The Permuted Press war.

Right, since things are really blowing up out of proportion around the whole Permuted Press thing, and I got involved, I might as well say my two cents about some of it.

As some of you know, I’ve been expressing myself about bad contracts lately. They really are an issue. Not just with Permuted… they are an issue everywhere. I’ve used Permuted as a convenient example, but the problem is that people now think I’m bashing Permuted Press.

I’m not. 

I don’t know them, I haven’t worked with them. 

Not that I approve of the PoD stunt, it’s not a good thing to do to your authors, but at the same time… I think everyone is putting way too much focus on this. *tried desperately to steer people away from the PoD and back to the bad contracts*

Everyone involved is now suddenly being demonized. The people who are on the inside are evil and the people on the outside are evil. No one seems to be looking at logic anymore and it’s turned into a big slander fest. This upsets me a little. Let’s accept that there are some bad things going on, and not downplay them, but we don’t have to break out our torches and pitchforks either.

For one I know some people who work for Permuted and they are not evil people who are preying on their authors. I know for a fact that there is a lot of love in their imprints, and I almost considered signing to one of them because I really believe in the people involved, and that they wanted to do what’s best for me and my books.

I think this is where the outcry of some of the authors who are siding with Permuted is coming from too. It’s not just the people who are in the Platinum level, or whatever it’s called, it’s the people who feel that Permuted (or rather their imprints) can still do things for them, because there are passionate people involved behind this, who have great ambition to make their authors shine.

I still don’t agree with the contract that I saw. I can’t speak for other contracts, they may be far more reasonable, but it would be nice to see people to stop the witch hunt on everyone involved.

And let’s take a step back and be adults here… people who signed have done so out of their own free will. It was their choice not to understand the contract, and it bit them in the backside. Permuted never actually broke their contract. This is why I blogged and why I’m trying to make new authors aware, it’s so important to know what you are signing.

I hope Permuted themselves will take a second look at what’s going on and try to fix their mess. But as I said in my previous blog, they are just the tip of the iceberg. There are actually worse presses out there.

It’s so easy to step onboard the hate train and throw rotten eggs, but maybe it would be good to support the authors who have been a victim of bad choices, instead of just being angry?