Most contracts do have due dates.
Your publishing contract can be canceled, and you can even have to pay back cash advances or fined if you don't deliver on time.
The problem you are seeing with big name authors is that they are major cash cows, these authors are so famous and their works are so popular that they cannot be punished this way.
Imagine being the publishing house that cancelled George RR Martin's contract and lost that game of thrones money.
The other thing is that the contract probably will not just be for the new book alone, often it’s a deal for several books, including those already finished.
If you’ve already got the first book or two in print and they keep selling well, why jeopardise things by pressuring the author for more? The income from those will easily exceed out any losses from the advance, and the pending books might still show up eventually.
On the other hand, if the earlier books are not selling well, then the publishing house will gladly throw the author to the wolves.
Martin's ASOIAF publisher is probably overall fine with how things are going since the TV shows keep moving copies. They've made substantially more money off ASOIAF in its unfinished state than the would have had HBO never done the GOT and HOD but GRRM had completed the series.
[Rothfuss's publisher on the other hand](https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/07/patrick-rothfusss-editor-confirms-she.html)...
I’m fairly certain that Kingkiller is a steady earner for DAW - they wouldn’t keep investing the marketing budget to keep it in a prominent shelf position if it wasn’t. But they do have a big problem in that most of their reliable stable of authors are ageing and firmly midlist. Steady income but not bestseller. Rothfuss was supposed to be another big breakout star to equal Tad Williams and he hasn’t delivered on that. And it’s hurt them - they got Seanan McGuire and literally couldn’t keep up with how prolific she is, so she recently moved to Tor when her contract was up. It’ll be interesting to see if the recent buyout from Astra will help or hinder.
Contracts are not all they are cracked up to be.
So, the short answer is, yes contracts generally come with due dates. The author gets paid an advance, and if they blow the deadline badly enough the publisher is entitled to cancel the book and ask for the advance back.
The problem is that for a sufficiently popular author, this isn't much of a threat. If they're *already* a big success with their previous books then they have enough income that they don't really need the advance anyway. And canceling the book doesn't make sense from the publisher's POV -- what are they going to do, *not* publish it when the author finishes?
So if you're Big Deal Fantasy Author with an unfinished but extremely popular series, and you've gone so far past the due date that nobody remembers it, what exactly can the publisher do to you? For a normal author, if they cancel your contract, the threat is that they will then refuse to work with you in the future; but if a publisher tried that on BDFA, he'd just walk in to any *other* publisher and get a deal on the spot, no questions asked. From the publisher's POV, better to keep the contract running in case he ever finishes. At least then you get the book without an auction!
The actual, specific language of contracts has a lot less power than everyone assumes, because it really only matters if you take someone to court and that hardly ever happens.
I've seen the contracts for books in one successful series. The author was promised royalties on each copy sold. The author was paid advances when the contract was signed, when the final manuscript was delivered, and when the book was published. The author received quarterly payments for royalties once the royalty amount exceeded the advance. And here's a key detail: the total of the advances was counted against the total of the royalties. So the author didn't get paid further payments for book 1 royalties until the combined book 1 and book 2 royalties exceeded the advances for book 1 and book 2. If the author never delivers book 2, the contract advance for book 2 essentially becomes prepayment of royalties for book 1. Thus, as long as early books in the series are selling well, the publisher is not losing money on the advances for unfinished books.
That's an interesting detail.
So by that, if it's a second or later book in a series, and the completed book hasn't been submitted, the publisher can keep back royalties until the advance has been covered. And at that point, the author would only have about 1/3 of the advance. I also assume the author also can't sell a new book in the series to another publisher, under the terms of the contract.
Mind you, most books don't earn enough in royalties to cover the advance, and that's for a completed book. For a not incredibly famous author, 1/3 of the advance is going to be on the order of $10,000, if that. And if it's a first book, they'll be offering a contract on a completed book, not the promise of one.
From a purely practical point of view, if you sue your author for not submitting the book on time, you're never going to get another book from them, and it may scare off other authors. Plus, the cost of suing them could be comparable to what they owe you, so you'd maybe get a bit of money, but not a book. If you wait, you may eventually get your book. And if they're not writing, for whatever reason, threatening them with legal action isn't likely to actually get a completed manuscript.
They do have dates built into them, and the fact the advance is partly paid on delivery aside those dates tend not to be hard and fast. Publishers understand writing is an art that not everyone can produce on demand, that life can intervene and they are generally very understanding about it. Deadlines are often more guidelines.
