Authors May Have To Meet Deadlines As Publishing Suffers Through Downturn

New York Observer:

But as book sales fall and publishing houses look for ways to cut costs, many literary agents are growing increasingly worried that publishers looking to trim their lists will start holding authors to deadlines and using lateness as an occasion to renegotiate advances and, in some cases, terminate contracts altogether.

Read the whole story: New York Observer

Comments

[zanzig]

08:51 AM on 08/06/2009

Good. About time.

[Michelle Alexandria]

09:57 PM on 08/05/2009

Are these writers professional or not? When they commit to getting a book out by a certain deadline and the publisher pays them a large advance to do it, then they should be fired if they miss the deadline. Especially when it's years over due. Unless you are someone like J.K. Rowling or a Grisham or King, a top tier author who has already made the publisher a lot of money.

[pakaal]

05:25 PM on 08/05/2009

Publishers have a right to be nervous about authors who go two years over their deadline. Seriously, Ken Follett wrote Eye of the Needle in less than one year!