Two Seattle Memorials to Ursula K. Le Guin

So, much of the Internet’s time, at least on the spec-fic side of things, was taken up this week by recent convulsions surrounding Night Shade Books.

Night Shade Books is a small press run by Jeremy Lassen and Jason Williams. Among the books they’ve published are Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, Iain M. Banks’ The Algebraist, the novelizations of the Girl Genius books by Phil and Kaja Foglio, and on and on. In short, they publish excellent stuff.

Night Shade’s been having problems for years. SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, got involved in 2010. Within the past few months, the authors have been asking SFWA what’s up with Night Shade. Here, I get a little confused. I find it difficult to believe that any publisher is quaking in their boots at the threat of being delisted by SFWA. All that being delisted does, as far as I can tell, is prevent that publisher from being considered a “professional market” that people can use to qualify to become a member of SFWA. Big whoop. If this is the biggest club an author has in their arsenal, we are all in terrible trouble.

But perhaps I am misunderstanding that part. Anyway, what’s come out is that Night Shade has sold its list to another publisher, or rather a confusing combination of publishers Skyhorse and Start Publishing, but for that sale to go through, all of the authors involved must sign new contracts. And by all accounts those new contracts are shit. Some writers report that they are in the process of renegotiating those contracts, and that it’s a good sign that the publisher is open to amending them at least. However, those contracts ask for rights that were not included being in the original contracts, are substantially lower terms, and are presented in a way that forces authors who are willing to sign to pressure authors who are not willing to sign. And that is backed up by a letter from SFWA that apparently underscores that if the deal does not go through, Night Shade will most probably declare bankruptcy and everyone’s rights will be in limbo.

In all of this, no one seems to be clear what exactly SFWA accomplished, nor is the organization (and in the interest of full disclosure, I am a SFWA member, with access to its internal boards, and without betraying confidentiality, information on those boards has come pretty much entirely from people posting links to outside discussions) itself disclosing what’s up and whether they negotiated the terms from an even shittier state to the current crapfest or even what, exactly, they did, or why there is this Impenetrable Veil of Secrecy surrounding the proceedings. The first piece of information that came out during the period that the SFWA board was saying “Any day now we’ll have a statement,” was an ill-timed and now, it turns out, somewhat inaccurate tweet from Lassen:

Jeremy Lassen “@jlassen 2 Apr
My exciting news is that Night Shade is being bought by a larger publishing company! NS authors are recieving formal notification now. #nsb

Other people have analyzed the controversy better than I. Here’s some of the links:

• io9’s coverage of the deal and Lassen defending it.
• Some insight into Night Shade’s business practices.
• Joshua Bilmes discusses the dissolution of Night Shade and SFWA’s role.
• Night Shade author Michael Stackpole provides initial reactions to the contract and then further reflections.
• Night Shade author Kameron Hurley talks about considering the Nightshade deal.
• Night Shade authors Phil and Kaja Foglio talk about the pressures of the contract.
• Some insight into the publishing houses acquiring the rights.
• Andrew Zack on the deal and what needs to be asked about it.

As you may know, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, (aka SFWA) had a membership vote and changed their membership criteria pretty drastically, admitting self-published and small press members to apply if they can prove they’re making an amount of money equivalent to the advance a writer would make from a traditional publisher and qualify for SFWA: three thousand dollars over the course of a year. The year does not need to be Jan-Dec, and it can be any period after January 1, 2013.

Income can come from crowdfunding, but in that case, the book must have been delivered to the funders in a timely fashion. You can combine advance and royalties, but they must fall in the same twelve months.

The income is net, not gross. If you spend ten thousand bucks printing books and then sell them for three thousand dollars, that would not count. Mainly this is there to keep people from faking their way in and I’m not too worried about small publishing expenses counting here, myself.

How do you prove income? Right now, we’ll look at whatever people think is reasonable. As the month progresses, we’ll start knowing what is and isn’t reasonable.

This is all very new, and I know we’ll be deciding many cases as we go along. I also expect there will be delays at first as we get the process working and people flowing through the pipeline.

You can find out more on the SFWA site. The application form is there. I apologize for the fact that it’s not entirely suited to self-pub apps so far – we’re working on that, and I’d be glad to hear your suggestions.

Got questions? I can answer them here if you like.

Note from a question that arose in this morning’s e-mail: Active members CAN qualify through self-published short fiction; that got left out of the official webpage and I’ve got a request in to add it.