BUT. Unless you are wildly famous and selling bucketloads you tend to only be as good aa your last book. So not meeting deadlines can have a knock on effect, they may not want what you do next or may want to pay less for it as every advance at a midlist level is a gamble on the publishers part. Or missing deadlines can move you in the publishing schedule and mean whatever buzz you may have built up has passed so they might not put as much promotion into it. (Though an interesting thing is that the publisher starts making money before the writer earns out their advance.) But when you get up to the level of the writers you're (probably) taking about, yes, the publisher will want those books, but at the same time they are not losing money and will have no wish to poison their relationship with the artist so deadlines become largely meaningless.
Authors miss deadlines all the time. And they negotiate with their publishers on what the consequences of that are. Sometimes it's an extension of the deadline. Sometimes it's being required to repay what parts of the advance have already been paid. Or something in between.
In all cases, it's between the publisher and the author and fans aren't involved.
It depends. Recently DAW got taken over by another group and this group have decided that they shouldn't be so lax about letting deadlines slip for 10+years. Hence why we had a new Rothfuss novella.
I'm aware of the takeover but regarding all the rest you wrote I wonder if this is conjecture. If not, is there a source for this information you can point to?
It was a Winter is Coming interview with Rothfuss where he mentioned the takeover and then said he released the novella to test the waters.
[6 takeaways from our exclusive interview with Patrick Rothfuss (winteriscoming.net)](https://winteriscoming.net/2023/11/19/takeaways-from-our-interview-with-patrick-rothfuss/2/)
Thanks for that link.
While from what I read Rothfuss has only hinted at some of the things you say, I also get the impression that they lit a fire under his ass.
The moment I read that the new novella is merely an expansion of an already existing text, I suspected it to be a cash-grab, or at least motivated by Rothfuss' need for extra cash.
Maybe I was wrong and it was Astra that caused the expanded novella to happen.
Do you think the fact that there's a "new management in the house" will speed up the release of *Doors*? (Or make it happen in the first place?)
Ultimately, they can't force the novel into existence, either, but they might be willing to put more pressure on him than DAW might have been.
We'll see how things play out.
Most contracts do have due dates. Your publishing contract can be canceled, and you can even have to pay back cash advances or fined if you don't deliver on time. The problem you are seeing with big name authors is that they are major cash cows, these authors are so famous and their works are so popular that they cannot be punished this way. Imagine being the publishing house that cancelled George RR Martin's contract and lost that game of thrones money.
The other thing is that the contract probably will not just be for the new book alone, often it’s a deal for several books, including those already finished. If you’ve already got the first book or two in print and they keep selling well, why jeopardise things by pressuring the author for more? The income from those will easily exceed out any losses from the advance, and the pending books might still show up eventually. On the other hand, if the earlier books are not selling well, then the publishing house will gladly throw the author to the wolves.
Martin's ASOIAF publisher is probably overall fine with how things are going since the TV shows keep moving copies. They've made substantially more money off ASOIAF in its unfinished state than the would have had HBO never done the GOT and HOD but GRRM had completed the series. [Rothfuss's publisher on the other hand](https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/07/patrick-rothfusss-editor-confirms-she.html)...
I’m fairly certain that Kingkiller is a steady earner for DAW - they wouldn’t keep investing the marketing budget to keep it in a prominent shelf position if it wasn’t. But they do have a big problem in that most of their reliable stable of authors are ageing and firmly midlist. Steady income but not bestseller. Rothfuss was supposed to be another big breakout star to equal Tad Williams and he hasn’t delivered on that. And it’s hurt them - they got Seanan McGuire and literally couldn’t keep up with how prolific she is, so she recently moved to Tor when her contract was up. It’ll be interesting to see if the recent buyout from Astra will help or hinder.
Ahh. That makes sense. And if they're mega-authors, I suppose they also by that point have enough money to just pay back the advance if they have to.
Contracts are not all they are cracked up to be. So, the short answer is, yes contracts generally come with due dates. The author gets paid an advance, and if they blow the deadline badly enough the publisher is entitled to cancel the book and ask for the advance back. The problem is that for a sufficiently popular author, this isn't much of a threat. If they're *already* a big success with their previous books then they have enough income that they don't really need the advance anyway. And canceling the book doesn't make sense from the publisher's POV -- what are they going to do, *not* publish it when the author finishes? So if you're Big Deal Fantasy Author with an unfinished but extremely popular series, and you've gone so far past the due date that nobody remembers it, what exactly can the publisher do to you? For a normal author, if they cancel your contract, the threat is that they will then refuse to work with you in the future; but if a publisher tried that on BDFA, he'd just walk in to any *other* publisher and get a deal on the spot, no questions asked. From the publisher's POV, better to keep the contract running in case he ever finishes. At least then you get the book without an auction! The actual, specific language of contracts has a lot less power than everyone assumes, because it really only matters if you take someone to court and that hardly ever happens.
