thread: 2012-03-03 : Ben Lehman: Caveat Scriba: Margret Weis Productions
On 2012-03-04, Jesse Burneko wrote:
After having done a bit of research it sounds like there was a massive amount of miscommunication. I hope that gets cleared up.
I agree that the lack of details on Ben's part was remiss. He didn't need to name names. He just should have told the story. I know a few people who agreed to do X and expected Y. After doing I, J and K and being told M and N, Q happened. That kind of thing. You don't need to name names to illuminate facts or even just tell the story you heard.
However, what this HAS done is brought to light this notion of post-publication payment. I admit that's kind of blowing my mind. Who the fuck would ever agree to that? What if it never gets published? You should get paid for your work when you complete it no matter what happens to the publisher/publication from that point on.
I hope that MWP honors its agreements. And from the facts and testimonials I've read it sounds likely that they will. So, I agree it's a bit unfortunate that all this negativity is being directed at them specifically and drowning out what is worth saying:
A post-publication payment agreement is a rather suspect arrangement. That has ZERO to do with MWP in the specific and everything to do with the wider culture of freelance writing. I'm sorry to see this interesting and valid point so horribly miscommunicated.
