Definition: Work For Hire

The latest publishing brou-ha-ha is the tale of LJ Smith and her being fired from writing “her own” series.

Don’t get me wrong. Being fired from any job sucks. The details of her termination are not public, but we do know that she wrote this series for a long time, and is now no longer writing it. That’s got to be demeaning and awful, for the author and for her fans.

But let’s be clear. While this clearly sucks, it is not outrageous and the publisher is not overreaching their bounds. Why?

She was writing work for hire.

Work for hire means the publisher will pay you money to write, but you will not get the copyright on the work you create, you do not own the characters, and you cannot work in this world outside of the publisher’s permission. I’ve written many work for hire pieces. My work with Scott Sigler for The Crypt and The Reporter were work for hire. I wrote in his GFL universe with characters that belong to him. My scripts for Leviathan Chronicles was work for hire.  My work in RPGs were work for hire. I’m not allowed to write a book about the Scarlet Empress because I wrote something about her for an RPG.

In every situation, I got either a very close outline of what they wanted me to write, or a broad generalization. But they told me what kind of story they wanted me to write in their world.

From the link above:

So to put it simply L.J Smith (author of Vampire Diaries, the Night World, and the Secret Circle) got fired by HarperCollins from writing her own books. Everything she’s written now belongs entirely to them and they can do whatever they want with it; while she has no say at all. Instead, from now on a ghostwriter will be continuing the Vampire Diaries series under her name. I mean, how messed up is that? She isn’t allowed to write another word of a series that belongs to her, a series that she has spent years writing and creating and putting her heart into because Harper suddenly decided they don’t want her to write anymore.

While very passionate, this paragraph is factually incorrect. The series does not, nor has it ever, belonged to her. She’s been doing work for hire.

Also, in a note from the author, quoted on the same page, the comment of “under her name” is incorrect too:

[A future book] will say “Created by L. J. Smith” on the cover, but I am not allowed even to change a word in the ghostwriter’s book….

“Created by” is a far cry from “By”. While some readers may be confused, I’d rather have acknowledgement that I created a series than not.

This is sad and unfortunate, but the publisher is completely within their rights to do this. The simple  fact is she signed a contract without understanding what she was doing.

Although I didn’t even understand what “for hire” meant back in 1990, when I agreed to write books for them, I found out eventually, to my horror and dismay.

Can you imagine me complaining that Sigler is taking Yolanda Davenport’s story in a way that I don’t like? Or Christof Laputka is doing something with Evangeline that I disagree with? No, because they own those characters, those stories, and they have both edited MY stories to fit their world. They both (very kindly, but unnecessarily) checked with me first, but I told them that they do with my stories what they want. And that’s what Harper Collins has done with their property.

Be informed, guys. A publisher shoves money at you, it seems like the greatest thing ever, but you have to read and understand your contract. Yes, it’s boring. Yes, it’s confusing. Yes, you will have to do your homework. Contact an agent (it’s much easier to find one with contract in hand.) Go to Google and look up Intellectual Property lawyers in your area and hire one.

This is the business part of writing, and this is why publishers can pull things like this; authors have been so focused on the creating and the writing that they don’t look at the business side of it, and then they get screwed when they learn what a phrase means, a phrase that can get them fired.