Ravenwing:
Re contracts: Unless they are signed in a lawyer's office, and properly witnessed, they'd never stand up in court.
Bollocks.
Why do you insist on spouting off about legal enforceability when you plainly know nothing about what you're talking about? Do you honestly think that you're helping people? Because if so, then I'm sorry to tell you that you're actually putting people at risk if they try to rely on the crap that you insist on spewing.
Witness attestation may assist in determining whether a document has been properly signed. Some countries (and I believe some US states) require that particular signed documents be notarised. I can tell you however that I have seen plenty of US contracts in my time that have not been notarised but which are nonetheless deemed to be legally binding.
Contract law (as anyone who has ever set foot in a law lecture will tell you) is more than signatures on a contract. A contract can exist if you can prove an offer, an acceptance, adequate consideration, intention to create legal relations and certainty of terms. That's why people can sometimes find themselves bound by oral contracts.
M.R.J. Le Blanc:
If the working relationship sours, or if the publisher isn't living up to what they agreed, a kill fee isn't justified IMO.
I disagree. If you're a small company, trying to run on a commercial basis and in good faith, then if you've spent a lot of time and money trying to produce a professional product (including starting pre-word publicity, marketing, getting the distribution in place etc), then you should be entitled to charge a kill fee for that if the author decides to up and walk at the last minute.
It should be set out in the contract though so that the author knows that and it shouldn't be open to abuse. But I don't have an ethical problem with it.
MM