Questions on Publishing

During our discussion in class earlier this year when we were talking about our questions for publishing, I didn’t think I had many, but once I started to write them down I realized I had a lot. Such as…

·      If an author wants to allude to or reference another work, be it another book or another piece of media, how would they have to go about incorporating that without violating copyright? Whose responsibility is it? Agents? How does copyright play into books? Especially because major media companies have their own publishing houses, like Disney?

·      Do publishers have time to read any already published books? Do they have to know keep with trends and know what is popular?

·      When getting a job in publishing what would be the difference between getting a job in an independent company rather than a conglomerate? In terms of being an editor.

·      How much does it cost to buy a manuscript? Do publishers buy manuscripts? How do they acquire the rights to the authors work? What is the advance? How much is it?

·      If an editor and a publisher start to work together but then realize they aren’t a good fit, does the author go to another editor within the company or can they pull out of a deal and go to another publishing house?

·      If a book ends up not selling well and the publisher decides to stop publishing more copies can the author bring the work to another publisher willing to continue publishing it?

·      Since movie deals and TV deals are so popular now with book adaptations how have those deals been made? Are they a condition within a contract that the publisher makes when signing an author? Or are they made separately, after the work has garnered attention? If so, who do the studios go to for permission to make the show, the author or the publisher? Do publishing houses and media companies now work closer together knowing that the collaborations between them are popular.

Out of all of these questions, I have to say, I am most interested in the ones dealing with copyright and movie deals. I am a combined major with Media and Screen Studies, and I think it would be interested to research areas where these two intersect.