverse, but learned she'd need to pay them $1500 to obtain copies of her book text and cover files...files that she paid them to create!
Let's discuss the cover designer scenario first. If you're a cover designer, call yourself a designer. If you're a book publisher, call yourself a publisher. If you're a cover designer, don't insist you're also a publisher after someone solicits your services. And, how do you expect to stay in business by forcing authors to use your publishing services if they buy your cover design? I would hope none of our readers is gullible enough to be suckered into a relationship like this. Trust me. If you hire a designer to design your cover and they then try to force you to publish your book through them, they are not a real publisher!
Now, let's move on to the really ludicrous scenario above.
At Booklocker.com, we publish less than 5% of incoming submissions. We really aren't interested in publishing books that we know aren't going to sell and we have absolutely no interest in being an author's meat-market, which is what many of our competitors are (those that publish everything coming over the e-transom). That said, when I reject manuscripts, it would be nice to have a reasonably priced and professional POD publisher to refer them to. Unfortunately it appears none exist anymore.
I used to refer rejected authors to iUniverse becuase their costs were reasonable (for their most basic program anyway) and because they have a non-exclusive contract. I guess maybe I read their contract a long time ago or perhaps I didn't study it hard enough. While their contract is non-exclusive, it's now in effect for three years (and then automatically renews each year).
So, if you want to terminate your contract with them during the first three years, they get to keep selling your book until the contract expires. What does that mean? Well, if a traditional publisher comes knocking on your door, they aren't going to want to give you a contract while iUniverse is exercising their non-exclusive, three-year right to publish your book. No traditional publisher is going to publish a book that's also being printed and sold elsewhere.
The author in question signed up for their Premier publishing program.
The iUniverse Premier Contract states:
"Upon the effective date of such termination, AUTHOR shall have the right to purchase the text and cover digital production files of the WORK in PDF format in accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 7 of Schedule A."
If you then pan down to Paragraph 7 of Schedule A, it states:
"If AUTHOR terminates this Agreement pursuant to Paragraph 6 of this Agreement effective less than eighteen (18) months after PUBLISHERíS initial release of the WORK for publication, the fees payable by AUTHOR shall be seven hundred fifty dollars ($750) for the interior production files and seven hundred fifty dollars ($750) for the cover files."
One confusing part of their contract is that, under the termination clause with the three-year wait, it states the author can terminate with 30 days written notice. However, this appears to apply only after the initial three years is up.
The author who contacted me paid iUniverse $800 to publish her book. When she decided to try to terminate her contract, they told her the contract was in effect for three years. So, she not only learned they'd get to keep selling her book for the remainder of the three years (she just published with them this year), but also that she would have to pay them $1500 to get her files - files that she paid them $800 to create!
Why would iUniverse charge an author $1500 for files they can't even legally use anymore anyway? I can think of one reason - greed. Oh, and if you wait until the 18 months is up, the price drops to $150 for each file ($300 total), which is still ridiculous.
At Booklocker.com, authors can sell their books anywhere else they choose (the contract is non-exclusive) and can also terminate their contact same-day with a simple email. And, since the authors paid us to create their files (only $392 if they've used our cover designer; $217 if they've submitted their own cover design), they own those files and are welcome to copies of the original MSWord and pdf files of the book text along with the 300 dpi file of their cover art. We would never dream of holding an author's book hostage by having them sign a three-year contract or even asking them to wait 30 days for a termination, and we would certainly never hold an author's files hostage for $1500!
This is just another example of why you absolutely MUST read the fine print when paying someone to publish your book. The major POD players can change their contracts at anytime and you may be surprised by what you find there. I certainly was!
