Writer Beware®: The Blog: Bad Contract Alert: ByteDance's Fizzo (Fi...
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J U LY 2 3 , 2 0 2 1
BAD CONTRACT ALERT: BYTEDANCE'S FIZZO (FICTUM)
READING/WRITING APP
W R I T E R B EWARE®
WEBSITE
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®
www.writerbeware.com
C O N T R I B U TORS
Over the past year, I've gotten a flood of questions and complaints from writers who've been approached by
reading/writing platforms or apps based in Hong Kong or Singapore.
Ann Crispin
Michael Capobianco
Richard White
Victoria Strauss
There's a growing number of these platforms, and they are aggressively soliciting for content, including on
established platforms like Wattpad. While most of the solicitations target writers directly, agents are receiving
approaches as well.
Some platforms appear professional, with contracts that are fairly reasonable and straightforward. Others...not so
much. Last October, I wrote about the terrible contracts offered by A&D Entertainment and EMP Entertainment,
two companies that are deputized to recruit for Webnovel.
A new player in the reading/writing app field is Fictum (domain registered just this past November). Available on
Apple and Google Play, it's owned by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, and is currently recruiting writers
with existing published books, as well as writers willing to produce 200,000 words or more of new material for its
Long English Story Project. (UPDATE: Since I published this post, Fictum has re-branded as Fizzo. I've changed
all references going forward.)
For new material, Fizzo offers both exclusive and non-exclusive contracts, with different levels of financial
remuneration that are rather confusingly described here. You must first publish 30,000 words in order to apply for a
contract; once you're contracted, you must fulfill punishing word counts and maintain a grueling schedule in order
to earn. For the exclusive contract, for instance, you must publish at least 1,000 words a day in order to receive a
"daily update bonus" of $200 per month. More words equal more cash: if you can bang out 100,000 words a month,
you get $400. Time is money, though: you can't take more than four days off in a single month, and if you fail to
produce for more than four days in a row at any time, you forfeit payment.
I've seen one Fizzo contract, offered for an existing published book. You can view it here. To put it mildly, there are
issues of concern.
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- The Grant of Rights is non-exclusive and time-limited--but it is also irrevocable. In other words, you aren't
stuck forever--but you have no right to cancel.
There was originally a clause allowing the author to terminate for cause, but in the contract I saw, that clause had
been blacked out. The deletion wasn't as effective as someone thought, though, because when I converted the
contract to PDF, the excised words showed up:
Send
O U R L AT E S T BO OKS
This isn't much better than saying "no, you can never cancel". You'd have to wait a year, and you could only invoke
the clause if not a single person had accessed your work in all that time (which might be hard to show, given that
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Fizzo doesn't have to tell you how your work is performing--see below). Talk about crafting an option so that it
practically never happens! Plus, if even if you were unfortunate enough to fulfill the requirements, you'd still be
screwed, because you'd have to give money back to Fizzo:
Let me know if you can make sense of that formula.
- You must waive your moral rights. Moral rights include the right of attribution (the right to be identified as the
author) and the right of integrity (the right to protect your work from changes that would be prejudicial to the work
or to you). If you waive your moral rights, you surrender both. Among other things, this means that your work
could be published without your name, or under someone else's name.
Moral rights aren't really recognized in the USA, but they are important in other countries, and the Fizzo app is
distributed in multiple nations across the world.
- The initial 2-year term auto-renews (at the publisher's discretion; the author doesn't have a say), but the
language isn't clear.
Does this mean auto-renewal for a single 1-year period? Or for successive one-year periods? It's not clear. This is
the kind of thing that really needs to be unambiguous.
- There's no fixed payment schedule, payment terms are opaque, and Fizzo doesn't have to give you
performance data.
