Firstly, I don’t deal with traditional publishers. Don’t need to, don’t think they’d want to talk to me anyway (LitRPG is a weird, tiny genre in comparison to say, urban fantasy or YA). So, I have no personal experience with this. But…

This is horrendous

https://www.patreon.com/posts/my-thoughts-on-31416998

To sum, it seems that ChiZine Publications has been a bad actor in the publishing industry in Canada for years, even going so far as to get grants from our Canadian Council of Arts (which, btw exclude self-publish authors entirely) while not paying authors or staff.

The scary thing – no one was talking about this.

It’s not the only case. I’ve heard rumors of Hades Publishing (Edge Imprint) from other authors who have been around for years mentioning how bad their contracts could be (see latest issue here – https://www.patreon.com/posts/29085663 ).

And it’s not just Canada – just from following Jason and some other industry forums, it’s quite clear that things like this are quite common among trad publishing houses. Bad actors get away because no one says anything.

So, here’s my little attempt at a signal boost.

Also, because this needs to be said.

Read your contracts people.

Negotiate them till you have decent escape (reversion & termination) clauses.

And then, if things go bad, let people know.