RE: WROX going under

|I asked one of my editors about this (not at WROX; I've never 
|written for them), and she said that it depends.  Authors who 
|own the rights can seek another publisher.  So it depends on 
|what the contract says.

As an ex-wrox editor (I left a little under a year ago to work as a
programmer), I can say that the rights are almost always owned by wrox.
Their contracts stipulated that they owned the copyright, could alter
and change anything that they felt like in the submitted work while
still saying that the author wrote it, and that the author held no
rights on the matter.  Frankly, I'm astounded that only one author in my
experience ever complained about those terms.

|> also, not to sound opportunistic or anything, but what happens to > 
|> the
|WROX books already in stock at bookstores?  i was just down at 
|> chapters (a canadian chain), and there were numerous wrox 
|titles on > the shelf.
|> > by "going under", does that mean just bankruptcy re-organization, >
|or real death?  will wrox books be remaindered?  that would 
|certainly > inspire me to pick up a couple more, and tell my 
|friends to do the > same if they suddenly become clearance 
|priced.  > > rday

Those books, I'd imagine, would be sold by the bookstore if possible.
If not, they'd be returned to the distributor, who'd in turn pass them
back to the liquidating company for sale.  They're under liquidation -
they are being closed down.  My guess is that if they managed to find
some funding (probably several million dollars worth of it) they'd be
able to pay off their creditors and keep going.  But it's much more
likely that they've gone under permanently.

I had several friends working there who now have no jobs, and little to
no chance of even obtaining their pay for the last month that they
worked.  No offence intended, but to bring it down the level of 'can we
get books cheap' isn't really fair on them or the authors left in the
lurch.

Allan Jones
Ex-Lead Technical Editor for Wrox Press


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