[asr]

It certainly seems like apress doesn't have their act together, but the fact remains it's a bit silly to refuse to sign a contract and then expect to be paid an advance whose amount is apparently fixed in the contract! In this case, the author could have saved a lot of trouble by asking for an acceptable contract instead of just not signing anything.

Again, i'm happy to accept that apress is unprofessional and a pain, but when someone sends you a contract that says 'completion by X' and that's not ok, ask for a change! If apress paid advances to authors who refused to sign contracts with them, they could get into a lot of trouble.

[mikeash]

Once I started asking about my advance, Apress was happy to have me sign, and then sign themselves, a contract which specified payment in the past. They then took over two months of constant hassle to actually cough up the money. Note that I didn't actually start complaining until a date was fixed etc. and they missed it, so I think your remarks about being silly are off-base.