Random House causes controversy with digital imprint contracts

A few months ago, the publisher Random House set up two new digital imprints – Hydra, which focuses on science fiction, and Alibi, which has a focus on thrillers. The contracts that authors have been offered by these imprints have, over the past week or so, been causing some controversy.

A couple of the reasons for the contract controversy is that they don’t pay authors an advance for the work, and they require authors to pay for costs that are usually picked up by the publisher. The contracts also last for the life-of-copyright.

Random House has defended the contracts, saying that an author’s costs could well be significantly higher if they decided to self-publish their work.

It seems that this is a conflict that will rumble on for a while, but it perhaps boosts the case for self-publishing – if you’re going to have the responsibility and the cost related to publishing a book, you might as well have the control and the rights to it as well.

You can read more about this story here, and do let me know if you have any thoughts.