Does a publisher/author's interaction here influence your purchases?

[Vocenoctum]

Tensen, you seem like a nice guy, but you don't seem to understand something. When a guy is late paying a freelancer--especially more than a month late--the freelancer is totally justified in thinking the guy is a deadbeat.

<snip>

If any publisher is so late paying a freelancer that the freelancer wants to negotiate a lower rate, I suggest the publisher pay the guy in full, immediately. The freelancer thinks you are a deadbeat and will look for opportunities to tell other freelancers about your behavior. For years!

I think both sides have presented basically the same story from their sides. The publisher was trying to get stuff published and was new and made mistakes. The product didn't do as well as expected. The writer didn't have a contract, didn't know it was going to publishing, and after trying to get money, finally settled for less. The publisher probably paid the lesser amount both to get the writer gone, and also because he thought the material was worth less than originally discussed.
It was a bad deal, the publisher admits it. The only thing I can say about the situation from an outside source is that the writer is acting like it just happened, painting the publisher as if this is common behavior and demonizing him as a thief, rather than understanding that perhaps the publisher wasn't experienced in the matter.

It seems like a simple misunderstanding and a bad business deal, the only malisciousness IMO is the name calling and attacking.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'd be all over that like a dwarf on a tankard.

In some games I run, that's just as often the other way around!

 

[Shemeska]

Sort of.

Good, well written books aren't harmed by any cranky online antics by an author, or the author just being a rotten person in general. If a book is good, a book is good, and I can't put up with a lot if I like the ideas in the product. To use a non-gaming example: China Mieville might be a raging communist but I still adore his novels and buy them hardcover

On the other hand, average, marginal or bad products stand the risk of being seriously harmed by the same. If an author acts pissy online and I was wavering on buying something of theirs, I'll shamelessly punish it and save my money for someone nicer or (in one case I can think of from several years ago) someone polite to potential customers in an online chat.

 

[Darrin Drader]

It seems like a simple misunderstanding and a bad business deal, the only malisciousness IMO is the name calling and attacking.

I would totally agree with this. What freelancer hasn't been in a situation where they put a ton of effort into a project that either (A) didn't get released, or (b) didn't make money and got paid nothing? A couple years back I put 50,000 words towards a fairly large project. It was delayed when the publisher ran into financial trouble, but it did eventually see the light of day. Despite this, the amount of money I've made on it to date is exactly $0. Now I'm not mad at the publisher, I know their circumstances, and their situation was far more dire than mine, but putting that much effort into something that resulted in no gain for me personally really led to a bit of burnout from which I'm still recovering. Regardless, my advice to anyone who finds themselves in this situation, and most freelancers will sooner or later, is to keep such grievances private. Complaining about it on a public messageboard only makes all parties look unprofessional.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I would totally agree with this. What freelancer hasn't been in a situation where they put a ton of effort into a project that either (A) didn't get released, or (b) didn't make money and got paid nothing?

Right there with you. My Lion's Den PDF Planar Factions? Written for publication as a print book several years ago. The company, unfortunately, simply vanished. They didn't contact me, they didn't tell me what was going on, they simply stopped responding to e-mails and took down their web site.

I'm happy enough to have put the product out via my own studio, but the truth is, I doubt--even now--that I've made one-tenth from its sales as PDF as I was contracted for in the first place.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Christoph the Magus, personal insults are not allowed. I've edited your post, please don't do it again.

Regards

 

[Pinotage]

Well, doing Denizens of Avadnu as one big PDF is tough because the files I have are enormous. The book itself that we sent to the printer was over 5 GB. For DD, I have 3,4,5 and templates finished. We were going to release those today, but there were some issues with the layout. I had to send them back to my layout guy for corrections. They should be finished by the weekend. We're still looking into doing a full blown PDF of DoA. Probably sometime next year if I can get it compressed small enough.

Coolbeans! How many installments will there eventually be? If a bigger pdf is going to be a problem, I'll just have to pick up all the smaller ones.

Pinotage

 

[Psion]

One of the few books most of the Review Staff reviewed. Psion is such a slacker.......

(Yawn)... did you say something?

(Shrug). I dig denizens. But I have a stack of complimentary books I still owe reviews on. One must have priorities.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Don't suppose you'd be willing to ship mine then too, would you. My wife can't find anything on my X-mas list, so it looks like I'm going to have virtually no presents under the tree this year.

I'll be shipping all the orders I have today. I don't think you'll get it in time for Christmas though...

 

[JVisgaitis]

Teling someone else I was buying it, they replied "what the heck is Avadnu?"
(to which I replied "how should I know, I don't have the book yet!")

Avadnu is the planet in the Violet Dawn setting. A lot of people told me that we should have went with a more generic title. We had a running joke for awhile where we were going to call it "The Beast Book." While it sounded funny at the time, I guess that would have worked more then what we went with.