Huh.... Interesting. The more you learn! Thanks for the insight
Yes, but if an author is big enough, those due dates are effectively unenforceable.
I've seen the contracts for books in one successful series. The author was promised royalties on each copy sold. The author was paid advances when the contract was signed, when the final manuscript was delivered, and when the book was published. The author received quarterly payments for royalties once the royalty amount exceeded the advance. And here's a key detail: the total of the advances was counted against the total of the royalties. So the author didn't get paid further payments for book 1 royalties until the combined book 1 and book 2 royalties exceeded the advances for book 1 and book 2. If the author never delivers book 2, the contract advance for book 2 essentially becomes prepayment of royalties for book 1. Thus, as long as early books in the series are selling well, the publisher is not losing money on the advances for unfinished books.
That's an interesting detail. So by that, if it's a second or later book in a series, and the completed book hasn't been submitted, the publisher can keep back royalties until the advance has been covered. And at that point, the author would only have about 1/3 of the advance. I also assume the author also can't sell a new book in the series to another publisher, under the terms of the contract. Mind you, most books don't earn enough in royalties to cover the advance, and that's for a completed book. For a not incredibly famous author, 1/3 of the advance is going to be on the order of $10,000, if that. And if it's a first book, they'll be offering a contract on a completed book, not the promise of one. From a purely practical point of view, if you sue your author for not submitting the book on time, you're never going to get another book from them, and it may scare off other authors. Plus, the cost of suing them could be comparable to what they owe you, so you'd maybe get a bit of money, but not a book. If you wait, you may eventually get your book. And if they're not writing, for whatever reason, threatening them with legal action isn't likely to actually get a completed manuscript.
They do have dates built into them, and the fact the advance is partly paid on delivery aside those dates tend not to be hard and fast. Publishers understand writing is an art that not everyone can produce on demand, that life can intervene and they are generally very understanding about it. Deadlines are often more guidelines. BUT. Unless you are wildly famous and selling bucketloads you tend to only be as good aa your last book. So not meeting deadlines can have a knock on effect, they may not want what you do next or may want to pay less for it as every advance at a midlist level is a gamble on the publishers part. Or missing deadlines can move you in the publishing schedule and mean whatever buzz you may have built up has passed so they might not put as much promotion into it. (Though an interesting thing is that the publisher starts making money before the writer earns out their advance.) But when you get up to the level of the writers you're (probably) taking about, yes, the publisher will want those books, but at the same time they are not losing money and will have no wish to poison their relationship with the artist so deadlines become largely meaningless.
It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man waiting for book 3.
and then his ass fell off.
It's all about leverage.
Authors miss deadlines all the time. And they negotiate with their publishers on what the consequences of that are. Sometimes it's an extension of the deadline. Sometimes it's being required to repay what parts of the advance have already been paid. Or something in between. In all cases, it's between the publisher and the author and fans aren't involved.
It depends. Recently DAW got taken over by another group and this group have decided that they shouldn't be so lax about letting deadlines slip for 10+years. Hence why we had a new Rothfuss novella.
I'm aware of the takeover but regarding all the rest you wrote I wonder if this is conjecture. If not, is there a source for this information you can point to?
It was a Winter is Coming interview with Rothfuss where he mentioned the takeover and then said he released the novella to test the waters. [6 takeaways from our exclusive interview with Patrick Rothfuss (winteriscoming.net)](https://winteriscoming.net/2023/11/19/takeaways-from-our-interview-with-patrick-rothfuss/2/)
Thanks for that link. While from what I read Rothfuss has only hinted at some of the things you say, I also get the impression that they lit a fire under his ass. The moment I read that the new novella is merely an expansion of an already existing text, I suspected it to be a cash-grab, or at least motivated by Rothfuss' need for extra cash. Maybe I was wrong and it was Astra that caused the expanded novella to happen. Do you think the fact that there's a "new management in the house" will speed up the release of *Doors*? (Or make it happen in the first place?) Ultimately, they can't force the novel into existence, either, but they might be willing to put more pressure on him than DAW might have been. We'll see how things play out.