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So recently, Catalyst Games, which makes the wargame Battletech, cut ties with longtime content creator Blaine Pardoe. This blog is meant in no way to argue the details of Blaine Pardoe’s alleged activities (I say “alleged” but his activities continue perhaps even louder than they did before Catalyst Games decided to stop publishing him.)
What this blog IS intended to do is to explain something about publishing. While I have not been a staple of a wargaming community for 30-odd years as Pardoe has, I am–like him—a New York Times bestselling author, and I have written tie-in fiction for wargaming communities (Privateer Press). I have written many of my own novels, with six-figure deals with HarperCollins, and I have ghostwritten novels for other peoples’ IPs, and I have co-written books with some of the bestselling authors in the world. So I know something of which I speak.
The Nature of Contracts
Contracts are, essentially, written documents which describe what will happen should one person choose to not follow the terms of the contract. Contracts do not give you rights to publish. Contracts merely say “if we both follow these terms, then we’ll publish you, and you’ll get paid.” You don’t follow the terms? They don’t publish you. If they don’t follow the terms, then you’re not obligated to publish with them. Of course there will be a lot of legal language about who gets money when and in what circumstances, but contracts are basically agreements for how things will happen if things go well, and if things don’t go well.
Publishers are very concerned about protecting the brand of the publisher. And for good reason. A person may publish fifteen books with a publisher, but if they try to publish something out of line with the publisher’s brand, that book will either go to required revisions or be rejected. That’s just how it goes.
But the bigger thing is that publishers protect their brand from even the appearance of trouble. When I signed my first big deal with HarperCollins I was surprised to find a clause which is nicknamed the “Morality Clause”. This clause basically says that if you do anything that will embarrass the publisher, the publisher has the right to end the deal right there, full stop. Sever ties.
This is not an abnormal clause in a contract and though some people hate it (including many author organizations) it has come to be used in several major matters such as when the #MeToo movement hit and authors like Sherman Alexie and James Dashner lost both their publishing contracts and their agents within days of the allegations of misconduct coming to light.
Publishers don’t like to mess around.
The Nature of Working with Someone Else’s IP
Now imagine that you’re not writing about your own made up world with your own made up characters, but you’re writing in someone else’s sandbox, with their world and their characters. They’re going to be significantly more protective of their IP. And, while you may think “Well this protectiveness should only extend to the words on the page of the books they write” the truth is that when authors have large social media presences, that author is a representative of the company.
My bestselling book, by far, was co-written with James Patterson. And can you just imagine the kind of fallout I would get from the publisher and my agent and my royalties if I got online and started bad-mouthing James Patterson? I’m not going to. I’m smarter than that. You don’t last long in the publishing industry when you bite the hand that feeds you.
Authors Thinking They Are The Brand
Now, no offense to Blaine Pardoe here, but I’d be willing to bet that his Battletech books did not move as many units as Games Workshop writers like Dan Abnett and Guy Haley and Aaron Dembski-Bowden. I’ve never read Pardoe so I can’t confirm or deny if he’s as good of a writer as any of them, but it is obvious from every interview that these guys give that they are deeply invested in the success of Warhammer franchise. And, more importantly, they don’t do anything in their online personas that would damage the Warhammer brand. They may banter back and forth on social media, but never in arguments, and they (generally) keep their politics to themselves.
Am I being a hypocrite? I post political stuff on my Twitter account all the time, and I’m an author. The thing is, my last published book was in 2019 and since that time I 1) took a break, and 2) have been devoted to this website.
The Ultimate Point
I do not have any idea all of the things that Blaine Pardoe has said. I read his blog in which he claims that he has been cancelled. I saw that he was interviewed on Razorforce yesterday. And I’ve read some screenshots of his tweets. I have to say that I have met people like him before–authors even–and they have been cut off by their publishers for less.
My point is simply this: if you are going to be the face of a company, which Blaine Pardoe was, then just as a matter of everyday, run-of-the-mill publishing practice, you need to keep your nose pretty clean.
Are there publishers that will embrace the alt-right? Yes, there are. I know several alt-right authors who have very successful publishing careers, still continue to win awards, and are not “cancelled” because they’ve found a publisher who has the same political positions. So, that’s an avenue for Pardoe to consider.
But I have a REAL hard time looking at anything that has been said in this debacle that leads me to think that Pardoe has been treated unfairly by his publisher or the public. And that’s simply a matter of black-and-white contract norms.