Note to Authors: Make Your Deadlines!
By Leon Neyfakh in The New York Observer
August 4, 2009

There was a time not so long ago when authors never had to worry about handing in their manuscripts on time. Deadlines back then were a formality—something publishers took about as seriously in the course of contractual negotiations as they did the profit-and-loss statements they used to justify their acquisitions. If an author hit their delivery date, great! But if they didn’t, that was O.K., too.
For the most part, that is still true. But as book sales fall and publishing houses look for ways to cut costs, many literary agents are growing increasingly worried that publishers looking to trim their lists will start holding authors to deadlines and using lateness as an occasion to renegotiate advances and, in some cases, terminate contracts altogether.
“Publishers are looking at their books and saying, ‘O.K., this book is two years late. Do we want it anymore?’” said Eric Simonoff, an agent at WME Entertainment. “If the answer is no, they’re saying, ‘We don’t want it anymore—we’re calling our loan.’”
He went on: “Sometimes people have buyer’s remorse, and it’s a very convenient way of rectifying your buyer’s remorse after the fact. It’s safe to say that delivery dates are more meaningful now than they ever have been before. I think everyone’s putting their clients on notice and saying, ‘This is serious.’”

Most publishers are well acquainted with the feeling of regret that comes with realizing that a book they signed up years ago is no longer worth publishing. Sometimes this happens because the subject of the book has become irrelevant or the market for it has become oversaturated. Sometimes it happens because the editor who bought it has left or been fired. Other times it’s because the sum that was paid for the book at the point of acquisition has come to seem exorbitant and ridiculous.

Read the full story here.