Food for thought. From the desk of Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman -- yes, that one -- has some thoughts on writers preparing for the worst. It's not a new essay -- it's fifteen years old -- but still worth reading.

journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html

This stands even moreso for the music industry and the film industry.

The range of regional licensing deals that they use can make it well-nigh impossible to trace where the money has come from, and where it ends up.

And that's if the companies don't deliberately try to screw you over, as Disney's treatment of Allan Dean Foster shows,

www .sfwa. org /disney-must-pay/

More L'Esprit D'Escalier:

I can't find the article instantly, but i read an interview with an author signed to a publishing house based in London.

The contract hadn't mentioned anything about film rights, game-publishing rights, merchandising tie-ins, or, streaming rights.

When he was trying to write up his will, he found that the publisher had made way more profit from selling those rights on, but hadn't paid any money to the author, as those rights weren't explicitly mentioned in the contract, as they hadn't been invented when the contract was signed.

Yes, he did report it to HMRC, as part of the hardball negotiations, but the time that he took to deal with this, was time he wasn't using to write.

As the publisher decided to argue in court, in the long-run, the only people to make any money were the lawyers.

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Please be very careful what contracts you sign.

Lawyers are the reason why we can’t have nice things…

E. E. Nalley wrote:

Lawyers are the reason why we can’t have nice things…

Other people is the reason we can't have nice things, Lawyers are just the natural progression of other people being entitled dicks.