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First One Publishing / Karen Hunter Publishing

michael_b

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I assumed that these days publishers specify terrestrial and extraterrestrial rights in contracts, just in case we ever colonize Mars.

Darn it! I missed this in my contracts. Instead of 'World Wide English Language rights' I should have made it 'Universe Wide English Language rights'.
 

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HapiSofi

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I should have been participating in this discussion, but every time I read The First's messages in this thread, my jaw drops and my brains go all squiggly for a minute. Whatever Ms. Hunter was doing at Simon & Schuster, it didn't involve (a.) negotiating contractual language or (b.) dealing with raw submissions. I don't think it involved a lot of contact with agents, either.

Simon & Schuster's a big publisher, of course. Lots of specialized niches there.

A number of commenters have already gone over Ms. Hunter's messages. I hope I won't seem disrespectful to any of them if I do the same.

Actually, I'm going to start at the beginning, with Xccorpio.
This one is just out of the oven: First One Publishing.

Its about us sounds oddly familiar, it reminds me of Carina Press, Harlequin's digital-first imprint. Besides it’s interesting the way it states, “First One Publishing is the first major publisher to put the ebook first.” Bold is mine. It started this morning and is already major.

Meanwhile, it’s introduced accurately by Paul Biba like this, “First One Digital Publishing is a new brand of publishing company focused on publishing literary content primarily for digital e-reader outlets and devices.” [read story here]
Believe me, all the majors are very interested in ebooks. If it weren't an impropriety, I'd quote you some startling statistics on the rise in ebook sales over the past year. The time when a strong focus on ebooks was a distinguishing mark for a publisher has passed. What I'll take that announcement to mean is that First One has no plans to make itself a presence in brick-and-mortar publishing -- which is where the majority of books are still sold.

It's easier to be an all-ebooks startup. It requires a lot less capital, less expertise, and less staff.
xccorpio said:
I was enthusiastic about it until I read its writing contest rules. Specially this part: FEES: There will be a $149.00 entrance fee for each submission. The fee must be paid online before the manuscript will be accepted.

Yes, I know many literary contests charge a fee, but I personally think this is too much.
That's more than the administrative costs of running the contest. Since First One is using out-of-house editors (which I'll admit is a strange thing to do), my assumption is that most of the $149 fee is meant to pay the editor/judges. If so, it's still not right.

Ms. Hunter says it's intended to keep applicants from just sending in any old manuscript. Have you ever read slush? It takes maybe two to five minutes to confirm that a hopelessly bad manuscript is in fact hopelessly bad. If freelancers could get $15 a manuscript for doing basic triage on slush, they'd never want do anything else. Make it $20, and allocate the extra money to pay them to read and assess the publishable specimens, and they'd still be happy as clams. Charging $149 per submission is just excessive.

Moving on to the contest rules:

First One Publishing Writing Contest


1. All entries must be original works, in English. Plagiarism, which includes the use of third-party poetry, song lyrics, characters or another person's universe, without written permission will result in disqualification.
As I believe Digital Medievalist pointed out, it's copyright infringement that's illegal, not plagiarism.
Excessive violence or sex, determined by the judges, will result in disqualification.
I don't see the difference between disqualification and not winning the competition. And if First One has strong feelings about excessive sax 'n' violins, it would be a good idea for them to say more about where they draw the line.
2. To be eligible, entries must be works of prose. We regret that we cannot consider poetry, or works intended for children for this contest.
Is it quibbling to point out that many outstanding "works intended for children' are prose, or that many not-entirely-prose illustrated books and graphic novels aren't aimed at children?
FORMAT: Entries must not be more than 65,000 words long --
Rather short by current standards.

and must not have been previously published.
They said that already.
Entries must be sent as Microsoft Word documents.
RTF is our friend. And if First One is allowing contestants to submit work as MSWord documents, it would be a good idea for them to refer contestants to some small technical document that explains all the clever MSWord features and formats they are not to use in their manuscripts.
The font must be Times New Roman, 12-point size. Do not justify right-side margin. Along with the cover letter, the author’s name, address, email address and phone number must appear on the first page.

