That does sound rather problematic.soheil_hooshdaran wrote:nothing other than the 1st one he emailed 5 years ago, which contained a one-off advanced payment.I changed the payment to a royalty and observance of English copyright to Iran's, as we don't know much about the English law.John McKenna wrote:He said you could send him letters, but he did not say he would necessarily reply.
The contents of your letter and contract must have been so problematic for him that they did not merit a reply. Usually authors do not write their own contracts. Remind me, did you ever receive a contract from him?
now I an pay the one-off payment.
Presumably you changed the contract, signed it and sent it back? And didn't get a signed copy of the changed contract back?
If the original contract mentioned a one-off initial payment and no royalties then, provided it wasn't excessive, you would have been wise to accept.
Similarly you should have put your brain into gear over the issue of English v Iranian copyright law (as perhaps should have the English publishers). The point being that if you had no intention of ever coming to England then the clause binding you to English copyright law has little if any effect whereas you live in Iran and so cannot escape Iranian copyright law whether you sign a contract or not.
It sounds from the initial contract as if the English publishers were in effect saying "Go on, please yourselves". By changing the contract and sending it back you were in effect arguing with them and then they just couldn't be bothered and didn't think you were worth the effort.
If it would be legal in Iran you could continue printing, selling and sending royalty cheques to the publisher in England and see what happens.