Top 10 Publishers To Be Ware Of

First time writers and writers looking for Publishers.
Please review and read the information. Be familiar with contracts, laws, clauses and lingo
in publisher contracts. The power of knowledge is in your favor when getting a book publisher.

Learn about a publisher contract first and study who are good publishers and who are not.
Please learn about:
Interminable Agency Clauses in which the publisher sneaks this line into a contract should definitely should raise a red flag to the author.
More here: http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/alerts/

Fee charging: have it in your contract what is considered acceptable and what is not acceptable. Perhaps all approvals of charges must be sent to you before they are allowed to be done.
Are they in the business of milking the author or in the business of publishing books to find true readers?
See more at: http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/alerts/
See top 10 Publishers for authors to  beware of:
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/02/happy-valentines-day-from-writer-beware.html
Info is from the blog and author beware. Get more info here: beware@sfwa.org
Writer alerts see more at: http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/alerts/

More good stuff to learn, know and review for yourself before signing your first contract.

Make sure their is a time limit for you to have the option to refuse the option of renewal. If they were good to you and gave you a great deal great. But if they didn't give you a good deal you need to have a option to re-negotiate or get a new publisher.

OPTION CLAUSES BE WARE

IF THERE IS NO OPTION CLAUSE THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING FOR THE WRITER!

Make sure you have a OPTION clause that allows the writer to:  refuse the publisher's offer.

Make sure you have a clause that: gives the publisher a "set time frame in which you can look over the contract and decide."

This means you can submit your book manuscript hoping for a great new renewal of contract and terms. Once you look over the option to renew clause and don't like it you then can refuse the publishers offer if you don't like it.

IDEAL: HAVE A OPTION TIME FOR THE PUBLISHER to review your manuscript work and give you a renewal option. KEY IS A TIME- 1-2 MONTHS MAXIMUM OTHERWISE THEY WILL LINGER ON FOR MANY MONTHS KEEPING YOU IN LIMBO AND POSSIBLE MISSED OPPORTUNITIES ELSEWHERE.

Key: there must be a time limit for the publisher's decision which gives them an obligation to respond quickly to you.

Key: you must have a clause that gives you a option to refuse the publisher's offer or renegotiate the offer.

.

Please check out this sight.

Please subscribe to my blog to bring you more good things.

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/overview.html

http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/

Also good to learn:

Top Literary Agents You Might Want to Reconsider

http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/thumbs-down-agency/

Top 50 Fantasy Films Of All Time

Top 50 Fantasy Films Of All Time

Coraline 2009
Candy-cane  frightmare about a little girl where you step through a door into a backward alternate reality. Skin crawling creepy and sinister good fun by Tim Burton.
Legend 1985

Tom Cruise is a boy solider who has to fight to Lord of Darkness played by Tim Curry. Directed by Ridley Scott 

The Last Unicorn

Japanese animation with waves turning into the shapes of the winged horses, the unicorn.
Adaption of Peter S. Beagle's Novel with Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin, Angela Lansbury, Jeff Bridges & Christopher Lee to high light a few of the quirky and feisty cast of characters.

The City Of Lost Children 1995
French hallucinatory fantasy film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Daniel Emilfork is a man who can not dream so he steals dreams from children.

Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004)
Potter and co get a good scrubbing courtesy of director Alfonso Cuaron

Jumanji 1985
When sister, Kristen Dunst and  brother Bradley Piece start playing a game of Jumanji they unleash a man named Alan Parrish played by Robin Williams. Parrish has been trapped in the magical board game for 26 years. Along with Parrish, a treasure of scaly, fanged creatures who are hungry and ready for dinner by serving up a meal of kids.


Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders 1971

Jaromil Jires surrel adaptation of Vitezslav Nezval novel from Czechoslovakia. Jaroslava Schallerova plays a 13 year old dabbling in unsettlingly risque adventures. Controversial with sexuality, monsters and ghosts of the past.

Rona The Robbers Daughter 1984

Swedish film adaption of AStrid Lindgren's novel. Bandits hole up in a deserted castle during winter as danger looms with a wealth of trolls, gnomes and harpies.

Dragonslayer 1981
Underdog hero Galen Bradwarden played by Peter MacNicol has a sword and comes to save a damsel in distressed. And he has to slay dragons with great special effects.

Brave 2012
A fiery red tousle-haired heroine. She is self assured to handle a dangerous adventure of rescue without a the dashing prince charming. Oddball mix of traditional fairytaling and post modern coming of age.

Willow 1998

George Lucas restlessly lovable rambunctious fantasy. Val Kilmer plays the anti hero, grotty-toothed Mad Martign. The terrifying Queen is played by Jean Marsh.

LadyHawke 1985

Interesting Fantasy Films  Honorable Mentions
MirrorMask 2005 Jim Henson Productions  A girl sick of her family enters the fantasy realm.

The Flight Of Dragons 1982
James Earl Jones/John Ritter a modern man is whisked back in time to save a dying realm.

The Last Witch Hunter
Vin Diesel is an immortal who flits between New York and a dream world to bring down the Witch Queen who wants to brew up a plague to wipe out humanity. A very Dungeon and Dragon style of film.

Stardust 2007

Splash 1984
Ron Howard's romantic fantasy about a mermaid played by Daryl Hannah who Tom Hank's falls in love with.


Pleasantville 1998
Reese WItherspoon and Tobey Maguire are young teens who get sucked int a 1950's black and white sitcom. Their presence blushes and brings the world into the modern Techincolor era in the way Spielberg does it best.

The Fall 2006

A interesting and sparse film you might want to check out by director Tarsem Singh.    It stars Lee Pace and Catinca Untaru.  
Troll Hunter

The Scandinavian myth where winsomely cranky troll hunter Hans goes after the titualar monsters. Otto Jespersen stars in this mock documentary in this tongue-in-check thrilling film.

Conan The Barbarian (1982)