You don't get to be a fancy ladyblogger by writing a lot of checks...

A few weeks ago, a former student of mine contacted me to ask my thoughts on a contract, specifically a contract for The Butter, which is the new literary sister site to The Toast. The contract had issues—specifically a claim on the copyright and associated moral rights for the story, for the sum of $50.00. My student tried to negotiate, was told that the contract could not change but that sometimes those provisions she disliked were not enforced, and so she withdrew the piece.

The information got to Writers Beware, linked to above, and I tweeted it, as I do. It was retweeted, as tweets are. I was asked why I didn't just approach the visible staff on Twitter and talk to them directly, and I said that I doubt that would work. And gee, I was right, as someone else did tweet to COO Nick Pavich, and here is his response:



For those who have trouble looking at screencaps, he responded to someone's question about the contract by saying, "Of course, you can always keep your precious words and write for us without collecting a fee."

Here is the tweet again, embedded:

@karenbowness @NMamatas Of course, you can always keep your precious words and write for us without collecting a fee.

— Nick Pavich (@Nick_Pavich) December 17, 2014

Incidentally, I was on my phone when the tweet came in and could not screencap it. I asked other people to do it via twitter and Pavich tweeted to me again:

@NMamatas I can write it to you again, for a fee of course, Nick.

— Nick Pavich (@Nick_Pavich) December 17, 2014

Again, for those having trouble with gifs or embeds: "I can write it to you again, for a fee of course, Nick."

Anyway, something to consider if you were thinking of submitting short fiction to The Butter. They might not enforce the contract that would basically mean that your story could only be reprinted on their terms—because they own it—or that your story might appear under a byline of their choice instead of your own, or they might decide to enforce it after all. If the tweets above are any guide, it depends on how nice to them you are.

If writers are lucky, Butter editor Roxane Gay ( rgay ) will get her way. She's apparently struggling with Pavich on the issue:

@ruthwhippman @nick_pavich @nmamatas Nick is his own man but I have been having productive convos w/ him about the contracts.

— Sugah Daddy (@rgay) December 17, 2014

@ruthwhippman @nick_pavich @nmamatas He is not trying to do evil. I speak for The Butter and we will try to find a compromise w. writers.

— Sugah Daddy (@rgay) December 17, 2014

Though, to be perfectly blunt, a "compromise" would be very simple: for fifty bucks, The Butter should get no more than one-time rights (maybe two if articles/stories are bundled into an ebook for sale on amazon) and a limited period of exclusivity. This issue should have taken about seventeen seconds to resolve, when my student brought it up earlier this month.