Hardcopy rules for an ebook competition? I suppose that comes of cobbling together old rule sets instead of drafting your own.

Also, Ms. Hunter, if you're reading this: if you specify 12-point type, you don't have to say "size." It's implicit. Just say "12-point Times New Roman."

5. All submissions must be in English. Entries are void if they are in whole or in part incomplete, --
The meaning of this escapes me. Surely a manuscript that's incomplete in part is also incomplete in whole, and one that's incomplete in whole is also incomplete in some or all of its parts?
or damaged, --
Is this another hardcopy rule? Whatever it is, it's unnecessary. If the judges can't read the manuscript, the manuscript can't win.
or if they do not conform to any of the requirements specified herein. Sponsor reserves the right, in its absolute and sole discretion, to reject any entries for any reason, including but not limited to based on sexual content, vulgarity, and/or promotion of violence.
Say what? Last we heard, the rule was "no excessive sex or violence." Now "vulgarity" has been added to the mix, and the ban on excessive violence has morphed into a ban on promoting violence. At minimum, this calls for a more detailed explanation of what the publisher has in mind.
Each entry may be submitted only once. Please retain a copy of your submission.
That's definitely a hardcopy rule.
8. PRIZES: One Grand-Prize Winner will receive:

• First One Publishing contract for terrestrial and digital publication of winning book.

This is a bad sign. The big problem with promising publication as the prize for a writing contest is that even a large and very competitive field of entries is not guaranteed to yield a publishable work. Either First One is planning to publish the kind of work that alienates potential readers, or they had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they made that offer.

I'm not reassured by First One's apparent willingness to change the terms of their competition. Contest rules are an offer. Changing the terms of your offer is feasible when you're negotiating with one author. If you're getting multiple submissions from multiple authors over an extended period, which set of terms apply to which entrant? Can earlier entrants withdraw their manuscripts and demand their money back if they don't like the changes? It's just messy.

"Terrestrial" is a terrible choice of words. Digital publication is a sublunar phenomenon. They should call it hardcopy. Or a conventionally printed edition. Or a hardcover or trade paperback. Please.

On side note, Igor wonder: why definite articles missing from text?
• Five thousand ($5,000) cash
• A complete marketing and publicity tour tied to the winning book.
Where, exactly, are they planning to have the little-known author of a little-known work make personal appearances in support of an e-publication?
• First One Publishing Library (20 books valued at $240.00)
• Grand-Prize Winner must sign the publishing contract, which contains additional terms and conditions in order to be published.
Naturally, there would have to be a publishing contract, but they sure aren't making it sound cute & friendly. Maybe it's just the fact that the author can't back out of the deal if they don't like the additional terms and conditions.
Twenty Second-Prize Winners will receive:

• A First One Publishing contract for digital publication
Oh yeah? Pull the other one, it's got bells on. No way is First One getting twenty publishable manuscripts out of the entries to this competition.

