Hello to all,

I'm a new member in your community and I'm glad to be here. I have a question: a friend of mine got her story arousing interest of a small publisher. In the contract, it's written that the publisher has the last word on the book. She thought that it was unfair, but personnally I thought it was normal. So I was wondering: usually who gets the last word?

Thanks in advance for your lights!

Essaa

Hello, Essaa (what a great name!) and welcome to WW.
I can't answer your question, but I'm sure someone will be along shortly who can. I'd have thought it must be in the publisher's interests to find a place of agreement with the writer, or else their future relationship would be jeopardised. Will be interested to see what others say.
Susiex

Hi Essaa, and welcome to WriteWords

It depends what aspect of the book they mean. The publisher has the last word on covers, price, design, marketing, sales and so on, though most contracts give you the right to 'be consulted' about the cover. But the text, ultimately is the writer's. You'd be mad not to listen to your editor, who has far more experience of what readers want and what will sell that you do. And it's in everyone's interests that you reach some kind of compromise that you're all happy with. If you do dig your toes in you might have to take the consequences in their not promoting it with the enthusiasm and cash and so on, that you'd like. But on the text of the book you can dig your toes in if you really must. On everything else, it's their call.

But this sounds like an odd clause to me. Can I suggest that your friend gets the contract checked out with the Society of Authors? And one thing that's enormously helpful when it comes to disagreements with your publisher (and at all sorts of other times) is to have an agent who can be the interface so if she hasn't got one, it might be worth trying to be taken on.

Emma

What you said is very interesting. I read for example that in TV writing, only the executive producer/show runner has the last word (for the text)so the writers have to write until the executive producer approves and I consider the publisher being like "the executive producer" of the book, thus the publisher has the last words. But I'm guessing that TV writing is far more different from book publishing.
Thanks a lot!

Essaa

Yes, it's true that the exec producer or series producer has the last word in TV writing - but then that's because they've usually commissioned the programme and also because they bear the responsibility for their television company. I guess if a book contained libellous or problematic content then the publisher would hold the same responsibility.
Susiex

As I understand it the publisher of a book is legally liaible for the books they publish. But the author's contract will have a clause where the author certifies that there's nothing which is libellous or breaches copyright, in the book, and indemnifies the publisher against anyone suing (sueing?) them for that.

But as people have said, the relationship is different: in publishing the author of the book is solely responsible for what's in it, hence the fact that, in the end, we have control over the text: it's our name on the cover. Under a publishing contract the publisher is simply buying the right to make that text public and sell it. Whereas it seems to me that the production company is the 'author' of a TV programme, employing all sorts of people - designers, directors, actors, writers - to make the programme.

Emma

You have raised an interesting question, if for one obscure reason a reader is offended by a book and decides to sue, who is responsible? I'm guessing the publisher right?

Hi, Essaa, and welcome to WriteWords.

Although the writer has the last word, they could lose their publisher and agent if they dig their heels in and choose artistic integrity over the changes suggested by the publisher to make it more appealing ot a larger readership, so it's something to think carefully about.


- NaomiM

This one depends entirely on the wording.
All creative work, whether published or not is the intellectual property of the artist. You can sell some rights, but it always remains your property.
You also have moral rights which means you can stop people using it in a derogatory way - which would include a publisher insisting on changes you disagreed with. However an artist can agree to waive those rights which is what it sounds like is happening here.
HB x

Hi Essaa. Welcome to WW.

I can only echo Emma’s advice – get that contract checked over by a professional, either an agent or the SoA.

Getting an agent might be difficult, as we’re talking about a small publisher – nothing at all wrong with them, I hasten to add, but they tend to offer only very small advances, if any, so an agent wouldn’t get much return for their work unless your friend can convince them they have plenty of potential.

The SoA might be a quicker option, although your friend might have to join. It’s not cheap, but could be worth every penny if it avoids a very expensive mistake. There are plenty of horror stories circulating about hazy or misunderstood contract clauses!

Good luck

Dee

The SoA do also do very good booklets about things like contracts, free to members and a few pounds to non-members. And yes, they're very quick to get back to you if you do join by sending in a contract - a matter of days, usually.

If the publisher kicks up a fuss about your friend taking a few more days to sign it because it's going to the SoA, then that's a big, big, big red flag against the publisher: a reputable publisher wants you to be happy with the contract, and has nothing to hide. And as Dee says, it may not be that's something's deeply wicked, just that it can be hard for a new author to understand the implications of some of the clauses.

Emma

In book publishing, the writer is only the text provider. It's only a creative role, a mere producing role (creating something from nothing). All he does is innovate. What he peddles is merely ideas, abstractions, intangibles, small beer. Idea production holds low status in a capitalist society compared to the middle-people who make the lion's share of the wealth the artist generates - the book retailer being king of the castle.

This same logic echoes through the whole 'business' so that when it gets to the question you've asked, the answer is that the important people get the say and the pay, not the lowly text provider, or dog's body - the writer. Compare the fee chargeable by a real estate agent with what the architect who conceived a design and organised its physical materialisation gets and you'll see how this principle works in this 'real' world. The serious person is the one who can bullshit best, nor the moron who spent a decade or more getting competent at a vital role in making a habitat worthy of free men.

Our society's values hold that what lawyers say will be deemed to be the reality we accept, the values we hold, the morality we adopt unquestioningly. So if there's something the writer wants to say that can be attacked by a team of lawyers, someone has to step up to the plate and carry the can. Most writers are wimps, as indeed are most people. If writers really wanted to have the final say of what is published and how, they'd do what they have to do to earn that privilege. They haven't. Instead, they delegate to more bullying commercial types whose aim is to make money, not illuminate the world, and to do it within the parameters set by lawyers, who, like insurance companies and churches, trade on people's fear and their capacity to be bluffed and intimidated.

Publishers have asked me to change my story so they can feel safe about the legal consequences. I walked. I'm publishing it myself, and I'm prepared to go to jail if things go badly. I can't expect business people (publishers) to hold such convictions about my work. But if I didn't hold such convictions about it, and didn't live them fully, I'm a fraud - a mere servile text provider who lives the serfdom dictated by sleezebag lawyers. That's not me. I'm a writer, not a text provider or a frivolous entertainer; a clown. You have to situate yourself in that continuum. Nobody can advise you.

The answer you seek lies therein and within - not with lawyers, priests, accountants, publishers or 'experts' on society. The answer is in you, along with the whole cosmos. A very brave man told us so millennia ago, and held his convictions no matter what the cost. Ask yourself - would Emile Zola have deferred to legal advice before he launched his 'J'accuse?' He went public with what he wrote, not what a publisher changed or a lawyer advised. He was forced to flee to England, and paid dearly for his conduct in the end. Zola was a Writer (capital intended), not a wimpish text provider.

Writers are thin on the ground today. What we have most of is text providers with no say on what happens to their ideas when it's a question of integrity. If it were any different, this shabby, inauthentic world of ours wouldn't be recognisable. It's the wood, you know. You just can't get it.