Should you receive a similar offer of publication, you can safely assume that it is not made in good faith. In short, this contract was as far from the SFWA’s model contract as it is possible to get - and clearly not negotiable. Why insist on that promise if the publisher did not expect criticism? A promise not to publicly criticize the publisher.A promise of splitting these rights is easy to make when they are not pursued. A discussion of how profits from other rights would be divided, such as foreign or film rights, but no undertaking by the publisher to pursue these rights.But a high royalty is easy to promise when sales are negligible. A first book rarely receives royalties over ten percent. Besides the fact that I was expected to pay, the media for publication is set by the expected market, not the authors preference. The payment was based on the medium I wanted, with different costs for just an ebook, and higher ones for hardcopy and audio books.I would be foolish not to listen to an editor’s suggestions, but I would likely want to discuss and explain some points, even if the final decision were not mine. The contract gave me no control over editorial changes.Instead, all I got was an explanation of why the contract had to be that way. I am as vain about my writing as any other author, but I just couldn’t believe what I read was genuine, especially when the publisher showed no willingness to negotiate or modify the contract. Obviously, a publisher making an offer must like my book, but the tone was exaggerated. The hope, I suspect, was that I would rush to sign with taking some thought or consulting anybody. A rush to sign me, although my novel is not tied to any recent events.To start with, the publisher’s priorities were clear when this business letter included adds for the publisher’s other publications. It was not difficult to see the sort of offer that was being made. There is no mutual risk, as there is in legitimate publishing.
Chances are, you will never make any, although you are encouraged to think you will.
As soon as you sign and pay, it has made its profit. By contrast, a vanity house makes you assume all the risk. So long as you are willing to accept these limitations, nothing is inevitably wrong with hybrid publication. A hybrid publisher can be a publisher too small to give advances and royalties, but that is still willing to take the risk of publishing your work. I might have considered a hybrid publisher. The letter I received talked about how the publisher had distributed previous books, and about various rights, but never explicitly said what it would do for me. For several thousand dollars, it would publish my novel. Oh, it called itself a hybrid publisher, to cloak itself in respectability, but it was clear enough what it was. Last week, I reached another milestone in the querying of my novel: a vanity publisher made me an offer.
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