Hachette Sues Seth Grahame-Smith

Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Unholy Night (among other titles), is being sued by Hachette Book Group for breach of contract. The publisher is suing to recover the $500,000 (plus interest) they paid for a book they allege the author never delivered.

Hachette and Grahame-Smith made a $4 million deal for two new books following 2010’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, with $1 million paid on signing: $500,000 for each book. They published Grahame-Smith’s The Last American Vampire in 2015, but despite offering extensions on the second book’s deadline, it never arrived. Three years after the original due date, Hachette terminated the contract, but offered Grahame-Smith an additional 60 days to hand in a manuscript. He did deliver a book, but Hachette said the manuscript was “in large part an appropriation of a 120-year-old public-domain work” and on a subject that Hachette never approved.

Publishers Marketplace has posted Hachette’s legal complaint online.