The payment scheme detailed in the contract is different from what's described on the Fizzo website, likely because
this contract was offered for a finished book rather than for a serial work not yet written. Collectively called a
License Fee, payment consists of a "fixed royalty" (equivalent to an advance); a "contingent royalty" (a KDP
Select-style payment based on reading metrics), and a performance-based bonus granted "from time to time".
The fixed royalty (based on word count--around $600 for the book this contract was offered for) is payable 20 days
after contract signing or manuscript acceptance, whichever is later. It must be recouped by contingent royalties;
once it is, those royalties become payable.
So far, so good. However, the formula for calculating contingent royalties is not exactly transparent:
Nowhere is it explained what's meant by "effective reading time", or "unit rate", or how either one is calculated,
except to say that it's at the publisher's discretion. Nowhere is there a payment schedule to indicate when and how
often contingent royalties are paid once the advance is recouped, other than to vaguely promise, further on in the
contract, "commercially reasonable efforts to inform Author...in [Fizzo's] discretion from time to time." (Might this
suggest that Fizzo doesn't expect it will have to regularly pay out contingent royalties?)
Equally concerning: nowhere is there any language requiring Fizzo to share performance data, such as how many
readers have accessed your work.
Bottom line: beyond the advance, you have absolutely no idea what financial remuneration you might receive, and
no guarantee that you'll get any insight into how your work performs on the Fizzo app.
- The grant term is time-limited, but Fizzo's right to use and exploit your work is not. There are two areas
where this applies. First, even after the contract ends, your work will continue to be hosted on Fizzo's servers in
order to service customers who've downloaded it, which they do on a "perpetual" basis. (This is a common feature
of such apps and platforms; it's not so much a "beware" as it is a "be aware".)
Second, Fizzo claims copyright on derivative works created by it in connection with its exploitation of your rights
as granted in the contract, and can continue to exploit these derivative works "perpetually". So what exactly is
meant by derivative works? The contract doesn't really say.
PUBLISHING &
M A R K E T I N G S CAMS
TA R G E T I N G I N DIE
AUTHORS
- Access Media Group (aka Quill Space
Media)
- Ace Media Creative Publication / Ace
Media International / APM Media
Production (aka Pearson Media Group)
- Adaptations Tide
- ADBook Press (aka Coffee Press)
- Adventure Time Narratives
- Adverters, The (aka Sherlock Press)
- Alpha Books Solutions
- Alpha Books United
- Amelia Publishing / Amelia Book
Company (aka LitFire Publishing)
- AnalytIQ
- Ascribed LLC (defunct)
- Atheneum Literary
- Author Codex (aka Bookspine Press)
- Author Media Express (aka Book Art
Press Solutions / Booktimes / Bookwhip /
Carter Press / PRM Solutions / Pearson
Media Groups / Stephenson and Queen /
Window Press Club)
- Author Reputation Press
- Author Shack
- Author University
- AuthorAide
- AuthorCentrix (formerly BookBlastPro)
- AuthorLair
- Authors Avenue Media Group
- Authors' Breakthrough Solutions
- Authors' Fortune Press and Media
- Authors Legacy
- Authors Note 360
- Authors Press (aka Westwood Books
Publishing)
- Authors' Tranquility Press
- Beacon Books Agency (aka Fact &
Fiction Entertainment and Literary
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A previous clause discusses derivative works in the context of promotion, such as creating short video clips based
on a work's characters or setting. Other than this, though, "derivative works" is not defined, and the word
"including" in the final sentence of the clause above suggests that such works may not be limited to promotional
materials.
- Anything you write during the term of the contract is subject to first refusal by Fizzo. Not just work related
to the contracted work: anything.
This is an onerous requirement.
- And finally, language like this is never an encouraging sign:
There's a lot of competition out there in the reading app sphere, with dozens of companies vying for content. Most
have little or no name recognition. That's not true of ByteDance, which likely gives it a substantial recruitment
advantage.
