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Carina Press
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Mega Congrats, Sandy! I’m so glad for you.
I’d been so busy that I missed the whole process, but I’m excited to learn about the great news.
Mega Congrats, Sandy! I’m so glad for you.
I’d been so busy that I missed the whole process, but I’m excited to learn about the great news.
Thanks!! Been mighty busy here too... Hopefully, will be even busier now.
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Oh, I want to send them something, but I have to wait until another publisher says yes or no on an sf novel, before I can do anything with the raunchy space opera I wrote with Carina in mind.
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congrats Kathleen.
I just wanted to know writer's recent experience with them. I'm thinking about giving them a try once I finish and polish my WIP.
I just wanted to know writer's recent experience with them. I'm thinking about giving them a try once I finish and polish my WIP.
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Happy overall - everyone you will work with is tops in quality and professionalism. ("Everyone" is quite a number of people - this is a not a startup or a small press.) The whole process from sub to sales is smoother than a baby's behind.
I *love* my editor. She is a genius. I have been working with editors for the last ten years, and I click with her in a way that's like nothing I've ever experienced.
There was recently a bobble with some sales reporting, and they were right on top of it with clear communication.
The royalty rates are currently lower than the other big e-pubs, but the word went out that those are changing. To what, I don't know.
Happy to talk more via email if you want, but that's the gist. I wouldn't have signed up to do it three times if I was unhappy
I *love* my editor. She is a genius. I have been working with editors for the last ten years, and I click with her in a way that's like nothing I've ever experienced.
There was recently a bobble with some sales reporting, and they were right on top of it with clear communication.
The royalty rates are currently lower than the other big e-pubs, but the word went out that those are changing. To what, I don't know.
Happy to talk more via email if you want, but that's the gist. I wouldn't have signed up to do it three times if I was unhappy
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Angela's kidding, right? They take rights for the duration of copyright? Why then is there a renewal clause? I'll never live long enough to see my copyrights expire.
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According to what I've been told is the standard contract that everyone signs: Seven years after publication, you can ask that the rights revert if the story has gone out of print. Out of print for e-books is defined as selling less than fifty copies in the year up to the point when you ask for reversion.
So my first one with them came out in June 2010. In July 2017, I can get the rights back if I didn't sell more than fifty copies of it from June 2016 to June 2017.
From what I understand, this is a Harlequin thing, same for all imprints, not just Carina.
It's not considered to be "author friendly", no, but it's been industry standard with Harlequin for a long time.
Speaking not from experience, just from research, so others may have seen different.
"Asking" for rights back isn't the same as being guaranteed you'll get those rights back.
Does Carina have the legal ability to keep your rights, even if sales have fallen and you've requested their return?
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All contracts are negotiable. We all sign them, but we don't have to sign a boilerplate as is. Publishing contracts favor the house, not necessarily the author.
If the book is good enough to find a home with one publisher that offers a bad deal, then you take it to another house that offers a better deal. You don't just "settle."
You strike out any clause that demands you sign away the copyright. If a publisher demands that you hand over the copyright either temporarily or permanently, walk away. It's a bad deal. Such a contract is a benefit to them, not you!
You can negotiate a rights reversion down to 3 years instead of seven. I did that with a small publisher doing a digital reprint of some of my titles. If we're both happy with sales after 3 years then we just sign a new agreement to extend things for another three years. If not, then the rights revert to me and no hard feelings.
I sold a story last year to a rather prestigious magazine and was shocked at the rights grab in their "standard" contract. They've been around for decades, have plenty of fans and industry cred -- getting published with them is a big deal.
But when I saw bits of the contract that set off my W-T-F alarm I turned it over to my agent for a look. She crossed out whole paragraphs that were not to my advantage.
One clause gave the magazine the exclusive right to resell my work indefinitely with me getting 50% -- but there was no guarantee that I'd see anything from that! No, thank you! The rights will revert to me 6 months after publication and then I can put it up on Kindle.
If you don't like something about a contract, negotiate!
If you don't know what to look out for, then back away until you do and/or get an agent to shepherd the deal.
If the book is good enough to find a home with one publisher that offers a bad deal, then you take it to another house that offers a better deal. You don't just "settle."
You strike out any clause that demands you sign away the copyright. If a publisher demands that you hand over the copyright either temporarily or permanently, walk away. It's a bad deal. Such a contract is a benefit to them, not you!
You can negotiate a rights reversion down to 3 years instead of seven. I did that with a small publisher doing a digital reprint of some of my titles. If we're both happy with sales after 3 years then we just sign a new agreement to extend things for another three years. If not, then the rights revert to me and no hard feelings.
I sold a story last year to a rather prestigious magazine and was shocked at the rights grab in their "standard" contract. They've been around for decades, have plenty of fans and industry cred -- getting published with them is a big deal.
But when I saw bits of the contract that set off my W-T-F alarm I turned it over to my agent for a look. She crossed out whole paragraphs that were not to my advantage.
One clause gave the magazine the exclusive right to resell my work indefinitely with me getting 50% -- but there was no guarantee that I'd see anything from that! No, thank you! The rights will revert to me 6 months after publication and then I can put it up on Kindle.
If you don't like something about a contract, negotiate!
If you don't know what to look out for, then back away until you do and/or get an agent to shepherd the deal.
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I am not a lawyer
But the lawyer who read the contract said that the clause means that I have to be on top of it. The rights don't automatically come back to me. I have to request them, after a certain point in time, and that request will be granted if sales are below the benchmark defined by the contract.I probably shouldn't have said anything, but it seemed like a simple question for which I happened to have an answer.
I'm not defending or denigrating the contract. (It is the same contract that is offered to the people who write the series books.) It is what it is.
I know from having lurked on this forum before I got "the call" that it is always up to the author to read and understand the contract, to negotiate it if possible, and decide if the benefits outweigh the costs. But TANSTAAFL.
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Kathleen- Thank you for your honesty. As a newb author I appreciate hearing about the different types of contracts out there and what to look, and look out for. So please don't feel like you did a bad or wrong thing. People will still submit to Carina and people will still sign with them. Personally, I appreciate the heads up because it helps to reinforce things that I need to keep in mind while looking at a contract from any publisher.
We do ask for terms for a minimum of 7 years. While 1 to 3 years may be long enough for some smaller pubs, for those publishers who want to utilize the rights they've asked for, 3 years is not long enough. For example, we have books (around ten) that are on their second year of contract, which we've just sold foreign rights to. If we were to have a contract for only 3 years, the foreign publishers wouldn't even look at these books for possibility of publication, because they may not even have the opportunity to get to market before the author asked for reversion.
We are a publisher, and we're definitely in the business of making money (and any publisher who tells you they aren't is either lying or not a very good businessperson) but we're not in the business of yanking authors around because it's what we like to do when we're not pulling the wings off butterflies and kicking puppies
We are a publisher, and we're definitely in the business of making money (and any publisher who tells you they aren't is either lying or not a very good businessperson) but we're not in the business of yanking authors around because it's what we like to do when we're not pulling the wings off butterflies and kicking puppies