Personal experience: how publishers deceive respected authors (part 2)

In early February of this year, Novye Izvestia published the material "Personal Experience: how publishers deceive respected authors", in which the scientist Nikolai Zhdankin told about the oddities that occur in some Russian publishing houses when paying royalties. As an example, the author cited the publishing house "KnoRus", which published two of his books at once – textbooks "Innovative Management" and "Strategic Management". A few days later, an unexpected response came from this publishing house, which contained an agreement on the termination of publishing license agreements for these two books, and with a date from 02.02.2023, i.e. literally the next day after the article was published. Our author shared his, quite understandable feelings about this.  

Nikolay Zhdankin

Why on earth?

I have fulfilled all my obligations in full, and the publishing house just allows violations and even deception of authors, not at all shy about it and even considering it the norm.

As you can see, the publishing house reacted painfully to the material of the article. But instead of trying to somehow solve this problem and come to a mutually beneficial consensus, it made a "surgical" decision to break off relations with me, apparently offended. At the same time, both books were immediately removed from the publisher's website and any mention of them, possibly to hide the "ends in the water", which indirectly confirms the correctness of the facts stated in the article. I had no choice but to agree with the proposed termination, since it is impossible to deal with a publishing house and people who do not respect authors - authors who give you the opportunity to make good money on your intellectual product, while also deceiving them. In the appendix I present scans of these agreements.

On the Web, you can find a lot of facts confirming my words regarding publishers and authors, and for the KnoRus publishing house there are a lot of negative reviews about the deception of authors, partners and employees of the publishing house for non-payment of fees and salaries, which indicates the systematic unfair work of the publishing house with the authors.

And it is also very important. KnoRus pays fees (or rather what they consider "fees") according to the expense orders in the cash register of the accounting department (see the picture). This is in the 21st century and with a huge number of authors, when everyone has long since switched to cashless payments! What does this mean? Like it or not, but this suggests the idea of "black" accounting, when they try to hide real payments and, if necessary, simply destroy these documents. We are not talking about any transparency, and even more so about the fair payment of taxes. It is impossible to verify such payments and calculations.

And in addition to what has been said. My first book, Innovation Management, has already been published in an additional edition since 2021, without even bothering to inform me about it. This is also a direct violation of the contract.

Good afternoon, Nikolai Alexandrovich!

We have calculated the fee, the amount for the current day was 3273 rubles
In the attachment you will find a file with the calculation of the fee.
The payment is scheduled for April 2023 at the publisher's box office at:

Kedrova st., 14, bldg. 2, art. m. "Academic".The ticket office is open from Tuesday to Thursday from 12.00 to 17.00.

Please inform us about the exact time of arrival at least 5 days in advance.
In case of any questions 

You can contact Alfimova Vlada Vadimovna (contacts: [email protected] , +7 (495) 741-46-28, ext. 164) or to your project manager.Sincerely, KNORUS Publishing House   

And the last. It is a pity that the Russian Government does not pay attention to such things, which also raises many questions.

In the dry balance for today: The publishing house "KnoRus" after the termination of the contract lost the licenses for my books. If it starts to replicate and sell these books now, it will be piracy in its purest form. Do not let yourself be deceived by scammers!

And yet these issues, of course, need to be resolved. Therefore, I would like our scientists to receive normal fees, and the issue of copyright compliance when working with publishers was finally resolved. Work with them should be made transparent and understandable, which will provide additional revenues to the budget and strengthen the flourishing of science in our country, which is necessary today in such a difficult time.

About the author:

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Zhdankin , Doctor of Technical Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor of NUST MISIS (former), author of more than 270 scientific papers, 25 inventions and more than 15 books.