Are writers puppets at the hands of publishers?
@sathviksouvik (23274)
February 4, 2017 8:08pm CST
Many think writers are puppets at the hands of publishers. Firstly writers cannot know how many copies of their books are sold on the market. Publishers can manipulate the records and give less royalty to writers. Besides there are cases where writers send the materials early, publishers publish them 6 months at their sweet will.
2 people like this
3 responses
@jainaproudmoore (457)
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5 Feb 17
Wow! Now that I think of it, maybe writers really are puppets of their publishers. Publishers get to choose which books to accept and publish, right?
1 person likes this
@sathviksouvik (23274)
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6 Feb 17
Right Christine, not only that many writers submit the materials at one time and find the material published one year later. In some cases writers lose hope. In other cases current issues lose relevance.
1 person likes this
@jainaproudmoore (457)
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6 Feb 17
@sathviksouvik I can imagine there still are a lot of promising writers out there but are not given a break.
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@sathviksouvik (23274)
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8 Feb 17
@jainaproudmoore Thanks Christine, sometimes it happens that the writer writes on 5 good topics, due to requirement of market the publisher chooses only one. The poor writer cannot do anything and remains happy with the one topic that is published.
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@sathviksouvik (23274)
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8 Feb 17
Thanks Manvi, the worst thing is that the writer cannot make out amount of sales of copies of the book by using ISBN no. So he or she is dependant on the publisher on their records and royalty.
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@ptrikha_2 (49775)
• India
27 Feb 17
It is my ambition to become a writer and have writing as an additional income source. I do write short stories at times on Online sites, but have not tested the waters of offline publishing.
If such bad practices do occur, it is very unethical. Publishers should be transparent with writers and not hide things or take advantage of them.
