Lesson Learned: Yes Does Become a No

So I've learned something now. A painful lesson and one I am concerned about.

I thought when a publisher offered you a contract, you both signed, and you delivered the goods it was a done deal unless the publisher went under. I mean that certainly happens. Recently there was a romance e-publisher who offered all kinds of contracts to writers and then went under. It was all very sad. But if you publisher is viable you have nothing to fear, right?

Wrong. They can still pull the plug. They can still tell you "never mind". This happened to someone I know. Two months before her release date she received an email from the publisher telling her they weren't going to publish her books after all. She had cover art, release dates, and edits all done. Bam, nope. It turns out her type of book, her romance genre, isn't selling well for them so they changed their minds.

I would have thought they would have fulfilled their contract in that case and just not accepted more of that type of book. But that is not the case.

So, why does this really bother me? I write the same kind of book as she did. The books I sold are the same genre. This very same thing can happen to me. The chances, in fact, are high. So now I wait to see if I will have these books published after all.

The good news for her is she has already found a new publisher. That's great. But the reality is that Lucy episode called "Lucy Writes a Book" can become what really happens. The publisher can come back and say, oh, we're sorry, we don't want to publish you. And you are back to square one. Or square zero.

Lesson Learned.