As longtime readers of the Bewares Board have heard again and again, it's hard enough to publish good books. The hours are long and the profit margins are narrow. If you're publishing work that's not up to that level, not only will you not make enough to cover your expenses, but you'll alienate your readers, because nobody wants to wade through slush.
• A complete marketing and publicity plan to promote the digital book as well as feature placement (bio, blog, etc.) on the First One Publishing website.
All legitimate publishers promote their books. This should be standard procedure, not a one-time prize.
• A First One Publishing Collection (10 books valued at $120)
• Second-Prize Winners must sign the publishing contract, which contains additional terms and conditions in order to be published.
Terms and conditions aren't a bad thing when they're voluntary.
No contestant can win more than one prize
Why not? If one of the winners has submitted two manuscripts, chances are they're both in the top echelon. Why not award a prize to the other one as well? Besides, the contest rules claim rights to all submissions in perpetuity. That hypothetical second book might as well be a published winner; there's nothing else the author can do with it. First One can't want to make a promising new author that unhappy.
BOOK THEME
We are not restricting books to any specific topic or genre, however they should embody what all First One Publishing authors encompass—they should smart, thoughtful, and edifying.
All books should be smart, thoughtful, and edifying. In the meantime, it would be nice if First One dropped some hints about target audience, fiction vs. nonfiction, short story collections vs. novels, general reading vs. hardcore genre, et cetera.
9. JUDGING
Submissions will be judged on the equally weighted criteria of (a) basis of --
Either "criteria of" or "basis of," but not both. They're near-synonyms.
-- writing ability and (b) the originality of the book.
There is no guarantee in this world or the next that writing ability plus originality will add up to a publishable work. If they did, every novel-writing MFA out there would have a contract.
Professional judges will include editors, John Paine (The Book Doctor), Tracy Sherrod (former S&S editor), and overseen by best-selling author/publisher Karen Hunter. There will also be a slate of celebrity/author judges for the finals.
A newly-launched line gains credibility and gets publicity by demonstrating its ability to pick winners. Hiring outside editors to judge the competition doesn't help.

Note: Igor also deplore absence of verb.
10. NOTIFICATION
Winners will be notified by email or phone on June 11, 2011. The Grand-Prize Winner must sign the publishing contract in order to be awarded the prize. All federal, local, and state taxes are the responsibility of the winner. A list of the winners will be available on June 11, 2011 on www.firstonepublishing.com.

11. PUBLICITY
Each WINNER grants to the Sponsor the right to use his or her name, likeness, and entry for any advertising, promotion, and publicity purposes without further compensation to or permission from such winner, except where prohibited by law.
If I were a publisher trying to attract promising authors, I'd allow them the option of having some professional privacy.
12. INTERNET
If for any reason this CONTEST is not capable of running as planned due to an infection by a computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes beyond the control of the Sponsor, which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the Contest, the Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any individual who tampers with the entry process, and to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the CONTEST. The sponsor assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft, or destruction, or unauthorized access to, or alteration of entries. The Sponsor is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunctions of any telephone network or telephone lines, computer on-line system servers, or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of any email or entry to be received by the Sponsor due to technical problems, human error or traffic, congestion on the internet or at any website, or any combination there-of, including any injury or damage to participant’s or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participating in this Contest or downloading any materials in this Contest.
This is what comes of letting Legal write technical documents.

Unless First One has the world's worst network hygiene and doesn't intend to do anything about it, I don't even see why that paragraph is there. There's no need for it as long as they maintain a clean email system, run the entries through a virus check, and keep good backups of the text; and if they're going to be running an epublishing operation, they should be doing all that stuff anyway. The contest can run as long as the judges have readable files. The critical software is inside their heads.
CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE CONTEST IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AD CIVIL LAWS --
Oh, no it isn't. I am damned well entitled to disagree with the contest, its aims, and the way it's being run, and to say so both in private conversations and public forums, whether or not the the contest is legitimate under all applicable laws.
AND SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE. THE SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES OR OTHER REMEDIES FROM ANY SUCH PERSON(S) RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ATTEMPT TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
Pound sand. My honestly expressed personal opinions are protected speech. And have I mentioned how much I dislike organizations that approve the use of paragraphs like that last one?
In the event of a dispute as to the identity or eligibility of a winner based on an email address, the winning entry will be declared made by the “Authorized Account Holder” of the email address submitted at time of entry. “Authorized Account Holder” is defined as the natural person 18 years of age and older who is assigned to an email address by an internet access provider, online service provider or other organization (ie. Business, education institution, etc.) that is responsible for assigning email addresses for the domain associated with the submitted email address. Use of automated devices is not valid for entry.
(Rolls eyes; bites tongue.)

