Is it just me who thinks publishers should be under some kind of obligation, like normal employers, to pay out royalties on time or at least send some kind of explanation for the delay? Every time I seem to have to chase up and only then am I told 'We are working through the list.'My name seems to be at the bottom. Yesterday I was sorting papers and came across a letter dated April 4th 2004, telling me I should hear about royalties by the end of December. They had previously paid out every six months and had changed to annual payments, without telling me, just as formerly they cahnged from 12% to 10% royalties, and 8% for foreign sales. Well, as it was/is mid-February and no word as yet, I decided to ring. As usual, they are working though the list. How long is this list? They start in December and can't get through it by mid February? Imagine a large organisation telling their employees they were 'working through the list'.Oh, and another thing, I was told, quite casually, some good news is they did a reprint of 2,000 more copies.
It didn't occur to me that I would have no idea of what was going on once my book had been published. I just assumed I would be told. Is this normal?

Sheila

I am wading right out of my depth right now, but it strikes me that at the very least you should be paid interest for the time the publisher has held your money. Further, does the contract allow them to arbitrarily change the percentage like that? This sounds disturbing.

Who is this publisher? It doesn't sound like it is behaving itself well at all.

I am very concerned that your publisher seems to think they can change your roalty percentage at whim: your royalty percentage should be stipulated in your contract, and cannot be changed like this, unlessyour publisher has included a clause to this affect in the contract. And as for payment: the details of that should also be in your contract. That should state how often and when they pay you each year, and if they deviate unreasonably from that, they should usually pay some form of reparation.

I don't suppose you are a member of the Society of Authors, are you? They would advise, if you were, and might even take up the issue with your publishers. This is just where agents come in handy, as they chase your payments for you. What luxury.

Also, isn't there a society of publishers which they all belong to, which could advise you on how they are supposed to behave?

Sheila, if you have an agent, light a fire under them. They should be looking after this sort of stuff for you. If you don’t have an agent, join the Society of Authors. (There’s been a very interesting thread about them recently) They’ll help you to get your royalties and should be able to sort out your percentage. If you have a contract with your publisher they have no more right to arbitrarily change it than you do. Imagine how they would react if you suddenly informed them that you wanted 15% royalties? Would they quietly accept that? I don’t think so.

Dee

Thank you for this, and yes, I am member of the Society of Authors. I will contact them. I have not dealt with publishers before, only had magazine articles published, and I just didn't know the protocol. I have had earlier disputes with this publisher and have always been admonished and told it was me who was in the wrong and didn't recognise what was standard practice. With hindsight, I can see it was not just me who was inexperienced, but the publishers themselves, who were just starting out when they invited me to write a book, and were just very defensive. Of course, before the book was published I didn't have an agent because I hadn't established myself as a writer. I was teaching and studying.
This having to chase them for royalties is not the only, or even the worst, kind of treatment I have had from them. The whole thing was so painful and humiliating I just want to forget about it, but from time to time I think why should they get away with it. Part of the problem has been that all the time the disputes were going on I was working at a demanding job and was also very hard-up, so didn't feel I could pursue things. It was by accident last year that I found out about the Society of Authors, and by that time I was working in China. However, I joined with future needs in mind. After an exchange of emails in which I disgreed with the publishers on a number of issues they stopped my emails from getting through- they were 'firewalled'. I thought it was amusing at the time, but I can see it was just another way to delay paying me. It was only when I found the letter sent last year that I decided to 'phone. That's when I was told they would get round to me and that there had been a new printing.
I don't want to name the publishers, or go into further details, as I am mindful of the forum warning, but I will certainly follow up by contacting the SoA.

Sheila

Sheila - juston et forum warning - it can't be slander if it's true.

it does sound bad.

you need to contact SOC.

good luck

Thank you for your response. Yes, it is not slander if one speaks the truth, but we seem not to be able to agree about what is the truth.Besides, as I am sure you are aware, there are two sides to any argument.

Sheila

also they have to prove it has caused harm to their reputation and or financial harm

facts are facts - if what you have said is true - IE that you've phoned them and they've yet to pay you royalties then that is incontrovertible. presuming what you say is true.

Yes, it is true that, according to their letter of April 2004, they said I would hear about royalties by December, and I didn't. They didn't actually say when I rang that the letter was not sent out. They just gave the impression that publishing is such a time-consuming and important process that an author hassling them for payment is the least of their concerns. What makes me persist is the review that said my book was the best of the particular series they had produced,and some Internet evidence that it is being used as a course book for university programmes. They admit that they have reprinted. I suspect the delays may be a 'punishment' for former disagreement. Also, as I will no longer work for them , they have no interest in keeping me sweet. The lesson I have learned is to hand over to professionals as soon as there is a dispute.

Sheila

Yes, it is true that, according to their letter of April 2004, they said I would hear about royalties by December, and I didn't. They didn't actually say when I rang that the letter was not sent out. They just gave the impression that publishing is such a time-consuming and important process that an author hassling them for payment is the least of their concerns. What makes me persist is the review that said my book was the best of the particular series they had produced,and some Internet evidence that it is being used as a course book for university programmes. They admit that they have reprinted. I suspect the delays may be a 'punishment' for former disagreement. Also, as I will no longer work for them , they have no interest in keeping me sweet. The lesson I have learned is to hand over to professionals as soon as there is a dispute.