That's unfortunate, not just because of the unfavorable contract terms discussed above, but because the writers being
approached by the apps, many of whom are teenagers or college students, are among the most naive and least savvy
I've ever encountered (at least, judging by the many questions and panicked "I signed up without reading the
contract, how can I get free" pleas I'm receiving). Considering how long I've been doing the Writer Beware thing,
that is saying something.
UPDATE 12/23/21: I've just seen another non-exclusive contract from Fizzo (this one follows its re-brand with the
new name).
It still includes most of the problems I've identified above, and remains significantly author-unfriendly. But there
are some changes, which I've outlined below. A couple of these are improvements. Most...are not.
This contract too was for a completed work.
- The contract term has been extended. ;It's now 5 years instead of 2, with the same ambiguous renewal
language.
- There is still no right of author termination.
- Provisions have been added for termination by Fizzo. There's now a 7-day "termination period" during which
Fizzo can continue to exploit all granted rights...but does not have to pay for such exploitation. And if termination is
due to breach by the author, Fizzo "is entitled to demand a refund of paid License Fee." (Financially penalizing
authors for contract termination is a common feature of reading app contracts.)
- The payment provisions--collectively known as the License Fee--have been re-worked. There's no Fixed
Royalty. Instead, there are two new categories: "Gratis Basis" (the work is free to read on Fizzo's distribution
platforms) and "Non-Gratis Basis" (the work is pay-per-view or something equivalent).
For Gratis Basis, payment is the same confusing Contingent Royalty discussed above. For Non-Gratis basis,
payment is 40% of Net Receipts--but Net Receipts in this instance actually means net profits, because there is a
menu of deductions:
That's...a big list. Your work would have to be generating a pretty big chunk of change on a regular basis for any
revenue to survive all those deductions.
It's rare to see such detail in a net profit royalty contract, and sheds light on why net profit royalties are great for
publishers but lousy for authors.
Agency)
- Bennett Media & Marketing
- Best Books Media (aka Global Summit
House / The Universal Breathrough)
- Black Lacquer Press & Marketing
- Blue Ink Scribble
- BooConn Marketing
- Book Agency Plus (aka BookTrail
Agency)
- Book Art Press Solutions (aka Author
Media Express / Booktimes / Bookwhip /
Carter Press / PRM Solutions / Pearson
Media Group / Stephenson and Queen /
Window Press Club)
- Book Avenue Publishing (aka Nivra
Press)
- Book Bureau USA
- Book Chambers, The (aka LitHub)
- Book Magnets
- Book Masters, The
- Book Reads Publishing (defunct)
- Books Scribe
- Book Vine Press
- Bookjet Publicity (aka Optage
Publishing)
- BookSpine Press (aka Author Codex)
- Booktimes (aka Author Media Express /
Book Art Press / Bookwhip / Carter Press
/ PRM Solutions / Pearson Media Groups /
Stephenson and Queen / Window Press
Club)
- BookTrail Agency (aka Book Agency
Plus)
- BookVenture Publishing
- BookWhip (aka Author Media Express /
Book Art Press Solutions / Booktimes /
Carter Press / PRM Solutions / Pearson
Media Groups / Stephenson and Queen /
Window Press Club)
- Box Office Media Creatives (aka Buzz
Media Creatives)
- Braintree Interactive Media (aka Bright
Lights Distribution>br /> - BrandingNemo
- Bright Lights Distribution (aka Braintree
Interactive Media)
- Buzz Media Creatives (aka Box Office
Media Creatives)
- Capstone Media Services (defunct)
- Carter Press (aka Bookwhip)
- Chapters Media & Advertising (aka
Paper Bytes Marketing Solutions /
Techbooks Media / Fresh Pages Media
and Advertising)
- Clever Publication - Coffee Press (aka
ADBook Press)
- Conquer Press Publishing
- Creative Titles Media (aka TrueMedia
Creatives)
- Crest Media Distribution
- DC Media Creative
- Diamond Media Press
- Dream Books Distribution
- Dreamer's Point
- EC Publishing
- Editor's Creative Media (aka Editor's
Press and Media / Silver Ink Literary
Agency)
- Editor's Press and Media (aka Editor's
