Publisher behaving badly

[fjtorres]

From the Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...0-year-old-man

The high court has ordered the British publisher of Jonas Jonasson’s smash-hit novel The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared to stop selling it, following an alleged failure to pay royalties.

Hesperus Press was ordered, after a hearing on 24 April, to cease publishing, printing and selling the English translation of Jonasson’s bestselling Swedish novel and to return copies to Hachette Book Group, which owns world English rights and which brought the legal action against the independent publisher.

Most, interestingly, the book has sold 500,000 print copies and 700,000 ebook copies since 2012. (Interesting ratio) No royalties received since 2012. The author and agent only recently noticed it.

“If I am to focus on my artistic ability, I need to stay away from it all. But I’ve always felt proud when I think of how popular the book has become in the world. And I remember when the book filled the whole shop window in Waterstones’ flagship store in Piccadilly in London. It felt great that a Swede could become so popular in English. But it’s a mental collision between that experience and the feeling of how I have been handled by Hesperus Press.”

Hugo Gernsback would be proud of these guys:

Jonasson is not the only Hesperus author looking for answers. All four members of staff at the small publisher have resigned from the company in the past few months. Jordan-based chief financial officer Ayman Al Asmar said that a “formal release about next steps and future plans would be issued ‘soon’”, according to the Bookseller, but gave no further details. Attempts to reach Al Asmar and director Gabi Sharbain, were unsuccessful today.

Those boys didn't just rip-off a bunch of naive authors (check the source for further details and quotes) but a giant multinational. That takes guts.

Of course, it *is* Hachette, not the Randy Penguin, but still.
I'm thinking... beach balls!

They should sell their movie rights to Mel Brooks if they get away with it.

[murg]

Interesting that the word 'piracy' isn't mentioned once in the article.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by murg

Interesting that the word 'piracy' isn't mentioned once in the article.

It's not piracy. They have the rights to publish the book. It's just a "standard" business decision to screw your suppliers as you go out of business.

[djulian]

Originally Posted by murg

Interesting that the word 'piracy' isn't mentioned once in the article.

Good point.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by rkomar

It's not piracy. They have the rights to publish the book. It's just a "standard" business decision to screw your suppliers as you go out of business.

Couldn't the right to publish be conditional on them paying royalties?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by tompe

Couldn't the right to publish be conditional on them paying royalties?

Of course. That's the reciprocity. Contracts are all about each party meeting the terms and conditions. Failure to meet one of those (e.g., paying the owed royalties) means that the other party has the exact right to do what they've done--sue to force the cessation of distribution (publishing). Meeting the obligations is "fulfillment" in contractual terms.

Hitch

[fjtorres]

One aspect I found particularly amusing is that Hachette chose not to exercise their UK english language rights directly and subcontracted them out instead. This need not have happened if Hachette had published it themselves but apparently they didn't think the book would be popular enough to support directly.

[crich70]

No royalties received since 2012. The author and agent only recently noticed it.

So how come it took them that long to notice they weren't getting their fair share of the proceeds?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

So how come it took them that long to notice they weren't getting their fair share of the proceeds?

The author is by his own words one of those artistic types who "trusts the universe" to take care of him and can't be bothered with mundane matters. He only cares about his art...

Now the agent...
Well, that is a different story.
Best guess? Incompetence.

Really, there are no clean hands here.
Just a black comedy of fools and scoundrels.

[pdurrant]

As fjtorres says, the really interesting bit in the story is the sales figures. The edition published in 2012 was a paperback - the only hardback edition was a later large print version, I think.

So that's 500,000 paperbacks and 700,000 ebooks. The paperback RRP was £8.99, the ebook seems to have RRP of at least £4.99

So for popular new releases, ebooks are now outselling paperbacks by a considerably margin. It will only have widened since 2012, so for a release now, ebooks might well outsell paperbacks by more than 7:5. Perhaps even as much as 2:1?

(Oh, and my guess at the missing royalties is around £1,000,000!)

[crich70]

Maybe the author will wake up to reality with that mistake being pointed out to him. Publishers usually do only the minimum to promote a book as far as I've heard and it is up to the author to do their part. Including making sure that they are getting their part of the funds for the sales properly and on time.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by crich70

Including making sure that they are getting their part of the funds for the sales properly and on time.

To be fair, that's really the agent's job. The article does mention a previous agent and a current agent, so it may well be that this mess led to a change of agent (although that is purely speculation on my part).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

(Oh, and my guess at the missing royalties is around £1,000,000!)

We don't know, of course, how much the author was paid as an advance (I suspect quite a lot!). That amount would be deducted from any royalty payments. It's certainly conceivable that the author and agent didn't realise that royalty payments in excess of the advance had become due.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We don't know, of course, how much the author was paid as an advance (I suspect quite a lot!). That amount would be deducted from any royalty payments. It's certainly conceivable that the author and agent didn't realise that royalty payments in excess of the advance had become due.

What complicates matters is that the author's deal is with Hachette, not Hesperus. The money was supposed to go from Hesperus to Hachette to the agent to the author. The author saw a bit of money in 2012, presumably from the contract signing but saw nothing from the UK english rights since.

It is doubtful Hachette got much upfront money because if they thought it would be a big UK seller they would've published it themselves. They were effectively betting against their own book and when it won the jackpot they not only missed out on what Hesperus earned honestly but on the unpaid royalties.

Bad bets for everybody except the missing execs.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We don't know, of course, how much the author was paid as an advance (I suspect quite a lot!). That amount would be deducted from any royalty payments. It's certainly conceivable that the author and agent didn't realise that royalty payments in excess of the advance had become due.

Well, it sold over 600000 copies in Sweden (highest that year) and books are more expensive in Sweden so there was no lack of income. Newspaper articles says that publisher's was fighting for the book. Which would indicate a high advance.