Alex Adsett Publishing Services

After facing prolonged criticism over the first two drafts of its publishing contract, D Publishing have released a new version of their publishing agreement in time for the new year. While the latest version includes genuine improvement, providing additional explanations and addressing some of the concerns raised, it still has not remedied two of the biggest failings of the first.

Essentially, D Publishing still have the right to change the fee structure and (almost all of) the terms of the contract at any time, and the Author still has no recourse to terminate the contract.

Positives

To first look at the positives, D Publishing have amended the contract to properly reflect what they said were their intentions in the first place, and so the Author clearly now has the right to distribute their Work in channels not being exploited Continue reading →

It has been great to see so much discussion about the D Publishing contract recently, not because of the contract itself, but because as a Publishing Contract Consultant, it is heartening to see the rest of the publishing world care about contract fine print as much as I do. (It can be lonely being a specialised geek).

In any event, the D Publishing contract really is as terrible as some of the online commentary suggests.  There seems to be a substantial disconnect between their friendly and reasonably FAQs and the actual wording of the publishing contract.  Unless the contract is amended to better reflect the stated aims, I would be unlikely to recommend any author sign the publishing aspect of the deal.

It is important to note that the “Produce My Book” function and “Print My Book” function do not lock the author into any unfair terms, although the pricing model Continue reading →