Thursday 23 May 2013

More on contracts

Shirley Blair from DCT has been responding on Womagwriter's Blog.

It's worth reading the comments too, for further clarification, especially in relation to pocket novels. We can send our original manuscripts to large print publishers, but not the printed copy. Now we just have to persuade large print publishers to accept the manuscript versions.

The good news is that if they do want to use our pocket novels again, they have to renegotiate terms. So they can't be re-used without further payment.

I know this has caused a lot of us stress, not knowing where we're going, but there are other publishers of romance out there. Perhaps it's time to spread our wings a bit so we're not reliant on one market.

14 comments:

  1. I think looking at other markets is a good idea. Many of them rely on e-books as their selling point but it's certainly worth looking into. Are we going to remain as pocketeers? An interesting thought! Certainly this change in contracts has given us things to think about!

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    1. Oh I think we'll always be pocketeers at heart. It's how we all got together, isn't it? And it's not that we haven't been published in other markets. We've just concentrated in pocket novels till now.

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  2. I hope that we do stay as Pocketeers but perhaps we can support each other through the process of finding other markets and good publishers etc. We had some previous discussion about opening up this blog to include promoting other published works (ie not just my weekly and PF) so maybe that's the way forward.

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    1. Yes, indeed. And I don't think any of us have taken the decision to entirely give up on DCT pocket novels, have we? We're just waiting to see what the future holds for resales to large print publishers.

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  3. Just caught up with this but reading with interest. Another rather worrying development is that in my nearest main town, Huntingdon, you can no longer buy pocket novels at all (neither PF or MW). Neither the Sainsbury's or WHSmith's in town sell them any more, and nor does the out of town Tesco (or the Tesco outside St Neots, because I checked there too). A bit of a worrying downturn. Our Tesco really supported the Easy Reads launch - they stocked them on display stands in two places - but seem to have given up on PNs about three months ago, as far as I can tell :/ Has anyone noticed this happening elsewhere?

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    1. No, Alison. They stock quite a lot in our local Tesco, Sainsburys and WHSmiths. What a pity though if they're being taken off the shelves elsewhere.

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  4. Re availabilty of PNs; Just one Sainsbury that I know of in the Norwich (UK) area stocking PF Pocket Novels now. Other supermarkets that used to; the large Tesco, the city centre Sainsbury, no longer have them. Are My Weekly Pocket Novels still being published at all now? Not seen any of those since the first wave of 'relaunched' 50,000-word ones, after which, they've totally disappeared from the shelves. Lyn Fountain

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    1. Lyn, yes, they're definitely still being published and stocked in my local Tesco, Sainsburys et al. I've just recently sold one that comes out on 8th August 2013.

      They usually stock them amongst the women's magazines (forgive me if you already know this but others might not).

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    2. I went into Truro Sainsbury's yesterday and they didn't have any PN that I could see. Our local Tesco's no longer stocks them but I think the 24 hour bigger store still does. If sales are dropping away, not at all surprising of places aren't selling them.

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  5. Valid point, Sally!

    All the best!

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  6. My local Smith's and Sainsbury's stocks them as does the nearest Tesco's. Is anyone still waiting for a reply from either Tracey or Maggie on work we have with them? I've telephoned Tracey several times so I know she has my story but I wondered if anyone else is in the same position.

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  7. I won't be sending anything else to them. A great shame - they were one of first sales and I should hate to see them fold.

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  8. Wow I've returned from a month away to some upheaval on the PN fronts. I presume only those authors who are submitting to DCT are getting the new contracts. If they're wanting more than their former first British cheap paperback rights, I'm out. They pay peanuts and they want to take some away? I don't think so. I'll be seeking other markets or continue my successful self publishing career thank you.

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  9. :( I don't know why we're so unlucky then - and living in such a rural area, these supermarkets are literally the only ones around for miles, so they're large - the *next* nearest Sainbury's is 22 miles away. The only place I haven't tried for them recently is Asda, but then we don't have a local Asda - the nearest one is near that aforementioned 22 miles away Sainsbury's! There's another small WHSmith about 9 miles away, but I find it hard to believe they'll stock them if Huntingdon doesn't. Beyond that, I'd have to take a 50 mile round trip to either Bedford, Peterborough or Cambridge, so it seems my pocket novel buying days are over. There's a Morrison's we never go to - it's not near anything else, it was built for one of those new purpose bulit 'villages' - that's about 12 miles away - has anybody seen them in Morrison's?

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