Creative Media / Silver Ink Literary
Agency)
- Experttell (aka Fox Media Studios
Agency / Silver Fox Media / Orions
Media Agency / Pioneer Media
Productions / PageTurner Press and Media
/ Innocentrix)
- Fact & Fiction Entertainment and
Literary Agency (aka Beacon Books
Agency)
- FilmHatch Media Productions
- Filmways Pictures Media / Filmways
Pictures Agency
- Folio Avenue Publishing
- Fox Media Studios Agency (aka Silver
Fox Media / Orions Media Agency /
Expertell / Pioneer Media Productions /
PageTurner Press and Media /
Innocentrix)
- Fresh Pages Media and Advertising (aka
Chapters Media / TechBooks Media)
- Ganpi Media
- Get Started Books (aka Legaia Books /
West Literary Agency / Right Choice
Multimedia)
- Glasslink Solutions (aka Harper Media /
Harper Partners LLC)
- Global Summit House (aka Best Books
Media / The Universal Breathrough)
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- The Option clause discussed above, which obliged writers to give Fizzo first refusal on any additional works
created during the agreement term, has been removed.
- A payment schedule has been added. Payment is now said to be "no later than the last day of the calendar month
that is subsequent to the month during which the License Fee becomes payable or is accrued." Fizzo still doesn't
have to give you performance data, though.
- A gag clause has been added. It's buried in the Promotional Activities section, and forbids the author to "in any
way denigrate or derogate Publisher, its affiliates, assigns and successors, and any of its and their officers, directors,
employees, agents and advisors, or any product or service or procedure of any such person". The applies "whether
or not such denigrating or derogatory statements shall be true". This covers a very large amount of ground, and
could significantly affect authors' ability to speak truthfully about their experiences.
18 COMMENTS :
Unknown said...
Good gods. Not even Douglas Prestion could keep up the requirements for most of these. David Morrell could not. I
would not attempt to write a 200,000 manuscript, edit for conformity, edit it for punctuation, etc.
7/24/2021 11:50 A M
Graham said...
That contract looks like a poorly-disguised invitation to sign up for a life of indentured servitude.
7/26/2021 1:21 PM
Miss Raven said...
So glad I didn't sign up for this. Someone approached me on Facebook messages about this, and I didn't reply back. I've
been getting too many scammed platforms, and people are just eating it up. I'm glad I made the decision not to deal with
this 'company.' I feel like they are just stealing everyone's work, and aren't paying them much or at all to get it. A scam.
8/18/2021 7:30 AM
Unknown said...
I thought I was being too unreasonable to ask questions about this matter to the editor and I found other are also feeling
same about it... Phew! even after so many doubts I was going to sign with them but thanks to this post that provided me
tht their is something fishy with the contract... there is term "survival" which says tht contract will survive any
termination even after contract expires in 30 years there is no chance of getting terminated plus the contract says author
needs to submit professional edited manuscript Author and for proofreading the final proof prior to delivering the
Licensed Work to Publisher.
but License fee talks about the deduction that is deducted for different fee which includes production cost (translation
fee, editing fee) yet author need to submit professional work.
God this is headache... anyway whoever wrote this article huge thanks to you...
9/21/2021 10:05 PM
Ava K Michaels said...
Thanks for this ... they just emailed me! I'll ignore them!
10/22/2021 2:59 A M
David G. said...
Ms. Strauss, thank you for providing very important information to novice authors regarding the many scams that are out
there on the internet. I sincerely value your thoughts based on your years of professional experience. You are providing a
much needed service. With appreciation, Sincerely, Dr. David Garrahan
10/27/2021 4:24 PM
David G. said...
Some may actually be honest. But as Victoria writes="Be Aware". Dr. Garrahan
10/27/2021 4:27 PM
Alison said...