Sheila



<Added>

I don't know why this has appeared twice.

<Added>

The lack of royalties facts are true. The book was published in February 2002 and at the time the publishers said they would pay royalties every six months.They have changed this to an annual pay-out since, and it may have been just a way of attracting new authors when they started out.
I was present at the launch party for their first releases, about half a dozen books. My book was commissioned quite soon after the start-up,when I had responded to an ad in the film library. They were two young men with very humble premises in Camden. At the time people weren't exactly falling over to write about Chinese film and they were setting up to produce media and film books for undergraduates, with a series of introductory books on various topics . At that time, I was writing a dissertation about Zhang Yimou, who subsequently directed of 'Hero' and 'House of Flying Daggers', and teaching four days a week. The ad I saw asked for director profiles for a proposed encyclopedia of film. I sent in the profile and was asked to submit a proposal for a book on Chinese film. It was daunting, but I had already taught a couple of courses on the subject at adult colleges and written quite a lot about film, although had only published a couple of film articles. I had been studying Chinese for a few years and my impression from my teaching was that students needed a lot of cultural background to fully appreciate the films. So I took six months off from my teaching job, went into debt, but had a great time doing the additional research and the writing.

It took about eighteen months to write, altogether, but by September 2001 the book was finished, and had been sent out to a number of experts in the field for comment. I had had no editorial help at all until that time; the publisher said he just wanted to see a completed manuscript. I was told that one reviewer, the leading expert, thought the book was dreadful. It seemed the main problem was a shortage of extended film analysis. Shortly afterwards he set up a meeting with a young man who was a freelance writer on film who would help me with this aspect. The publisher went off on honeymoon and told me to collaborate with this new man. We had an initial meeting, at which he cheerfully admitted he knew next to nothing about Chinese film but he did advise me to write a final chapter about current developments. He would go away and see where he could add to the manuscript. I never saw him again, but later I calculated that he added a page and a half of film analysis to the book. There were no other changes made by him. I wrote the chapter as advised.
To my dismay, I was told, about six weeks prior to publication that this man's name would appear on the on the cover alongside mine. It was to be 'by Sheila Cornelius, with .......' I was really upset by this. It was bad enough when they changed the computer software on me, so I had to pay out £300 to remain compatible,wiping out the £200 contract-signing fee, but it did seem very unfair that after years of the work required for a book of that nature, I was to have someone take equal credit as author. I suppose I had expected he might get an acknowledgement for editorial help, but this came as a complete surprise. Some angry words ensued but in the end I agreed, worn down by claims that the publishers had put a lot of time and effort into getting this far, etc. I just wanted to get on with life and forget the whole thing.

I subsequently found out that this man had been commissioned by the publisher to write another book, about the work of the director Ang Lee. He had no previous record of book writing, and I can only assume the inclusion of his name on my book was some part of the deal, in addition to his completion fee of £200. The publisher did assure me that the royalties would be paid solely to me. I wonder about that, in that light of what happened since, ie his reluctance to pay. I should add the publisher is now very successful and has produced hundreds of books.

The point I'm making is that my book was the result of a lot of research and unpaid time. That didn't, and doesn't matter so much. What is a matter of fact is that the book was published in Feb 2002, and I have had only one royalty payment since. That was about eighteen months ago and I really had to chase them for it.

This is the first time I have put this all in writing, and has been a useful exercise, as I will need to tell all this to the Society of Authors representative. I hope it will also be instructive for other writers who are as flattered as I was at the prospect of having a book published. I am sure there are not so many who are as gullible as I was.

Sheila

I have been reading this forum with extreme care, has this matter been sorted to a satisfactory conclusion.

J Cham

I'm sorry to hear of your experiences, and I hope it has all worked out insofar that you have now got your royalties!
I also have a problem with royalties. My books are translated into French where they sold quite well. Especially, the first book sold very well in the summer of 2002 in France. Royalties from France are due to me once year at the end of December, however, the contract states that they are must be paid "by March 30 the following year". Naive as I was at the time, I assumed I would get them sometime in January 2003, but my agent told me I shouldn't expect them before March 30th. Frustrated (and very hard up) I waited. Nothing came soon after march 30th and my agent told me that I could expect them sometuime in April. I finally got them at the end of May. I was so hard up by this time that I had to max out my credit card, even take out a loan, paying interest of course. Meanwhile, my French publisher was sitting on the money and EARNING interest with MY money (after all, they had actually sold the books) since the previous summer!
The same thing has recurred every year since then. I am still waiting for the royalties from 2004.
This seems to be standard practice, at any rate, my agent didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with it. Imagine if any other business were to take almost a year to pay their suppliers, and then without interest!
This seems to me to be an area where authors AND their agents need to get quite aggresive. But like many authors I am more introverted and don't like to make a fuss, and I suppose that's what the publishers bank on.
My British publushe has never had to pay me advances as the books didn't sell too well in the UK and I am still earning out my advances.

I do sympathise with you for all the troubles you are going through.

Yes, I did get some royalties after all, but they seem very meagre considering the publisher said they were reprinting. I guess the answer is to keep all the letters and try to add up the figures, but it annoys me to have to keep chasing. I have decided writing just doesn't pay, at least unless you write best-sellers and it is best not to give up the day job.

Sheila