Harper Collins author 'fired' and another author will be writing under her name?

[Steerpike]

Read your contracts with your publisher before you sign. That's all I can say.

P A R A F A N T A S Y: This Is Utterly Ridiculous…I Can’t Even.

 

[Codey Amprim]

Wow. Anyone up for some head-hunting?

That's awful... Almost unimaginable. Of all things writers are encumbered by, the least they should have to worry about is losing the very thing they created. That's like ripping a part of your soul out, and saying it wasn't yours to begin with.

That poor author. I don't want to remotely imagine how she feels.

 

[Devor]

That's skeezy beyond belief.

I would like to know why she was fired. I've heard people say that her writing wasn't very good. But a ghostwriter writing her series under her name without her consent? That's just crap.

 

[Steerpike]

I can see the publisher continuing the series, particularly if it was IP they developed and brought her in to write, but continuing to publish under her name is way beyond the pale. If her publishing contract allowed it, I have to think she didn't read the contract very well and/or didn't have a competent agent to do it for her. Or maybe she agreed to it, thinking it would never come to pass. But there's no way an author should agree to such terms in my opinion.

 

[JCFarnham]

The main thing you need to realise is that she agreed to a "work for hire" contract. Its a common contract that means she never legally owned a single bit of the work. And technically its not Harper Collins firing her its the packager she signed the deal with. As mentioned by someone on that blog the Work for hire is the same kind of deal that all those authors who write Star Trek books for Paramount.

Its lame, and I hope fans of LJs series' don't bother with buying any new books that appear out of thin air and support her intellectual property. But should Harper Collins be the subject of a boycot? No. If she signed the "work for hire" with a Packager then they shouldn't have anything to do with what happened to her.

The moral of the story. Know what you're agreeing to.

Support her by all means, but she did sign the shoddy deal ...

 

[Devor]

As mentioned by someone on that blog the Work for hire is the same kind of deal that all those authors who write Star Trek books for Paramount.

I almost asked if that might be the case, but I don't know anything about the series. Still, it's a ghostwriter, writing under her name. Are her picture and biography going to be in the back of the book? Is it at least a Pen Name?

 

[Sparkie]

That's skeezy beyond belief.

I would like to know why she was fired. I've heard people say that her writing wasn't very good. But a ghostwriter writing her series under her name without her consent? That's just crap.

If I remember correctly, I think she stopped writing (or at least submitting her work) for about ten years. A hiatus that long might make a publisher think twice about using her work. I'm not trying to justify this sort of thing, but writers have a responsibility to continue writing.

 

[Steerpike]

From looking into it further, it looks like the books are only going to say "Created by ...." and then have the original authors name. It doesn't look like they'll necessarily be trying to pass off the ghostwriter's work as that of the original author. If they did that, I think there is a problem. Otherwise, this is just an example of bad judgment in entering into the publishing contract, since she apparent didn't know what she was doing.

Never sign a publishing contract unless you are sure what you are signing.

 

[JCFarnham]

From looking into it further, it looks like the books are only going to say "Created by ...." and then have the original authors name. It doesn't look like they'll necessarily be trying to pass off the ghostwriter's work as that of the original author. If they did that, I think there is a problem. Otherwise, this is just an example of bad judgment in entering into the publishing contract, since she apparent didn't know what she was doing.

Never sign a publishing contract unless you are sure what you are signing.

Exactly that. The Publisher and who she signed the deal with won't be claiming its her writing (after all that would get their businesses shut down fairly quickly if enough people mentioned it... maybe...), but as they legally own the setting, the premise, everything to do with all her books series so far then you know.

I guess it's nice that they're acknowledging that she created it. That's a good thing right.

Shame about author error really

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Sounds unpleasant, but here's a quote from Smith's letter, quoted by the blog post:

Although I didn’t even understand what “for hire” meant back in 1990, when I agreed to write books for them, I found out eventually, to my horror and dismay. It means that even though I have written the entire series, I don’t own anything about The Vampire Diaries.

She didn't understand what "for hire" meant but signed a contract agreeing to work for hire? I really don't have a lot of sympathy, in this case. "Work for hire" wasn't exactly an obscure term even back in 1990; two seconds of research (even pre-internet) would have told her what she needed to know.

 

[Sparkie]

She didn't understand what "for hire" meant but signed a contract agreeing to work for hire? I really don't have a lot of sympathy, in this case. "Work for hire" wasn't exactly an obscure term even back in 1990; two seconds of research (even pre-internet) would have told her what she needed to know.

I tend to agree. While I think it's smarmy to wrest control of a story from the author, it's every writers responsibility to know what kind of agreement they're signing and abstain from making agreements they'll eventually regret. L.J. Smith can whine and cry all she wants. She signed a contract that has had a gigantic impact on her as a writer, to the point of perhaps killing her career.

But she didn't have to sign the agreement. She could have looked for a better offer.