Glad I read about this because I will now ignore them if I receive any email.
10/31/2021 4:44 PM
Jef Kanzy said...
Valuable information.
11/08/2021 1:13 P M
Anonymous said...
Wow! I just received an offer yesterday . Thank for this ��
11/11/2021 11:12 P M
Unknown said...
damn...tnx. I literally just received a message from "fizzo"
11/20/2021 2:03 P M
- Gold Touch Press
- Golden Ink Media Services (aka Great
Writers Media / Green Sage Agency / Pen
Culture Solutions / P One Media
Marketing Consultancy)
- Goldman Agency
- Gotham Books
- GoToPublish (aka Litfire Publishing)
- Great Writers Media (aka Golden Ink
Media Services / Green Sage Agency /
Pen Culture Solutions / P One Media
Marketing Consultancy)
- Green Sage Agency (aka Golden Ink
Media Services / Great Writers Media /
Pen Culture Solutions / P One Media
Marketing Consultancy)
- Happy Media Consulting
- Harper Media (aka Glasslink Solutions /
Harper Partners LLC)
- Harper Partners LLC (aka Glasslink
Solutions / Harper Media)
- Haynes Media Group
- Haystack Creatives (aka Rustik Haws)
- Icon Works Media - IdeoPage Press
Solutions (aka The Writer Central)
- InfusedMedia LLC
- Identiqa Solutions (aka Lime Press LLC)
- Ingress Advertising
- Innocentrix (aka Fox Media Studios
Agency / Silver Fox Media / Orions
Media Agency / Expertell / Pioneer Media
Productions / PageTurner Press and
Media)
- Inspirium Press and Media (aka Word
Art Publishing)
- International Book Media
- Jurnal Press
- Kilmer Press Solutions
- Legaia Books (aka Get Started Books /
West Literary Agency / Right Choice
Multimedia)
- Lettra Press (aka Pen House)
- Lime Press (aka Identiqa Solutions)
- LitFire Publishing (aka Amelia
Publishing / Amelia Book Company /
GoToPublish)
- LitHub (aka The Book Chambers) LitPrime Publishing / LitPrime Solutions
- Mainspring Books
- Maple Leaf Publishing
- Marshall and Macmillan
- Martin and Bowman
- MatchStick Literary
- McNaughton Books / McNaughton
Publishing (website is dead)
- The Mulberry Books
- Netsfilm & Media Press (defunct)
- New Age Literary Agency
- New Leaf Media (aka TransMedia
Agency)
- New Reader Media
- Nivra Press (aka Book Avenue
Publishing)
- Odyssey Media Press
- Okir Publishing (defunct) (still doing
business as ADbook Press / Coffee Press)
- Optage Publishing (aka Bookjet
Publicity)
- Orions Media Agency (aka Fox Media
Studios Agency / Silver Fox Media /
Experttell / Pioneer Media Productions /
PageTurner Press and Media /
Innocentrix)
- Outstrip (defunct)
- P One Media Marketing Consultancy
(aka Golden Ink Media Services / Great
Writers Media / Green Sage Agency / Pen
Culture Solutions)
- PR Media Solutions LLC (aka Author
Media Express / Book Art Press Solutions
/ Booktimes / Bookwhip / Carter Press /
Pearson Media Groups / Stephenson and
Queen / Window Press Club)
- Pacific Books
- PageClapp Media
- PageTurner, Press and Media (aka
Innocentrix / Orions Media Agency / Fox
Media Studios Agency / Silver Fox Media
/ Experttell / Pioneer Media Productions)
- Paper Bytes Marketing Solutions (aka
Chapters Media / Techbooks Media /
Fresh Pages Media and Advertising )
- PaperChase Solution
- Paradigm Print
- Paramount Books Media
- Parchment Global Publishing (aka Word
Dominion International)
11/02/2022, 0:38