Pluralistic: 21 Jun 2022


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Reasonable Agreement

On the Crapification of Literary Contracts

Two swordsmen cross blades while standing on the pages of an open book, an inkpot between them. The swords are antique pen-nibs.

I don’t want to pretend that freelance writing contracts were ever great, but in the 34 years since I sold my first short story — at 17 — I’ve observed firsthand how manifestly unfair contractual terms have become standard, and worse, non-negotiable.

I started selling to magazines back in 1980s, which were the the dawn of corporate publishing consolidation. Magazines changed owners frequently as they were snapped up by new owners who, in turn, merged or bought out their competitors (thank Ronald Reagan for neutering antitrust and allowing these mergers to be waved through).

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Pluralistic: 17 Jun 2022


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Pluralistic: 15 Jun 2022


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Pluralistic: 14 Jun 2022


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Pluralistic: 13 Jun 2022


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Direct: The Problem of Middlemen

Kathryn Judge’s debut book is a hymn to short supply chains.

Back in 2007, I published my second short story collection, Overclocked. I was elated; not just because I’d published another book (the thrill of a new book has yet to pale even today, after dozens of books), but because it was a short-story collection, the kind of book I’d devoured as a kid, the mainstay of writers I’d worshiped, from Harlan Ellison to Spider Robinson to Kate Wilhelm. The publisher was Avalon, which had recently acquired Four Walls Eight Windows, the small press that had published my first short story collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More. Selling a book to Four Walls had been its own thrill, as they were publisher to Abbie Hoffman, another writer I’d grown up on.

But then, something weird happened.

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Pluralistic: 12 Jun 2022


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Pluralistic: 10 Jun 2022


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