I agree with
Stacia that there are a number of things that would worry me about the contracts (which, I would suggest, have not been drawn up by a lawyer experienced in publishing).
RomanceZine Contract:
RomanceZine Contract: (BOLDING MIND)
D.W. Neal Publishing shall have the unlimited right to publish the Work in the electronic medium for one issue of the electronic Romancezine magazine/journal, including promotional rights as described in paragraph 2. The Work shall be credited to Author upon publication. These rights include the ongoing sale of back issues of the electronic magazine in perpetuity.
As I understand it, Romancezine is an ezine - therefore there should not be any back issues because, in theory, the magazine can be offered forever. In essence, therefore, this clause appears to give the magazine a perpetual right to your story.
This would be concerning in itself, but it also appears to contradict the following clause:
RomanceZine Contract:
Subject to the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2, Author agrees that D.W. Neal Publishing shall have the exclusive right to use the Work for a period of 90 days from the original date of publication.
If Romancezine only intends to take a 90 day exclusive then you need to amend clause 1 to make it clear either that:
(a) after that 90 day period expires, Romancezine only has a non-exclusive right to publish and that you, as author, will be free to sell the story elsewhere; or
(b) that all rights in the story revert to you after that 90 day period and Romancezine has no further right to the same (which is going to be hard to negotiate for an epublication).
RomanceZine Contract:
D.W. Neal Publishing shall have the unlimited right to make promotional use and internal use of the Work, including promotion on our websites or through third-party venues.
Personally, I'd want to clarify what they mean by "promotion use and internal use of the Work". Does this mean that they want the right to release excerpts from the Work for the purposes of promotion or do they want to be able to make the Work available for free on other sites to increase traffic to their magazine?
RomanceZine Contract: (BOLDING MINE)
D.W. Neal Publishing shall make payment to the Author in the amount of five cents per word. Author will also receive an electronic copy of the published issue. Payment to Author shall be made within 30 days of publication.
Given that publication is within the publisher's control (and in theory, they could never publish the story, meaning that they don't have to pay for it), I'd want this amended so that payment has to be made within 30 days of acceptance. I'd further want it clarified that Romancezine has no right to exercise its promotion or internal use rights of the work until payment has been duly made.
MakingLoveStories.com Writing Contest Contract:
See above comments on the Romancezine Contract.
Makinglovestories.com Ebook Contract:
Ebook Contract:
If at anytime during the first 5-year period of the contract as stated in paragraph 1, the Author garners a contract with a print publishing firm who also wants the E-Book rights to the Work, D.W. Neal Publishing will sell our E-Book rights to that publisher for a fair market value to be determined at the time of request. If necessary, any disputes as to the actual value of these rights will be determined through arbitration within the State of Virginia.
This would be completely unacceptable to me because it gives Makinglovebooks.com a right to hold the ebook hostage. There is no mechanism for setting out what would be a "fair market value" and I would suggestvthat no commercial publisher is going to want to go to the trouble of arbitration to determine the same.
What would be better is if Makinglovebooks.com simply provided a release on the provision of, e.g. 30 days notice on request from the author.
Ebook Contract: (BOLDING MINE)
D.W. Neal Publishing shall have the unlimited right to make promotional use and internal use of the Work, including promotion on our websites, in our ezine or through third-party venues. Promotional publication of the work will be limited to a maximum of 20% of the total content of the E-Book. Third-party retailers may promote the E-Book for FREE on some occasions, but payment for those downloads will still be made by them at full value.
I would expect any free release of the book to be under the publisher's control and would be concerned that the vague wording of this clause can be used to deny the author payment for the same (especially as this seems to be a royalty-only publisher).
Ebook Contract:
Once the third-party retailer, or payment-processing firm (for our websites) deducts their commission and fees, D.W. Neal publishing and the Author shall split the remaining gross amount as equal 50% shares. The publisher will charge no other fees or expenses. Royalties will be paid quarterly after they have been received from the third-party retailer or payment-processing firm. Any royalty payment less than $25 will be delayed until the following quarter. The Author will also receive a copy of the published E-Book.
So they're paying 50% on net. Personally, I'd want to strike out that $25 threshold because it's possible that your book won't sell enough copies to ever reach that level, meaning that the publisher will never actually have to pay you anything.
Makinglovebooks.com Anthology Ebook Contract:
Anthology Ebook Contract: (BOLDING MINE)
D.W. Neal Publishing shall have the non-exclusive unlimited right to publish the Work in the E-Book format for a period of 25 years, including promotional rights as described in paragraph 2. The Author shall retain all other rights for the Work. The Work shall be credited to the Author upon publication.
That bolding there is a hell no from me.
Anthology Ebook Contract:
D.W. Neal Publishing shall pay royalties to the Author(s) based on the following equation. Once the third-party retailer, or payment-processing firm (for our websites) deducts their commission and fees, D.W. Neal publishing and the Author(s) shall split the remaining gross amount as equal 50% shares. Each Author will receive a percentage of the 50% share based upon the word count of their Work. The publisher will charge no other fees or expenses. Royalties will be paid quarterly after they have been received from the third-party retailer or payment-processing firm. Any royalty payment less than $25 will be delayed until the following quarter. Each Author will also receive copy of the published E-Book.
Stacia's right - not only is this clause unusual, if you don't know how many stories are going to be in the anthology or what their word counts are, you could end up with an incredibly small piece of that 50%. In the few anthology contracts I've seen, splits are usually made equally between each contributing author regardless of their respective word count.
There are many other deficiencies in those contracts that I would point out, including basics such as lack of jurisdiction clauses, lack of warranties and other standard boilerplate - all pointing to an amateur and clueless operation.
So in conclusion, this wouldn't be a publication I'd waste my time with.
MM
