Renaissance Publishing

[victoriastrauss]

First, I'll note that Renaissance Publishing, based in Singapore, is not the same as Renaissance Ebooks Inc., the subject of another thread here.

Renaissance publishes through Lulu.com, but its website suggests that it has some bookstore presence for the four books it has published to date at Borders stores in Singapore. There's no information on staff, so it's impossible to judge what sort of background they have that would qualify them to run a publisher or to sell subsidiary rights on the international market (as they offer to do for established writers).

Renaissance is also running a contest for Singaporean authors, with nice prizes and the possibility of publication in an anthology. However, its contest guidelines include a substantial catch:

"Copyright and all related rights of the submitted entries are deemed to have been assigned unconditionally to Renaissance Publishing, in all regions and territories of the world. Renaissance Publishing shall edit the entries for the purpose of publication as it deems fit. Renaissance Publishing shall also have full liberty over the sale and re-assignment of copyright and all related rights of the entries to any third party/parties. No royalties or author fees are payable for the copyright of published entries unless otherwise contracted."

So just by entering the contest, you surrender copyright . Renaissance can thereafter do whatever it wishes with your entry, including publish it and/or sell it to others, without any compensation to you.

A Writer Beware if I ever saw one.

- Victoria

 

[lancengym]

WOW! We have nothing left to say... You've made us look bad just cos we were the unfortunate victim of a careless confusion to begin with and we wanted it cleared up. I guess we'll just carry on with business and hope for the best despite all these. If any Singaporeans chance upon this thread, don't worry, our contest is supported by NAC and NLB, and officially partnered by Book Council and Borders. (For Singaporeans, they will understand the amount of integrity and credibility behind a company when they have this sort of support) It's not what these folks here paint us out to be...our entry form has been vetted by all four parties and we have our reasons.

Renaissance Publishing

 

[lancengym]

BTW Victoria: If you list us as a writer beware just because of this scrap, you'll be doing a disfavor to the many young writers and talents we have sinked money into supporting here in Singapore. Even if you don't like us, do them a favor, there are only a few publishers left here willing to support literary writing and publishing and we are trying our best. Don't discourage any talent from trying us out just because somewhere overseas, you can't see the results of our real action here in Singapore.

Maybe you want to speak to a few Singapore friends or writers and ask them to do an impartial investigation into whether we are for real. It's only fair to us.

 

[Sheryl Nantus]

tread lightly, dude... Vic does her research and doesn't issue warnings unless warranted. And grabbing all copyright does seem rather... warranted to be concerned about!

you may want to do your own research into WriterBeware and her qualifications before you start bleating "Unfair"!

 

[Rolling Thunder]

No, your contest looks bad now because of that contract clause.

 

[Roger J Carlson]

BTW Victoria: If you list us as a writer beware just because of this scrap, you'll be doing a disfavor to the many young writers and talents we have sinked money into supporting here in Singapore.

Are you saying the quoted portion of your website concerning the copyright of contest submissions is wrong?

 

[Sheryl Nantus]

actually, they had me at "sinked"...

 

[lancengym]

ALL,

thank you for your comments. It was a bad clause and it's implications are bad. We don't deny it. But we knew it and we stuck by it for good reasons. It has not deterred many good writers from submitting to us and proudly holding their first published work in their hands and seeing it in our country's bookstores on sale. There is history for it's rationale, but we weren't bother to go into a long historical story here.

Victoria: I assure you this clause will not appear again in all our future contests. We will be reverting to contracts based on author royalties for all contributions. Outside of the contest we have always accepted authors on a normal industry std publishing contract.

It is not our intention to offend anyone or question anyone here. We simply wanted a careless confusion cleared up. We hope the moderators can spare us from any more of this.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Fair 'nuff. I'll close this now.

 

[victoriastrauss]

thank you for your comments. It was a bad clause and it's implications are bad. We don't deny it. But we knew it and we stuck by it for good reasons. It has not deterred many good writers from submitting to us and proudly holding their first published work in their hands and seeing it in our country's bookstores on sale. There is history for it's rationale, but we weren't bother to go into a long historical story here.

Victoria: I assure you this clause will not appear again in all our future contests. We will be reverting to contracts based on author royalties for all contributions. Outside of the contest we have always accepted authors on a normal industry std publishing contract.

I've re-opened the thread so I can respond to Lance's statement above.

Lance, thanks for acknowledging that it's a bad clause with negative implications for writers. I'm not surprised it hasn't deterred writers from submitting to you--writers often have a poor understanding of copyright, as well as a tendency to skim over the fine print of submission guidelines.

I'm very glad to learn that you intend to remove the clause from future contests, allowing writers to keep their copyrights and to be compensated for the use of their work. But...why not remove the clause now? Perhaps you'd consider amending the contest guidelines to state that writers submitting to the contest--including those who've already submitted their entries under the un-amended guidelines--will keep their copyrights, and if published, will be paid a reasonable* royalty, and will receive a reasonable* percentage of any subrights income, if you sell their work to third parties.

Thanks!

- Victoria

* "Reasonable" might be 50% of cover price or 50% of gross subrights income, divided on a pro-rata basis between contributors.

 

[AC Crispin]

Victoria RULZ.

I love it when she talks technical.

-Ann C. Crispin
Chair, Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.com

 

[CaoPaux]

Direct link to Lulu storefront: http://stores.lulu.com/lancengym

 

[CaoPaux]

Published a couple Kindle editions in '12, but most recent activity is on the corporate publications side.

ETA: Revamped site in '14, but gone by Fall '15.