Now we get to the really troubling part of the rules.
13. LEGAL Information
All submissions become sole property of Sponsor and will not be acknowledged or returned.
Another one of those pesky rules that only make sense if you're dealing with hardcopy. Did First One not read these rules before publishing them?
By submitting an entry, all entrants grant Sponsor the absolute and unconditional right and authority to copy, edit, publish, promote, broadcast, or otherwise use, in whole or in part, their entries, in perpetuity, in any manner without further permission, notice or compensation.
WTF?!

What part of running a simple contest justifies a do-with-me-what-you-will perpetual rights grab for every entry First One receives?

Real publishers wouldn't dream of asking for terms like that, even if they had elaborate plans for a book and were paying top dollar for it. First One is doing neither. All they're going to do with most of the manuscripts they receive is read and reject them. That should be simple: if you aren't going to do anything with a book, you don't need any rights to it. You just send a polite "No thank you" note and return the thing to its author.

I don't see why First One is bothering with separate contracts for their contest winners. They'll already have everything but the copyright.
Entries that contain copyrighted material must include a release from the copyright holder.
What kind of a release? This is puzzling. The indemnity clause in a standard contract should be all they need.
Prizes are nontransferable. No substitutions or cash redemptions, except by Sponsor in the event of prize unavailability. Sponsor reserves the right to its sole discretion to not publish the winning entry for any reason whatsoever.
That would actually be a reasonable clause in an otherwise sane contract. The publisher can't stipulate every possible reason a book might be unsuitable for publication. They need an out. What makes the clause objectionable is that in the rest of the agreement the publisher demands everything of entrants, including control of valuable properties, while excusing itself from all responsibilities.
In the event that there is an insufficient number of entries received that meet the minimum standards determined by the judges, all prizes will not be awarded. Winners will be required to complete and return an affidavit of eligibility and liability/publicity release, within 15 days of winning notification, or an alternate winner will be selected, in the event any winner is considered a minor in his/her state of residence, such winner’s parent/legal guardian will be required to sign and return all necessary paperwork.
That's three different clauses, run in together and inadequately punctuated.

Getting an inadequate number of entries is IMO the likeliest outcome of this contest.
By entering, entrants release judges and Sponsor(s), and its parent company, subsidiaries, production, and promotion agencies from any and all liability for any loss, harm, damages, costs, or expenses, including without limitation properly damages, personal injury, and/or death arising out of participation in this contest, the acceptance, possession, use or misuse of any prize, claims based on publicity rights, defamation or invasion of privacy, merchandise delivery, or the violation of any intellectual property rights, including but not limited to copyright infringement and/or trademark infringement.
Do I need to mention that standard publishing contracts don't require that authors release their publishers from liability for any and all misdeeds?

=====

I doubt First One is trying to steal authors' rights to their books, or get rich on $149 entry fees. However, their contest rules are evil -- the kind of thing you get when you let Legal run mad. If the people running First One and its contest meant no harm, and simply failed to realize what they were doing when they published them, it was incredibly incompetent of them.

That's enough out of me for tonight.
 
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Darn it! I missed this in my contracts. Instead of 'World Wide English Language rights' I should have made it 'Universe Wide English Language rights'.
Unless it's a New Age book, in which case it should be Astral Plane rights.
 

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This is what comes of letting Legal write technical documents.
Nah. This is what comes of plagiarising wholesale another contest's rules.
 

HapiSofi

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Nah. This is what comes of plagiarising wholesale another contest's rules.

I know she swiped it. It strikes me as over-the-top language no matter who's using it.
 

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Ah. Sorry, I had misunderstood your meaning. Yes, it's excessive legalese no matter who wrote it.
 

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So, to summarize, what does an author gain by entering that contest? Seems that they get to pay the 149$ fee (why is it exactly $149, not $150? Or maybe 199$?) and lose a whole lot of rights by entering the contest.

I suppose someone would be better off submitting to a publisher for free, or if all that fails, go self publish....

