The Smoking Gun reports that Book Publisher Goes To Court To Recoup Hefty Advances From Prominent Writers, as Penguin is suing a dozen of its authors for the return of advances for books that have not been delivered.
As they note:
The most interesting case is probably that of Lucy Siegle, who got a $100,000 contract (! -- though they only forked over/are suing for the $35,000 advance) for To Die For -- a book she never delivered to them (so the complaint) but which does, in fact exist, and was published by Fourth Estate (a HarperCollins imprint ...) in the UK (for which Penguin did not get the rights in this contract) -- get your copy at Amazon.co.uk. So what the hell happened there ? (They terminated the agreement upon non-delivery in February 2009 is part of the story -- they apparently weren't as patient as Fourth Estate -- but still .....)
Suing an author is a pretty desperate act -- publishers usually try to resolve these things ... well, if not amicably, at least without involving (too many) lawyers -- but the sums here probably (just) make it worthwhile (though several of these are in the $20,000 range (and the Branscum is a piddling 10K), which I would have figured to be close to the figure where you just write it off as a loss (and blacklist the author) if you have a Penguin-sized turnover). On the other hand, I'm actually a bit surprised there aren't more authors for them to go after (presumably they settled a lot of other claims with authors, for fifty cents on the dollar or whatever they could wring out of them).
A quick SCROLL search also finds surprisingly few other NY-based publishers taking this approach ... for now.
As they note:
The Penguin Group's New York State Supreme Court breach of contract/unjust enrichment complaints include copies of book contracts signed by the respective defendants.And you can find those complaints fairly easily via the NY State 'Supreme Court Records On-Line Library' -- which you can access via this page; type in 'Penguin Group' under 'plaintiff search'. (I find the contracts -- Exhibit A in the paperwork -- fascinating; they also include brief descriptions of the unwritten work (and I have to wonder whether we all shouldn't just chip in and cover the $10,000 (well, plus interest ...) that preserved us from Deborah Branscum's Stuffola, the book (see her official site ...)).)
The most interesting case is probably that of Lucy Siegle, who got a $100,000 contract (! -- though they only forked over/are suing for the $35,000 advance) for To Die For -- a book she never delivered to them (so the complaint) but which does, in fact exist, and was published by Fourth Estate (a HarperCollins imprint ...) in the UK (for which Penguin did not get the rights in this contract) -- get your copy at Amazon.co.uk. So what the hell happened there ? (They terminated the agreement upon non-delivery in February 2009 is part of the story -- they apparently weren't as patient as Fourth Estate -- but still .....)
Suing an author is a pretty desperate act -- publishers usually try to resolve these things ... well, if not amicably, at least without involving (too many) lawyers -- but the sums here probably (just) make it worthwhile (though several of these are in the $20,000 range (and the Branscum is a piddling 10K), which I would have figured to be close to the figure where you just write it off as a loss (and blacklist the author) if you have a Penguin-sized turnover). On the other hand, I'm actually a bit surprised there aren't more authors for them to go after (presumably they settled a lot of other claims with authors, for fifty cents on the dollar or whatever they could wring out of them).
A quick SCROLL search also finds surprisingly few other NY-based publishers taking this approach ... for now.