As for her 'firing,' if you take a decade-long hiatus from writing, you're endangering your career. It's that simple.

 

[Devor]

If I remember correctly, I think she stopped writing (or at least submitting her work) for about ten years. A hiatus that long might make a publisher think twice about using her work. I'm not trying to justify this sort of thing, but writers have a responsibility to continue writing.

Is that what happened? The article Steerpike posted said she submitted the next book, and they gave it straight to a ghostwriter. If she sent it in ten years too late, I would've expected them to do that sooner.

If she had a "For Hire" contract, did something that deserved to be fired, and they will not be continuing the series under her name as an author, then okay.

I would like to know one thing, though. Was she hired to write the series before she wrote the first book, or did she write the book, pitch it to publishers, and then somehow wind up with a "For Hire" contract?

 

[JCFarnham]

The blog makes it sound as though she wrote it and ended up for hire.

 

[Steerpike]

The blog makes it sound as though she wrote it and ended up for hire.

I don't think that can happen. If she wrote it prior to entering into the agreement, copyright would have vested in her, as the author, immediately upon setting the work down in tangible form. In a work-for-hire situation, copyright vests in other than the author. Once an author has copyright, it can only be transferred by written instrument.

Seems like she must have either written the work after entering into the publishing contract, or the original contract included a copyright assignment for anything already written, and then stipulated that future works in the series would be considered works made for hire.

If she had already written the initial work prior to making the deal with the publisher, it makes her judgment that much more questionable in terms of what she agreed to. Although I suppose the agreement, no matter how onerous, did launch her career. Without it, she might still be an unpublished or unknown author.

 

[JCFarnham]

For that kind of reasoning I can't bring myself to sympathise over her livelihood being in ruin. She likely has a good amount of money (enough to have been living off anyway) from royalties off the two or three television adaptations and the 20 or so books (exaggerated numbers. I have no idea).

 

[Ravana]

From Wikipedia–which, for once, is the only source I can find that I would consider even remotely authoritative:

"I even had the last book in that trilogy plotted out, where Stefan’s worst nightmare comes true and he takes so much blood from Elena that she has to be taken to the hospital for a massive transfusion. He then decides to Influence Elena so that she will forget his existence, and he does so, to Damon and Bonnie and Meredith’s consternation. I wanted to show how this affected each one of the characters, and how Bonnie once again begins to write in her diary, since Elena’s diary is also forgotten, along with Stefan. I like to write things from Bonnie’s point of view, as I did in Dark Reunion. But none of these things will happen, because I won’t be around to write it."

Or, in other words, she's been fired because if she'd had her way, the series would've ended… at least as far as the ability to produce an ongoing TV show would go. Not the best way to make friends in the television industry.

Note also that on her website, she claims that she didn't write the first of this new trilogy–which was released last October. And the above, the second, is due out next month… how long has it been since she was fired, anyway? (Though if her website is any example, she may have just been fired because they got tired of correcting her poor grammar.) She also apparently decided–just now, as far as I can tell–to emphasize that she hasn't written several other books "based on" her stories as well. (In these cases, the creators of the TV series are also credited, interestingly enough.)

The old lesson still holds, at any rate: read your contract, and understand it. For us, it may be art, or at least a calling; for them, it's business.

 

[Jess A]

Goodness. What a smack in the face. It is not an agreement that I would sign, no matter how much I wanted to get my work read.

 

[Ravana]

Ehh… well, there's always the other consideration: "We already know what you are; now we're just negotiating the price."

I suspect that in that department, she isn't hurting… and if the contract is how she got from where she started to where she is now, well, there you are.

I'd passionately hate to give up control of my work, too. But I also know what I am. Put enough digits in it, and I'm all yours, baby.

 

[Muqtada]

If she knew about the 'for hire' clause of the contract and went against the wishes of the publisher, knowing that she could be fired, I can't say that I feel that incredibly bad for her. Sure, she offered to do it how they wanted (according to her letter) but that's after she turned in her copy of the manuscript. And she said they didn't even give her edits... this implies that she already knew what the terms were to keep her employment and she decided to put her toe out of line anyway.

Somehow, I think she'll recover

 

[boboratory]

This is a tough gig, I feel for anyone that has that kind of tenure and loses their position...

But it's kind of like telling me only Michael Keaton can be Batman... um, really?

I genuinely don't want to seem insensitive, but there is not alot of sympathy to be had... How many authors on this forum would like twenty years of uninterrupted work getting paid writing books? And honestly, if she's that good, and has that name recognition, she can start her own series, use her name to draw readers (with the other company still promoting her name, without her having to write for someone else). She would own it and start a whole new set of adventures, new characters, all new things for her to explore... Maybe that's part of the reason the publisher let her go, the series was lacking that.

If they fired her, she's a free agent, unbeholden, able to make a fresh start, AND, she's got a leg up on everyone else...twenty years of experience and market recognition.