What to Do When a Student Lies
One day when I was teaching my Writing and Publishing Adult Continuing Education class here at FCI Petersburg, I had a student lie to me. It wasn’t a malicious lie and it didn’t do any real damage. But it was a lie nonetheless and, as such, I didn’t like it one bit.
The Situation
We were discussing how advances (advance against royalties) work. I was explaining that the traditional publisher typically offers an amount of money to an author before their book comes out. I showed how this “signing bonus” is typically paid in several installments and how it must be earned or (paid back to the publisher) before any more money is paid to the author in the form of royalties.
During this discussion the student mentioned that he once dealt with an urban publisher who had attempted to rip him off by offering him $10,000 for a manuscript of his. In industry parlance, this was for an “all rights” contract where he would be paid a single, flat fee for the title. This would be an up-front fee and would result in no additional payments regardless of the book’s success or failure.