Maybe I'm just not seeing the big advantage of this contest? At least they let me keep the extraterrestrial rights... after all, there may be a huge market for my book on Mars one day! :D
 

James D. Macdonald

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Given that:

The contest is open to nonprofessional writers who are legal residents of the United States over the age of 18 as of February 1, 2011.

why is it necessary to specify:

This contest is void in Puerto Rico, Quebec, and wherever prohibited or restricted by law.

Are they anticipating a lot of manuscripts from Québécois who are vacationing in Miami?

Also: What about Guam and St. Thomas?
 

brainstorm77

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Quebec has their own set of rules on contests. Even Canadian contests void them.
 

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Hopefully, the publisher will take down the rules and overhaul them. I would expect that language to come from someone who has no clue about publishing in general.

I still can't get over the "all rights" to them for entrants. Why would anyone do that? Why would the have a legitimate reason to even suggest it?

Granted, I've only contracted two books--but they don't even get my rights 'forever'--they're limited in time.

Still not sure what they mean by non-professional writer, either. I sold work as a journalist long before I was an author of fiction.

Non-professional as in no published books by the big six? Non-professional as in no books by any publisher at all? Non-professional as in no agent? (somehow, I'm thinking agented work isn't being sought--no agent worth his or her salt would approve that contest) Non-professional as in what exactly?

I saw a contest somewhere that said "Unpublished authors"--and even that's a bit ambiguous.

I've seen "Winner offered a contract in addition to..."

Perhaps she has friends at a publishing house that could help her reword it.
 

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That's because in Quebec the one running the contest always seems to win. Sorta like a win, win for the publisher and a lose, lose for the submitter.
 

IceCreamEmpress

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Quebec has their own set of rules on contests. Even Canadian contests void them.

Yep, the same is true of Wisconsin in the US.

The thing is that this contest is only open to the US, so the inclusion of 'except in Quebec' suggests that that bit of language was cut-and-pasted from the rules of some other contest that was open to both the US and CAN.
 

brainstorm77

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Yep, the same is true of Wisconsin in the US.

The thing is that this contest is only open to the US, so the inclusion of 'except in Quebec' suggests that that bit of language was cut-and-pasted from the rules of some other contest that was open to both the US and CAN.

Well that's just freakin hilarious. :ROFL:
 

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Victoria Strauss has had her say. The post sheds a little light on a couple of things, namely this part (referring to the most contentious part of the guidelines, the seeming rights grab);
I'm not as concerned as other commentators about the first sentence of these guidelines. It's a fairly common contest provision, and it just means that the contest sponsor takes physical possession of entries, and doesn't have to return them to the authors. It doesn't really belong in a contest where submissions are digital, rather than on paper--but it's not intended to refer to intellectual property.

Of course, she does go on to say this;

But the middle sentence...that's a big problem. Simply by entering this contest, entrants are granting First One Publishing the right to use their entry in any manner whatsoever--including publishing it--for the life of copyright and without compensation or notice. It's not quite a surrender of copyright, but it's pretty close.
 

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The whole $149 thing is a natural bar as far as I'm concerned...I could spend that on booze and men, for chrissakes :)
Hey, I'm a man -- and I like booze! This must be your lucky day.

One of my goals this year is to finish a novel and try and get it published. So I've no personal experience in the world of agents and publishers yet, but it's hard to see how these rules offer a good deal for anybody involved -- if the aim of First One is indeed to publish good, marketable books.
 

HistorySleuth

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Did you notice in Victoria Strauss' blog post, a comment by amsaph had a link to the MSNBC spot with Karen about e-books and her publishing company?

It's here. Interesting. In regards to the publishing company (begins 1.35 min. in) she starts to say she's looking for "the next great American.." corrects herself and says, "not American, err, national author... international author..."

(The MSNBC transcript is missing a few words from what she actually said.)

I thought the contest rules said it was only open in the United States?
 
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