Pay-back time for publishers: authors forced to return their advances

This week, it emerged that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith was being sued by his publisher to return his advance. From Julian Assange to Amy Schumer, he isn’t alone...Though he’s fallen out spectacularly with his publisher, Seth Grahame-Smith at least has the consolation of joining a stellar club of writers whose deals for much-anticipated books were terminated. It emerged this week that Grahame-Smith, the man behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is being sued in the United States for breach of contract by Hachette, which wants half his $1m advance for a two-book deal returned. Hachette claims the second book’s typescript was eventually submitted “34 months” late, and was too short and substandard, “in large part an appropriation of a 120-year-old public domain work” (unnamed, but presumably 1897’s Dracula).Among Grahame-Smith’s new confrères are the 12 non-fiction authors including Elizabeth Wurtzel sued four years ago by Penguin USA, which sought to recoup the advances plus interest for books it said they had failed to deliver; Withnail And I writer-director Bruce Robinson, whose missed deadlines during his 15-year quest to identify Jack the Ripper meant his original publisher cancelled his contract and asked for its advance back (although he found a new one and They All Love Jack appeared in 2015); and the award-winning novelist and poet Vikram Seth, who was at loggerheads with Penguin after it... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-09-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #award-winning novelist #jane austen #$1m advance

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[ The Bookseller | 2019-02-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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