Just curious, since I’m not in the business.
We have famous examples of authors who simply haven’t continued their series many years after the last book came out (e.g. Rothfuss, Martin, and others), even though presumably they were under contract to write a certain number of books over a certain number of years.
So I’m just curious about how this works on the legal side of things. If the author is famous enough, is the publisher effectively just forced to rip up the contract and let the author do whatever they want?
Have there been examples of publishers terminating relationships with authors or even suing authors for breach of contract?
by just_writing_things
2 Comments
Lawsuits. Some authors get paid advances against future sales. Until the book makes money and repays that advance, that’s all the money the author is going to see.
This was how it was when I was trying like 15 years ago. It’s probably gotten worse for the author.
Rights and stuff are probably a case by case thing worked out between the author’s agent and the publisher.
GRRM probably got away with it. Rothfuss likely burned bridges.
I’m extremely curious about this as well, I know there are some circumstances where exceptions have been made. But not sure about these huge authors and their contracts.