Contracts

Quick Link: Clause by Clause: Options

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

We have another great post on contracts from at Pub Crawl. This time the topic is options clauses!

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Clause by Clause: Options

  Aug 8 2016
Hi everyone! This is the first installment of a new series I’m going to be writing here at Pub Crawl: Clause by Clause. As our resident contracts expert, I’m going to do my best to demystify this part of the publishing process for you, one clause at a time. Today I’m talking about Option Clauses.What is an Option Clause?
In publishing, an Option Clause gives the Publisher the first look–dibs, if you will–on the next book an Author writes.

That’s it. Really.

Rewards
Why is it important to a Publisher to get the option on your next book? And what are the advantages for you, the Author? Publishers want to form successful business partnerships. They choose to publish authors they believe in, ones they think will bring a good return on investment, and whose books they like and want to champion. If they find an Author who does all of the above, of course they want to continue to work together. Publishers–like agents–can have a vision for your career and often want to be a part of building it. Allowing them the first look at your next work is a courtesy, an acknowledgement of all the time and money and effort they’ve already put in on your behalf, and it gives them the opportunity to persuade you to stay and take the next step in your career with them.

“Wait, persuade me?”  you might ask. “You mean, if the Publisher has the option on my next book and makes an offer I don’t have to take it? I can still walk away?”

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Quick Link: What Happens After You Sign the Contract?

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Weina Dai Randel at Writers In The Storm gives us another peek behind the curtain with what happens after you sign the contract. Hint – it involves lots of edits…

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What Happens After You Sign the Contract?

May 30th, 2016

Ready to get publishedBy Weina Dai Randel

When I was pitching my novel to agents, I didn’t think of what would happen after you signed a contract with a publisher. To me, the process after the contract was like a grand party locked behind a door – I didn’t have an invitation, so I would not get to see what the fun of the party was. But after ten years of writing and eighty two rejection letters, to my uttermost joy, I received the invitation – I signed the contract with Sourcebooks, and my two novels about Empress Wu, The Moon in the Palace and The Empress of Bright Moon, were finally published in March and April this year. I would love to share my experience of the process with you.

After the signing, I received a heart-warming welcome letter from my editor, with whom I would work for the next two years. The letter was thrilling to read, and it contained all the important dates: such as the due date for the developmental edits, the due date for the copyedits, the date when it was likely I would receive the book cover design, the date when I would receive the back cover copy, and finally the date when I absolutely couldn’t make any changes to the manuscript, when it was closed for ARC.

I read the letter at least five times to get familiarized with the terms such as ARC, advance reader copy, and the back cover copy, the paragraphs printed at the back of a book – I didn’t know my editor would write that, not me. The letter, I believe, was very important for a new writer to understand the steps of the process.

The real work began when I received the edits, which contained a list of bigger-picture problems – the opening chapters of the book, for example. Yes, the most important chapters I spent years writing. My editor thought they were too long and asked to get into the main character’s journey faster. I considered the comments, clarified some questions, and dove into revision. I cut some scenes, adding more clues and descriptions to a few important characters, and revised them on Track Changes, as my editor had requested. Then I submitted the revision before the deadline. And I thought, now what?

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Quick Links: Business Musings: The Grant of Rights Clause (Contracts/Dealbreakers)

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

You should always give a contract a solid look over or, better yet, hire a lawyer so you know what you are getting into. According to Kristine Kathryn Rusch, publishing contracts are getting even more – shall I say politely – complicated for authors. She has some great tips for you guys, so go check it out. Don’t be in a rush to sign away your rights, or do something you will regret later in the excitement of the moment.

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Business Musings: The Grant of Rights Clause (Contracts/Dealbreakers)

May 25, 2016

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Be careful, cause friends don't let friends sign shitty contracts.
Be careful, cause friends don’t let friends sign shitty contracts.

I’m sure some of you have noticed that the art for this blog isn’t my usually snarky commentary on whatever topic I’ve chosen. I decided to use the photo header for this blog to promote the Storybundle that I’m in. Why? (Aside from shameless self-promotion?)

Because the Storybundle includes a book of mine that you might need to do half the stuff I mention in the contracts and dealbreakers posts. I’ve recommended How To Negotiate Anything before. It’s my biggest seller in nonfiction. (You can also find it in audio  and free on this site in an earlier draft.)

However, if you get the book in the bundle, you also get nine other stellar writing and business books, plus you can donate to The Pearl Foundation, a charity that helps support adult education.

There. Ad over.

Now onto today’s topic.

I am revising the Dealbreakers 2013 book. I had hoped to revise it every year, but I get so discouraged looking at the contracts as they exist now. I actually started to revise in the hopes of having the new book in this Storybundle, and then discovered I had so much new material that I didn’t have time to finish the book by mid-May.

Why is there new material? Because traditional publishing contracts have gotten ugly (or should I say uglier?). And they’re not alone. Contracts for movie deals, gaming rights, comic books, and now works in translation are also getting more and more draconian.

Corporate entities have finally gotten a clue about the value of copyright and trademark. Now, those entities which own many of the companies you’ll deal with—even as an indie writer—want to own each piece of the copyright to any property they put their grubby little fingers on.

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In The News: Author Sues Publisher For Portraying eBook Licenses As ‘Sales’ To Pay Out Fewer Royalties

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In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors

Say it isn’t so! A publisher using tactics to get more money out of authors? Color me shocked. Ok, snarky time is over. But this is an interesting read that will get you re-reading any publishing contract you sign. Techdirt has the full scoop.

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Author Sues Publisher For Portraying eBook Licenses As ‘Sales’ To Pay Out Fewer Royalties

from the whatever’s-the-most-profitable-terminology… dept

Justice is blind so she can't see that Benjamin you put in her scales
Justice is blind so she can’t see that Benjamin you put in her scales

If you’re a consumer, that piece of digital wordsmithery you purchased probably isn’t worth the paper it isn’t printed on. Like most digital media available for “purchase,” ebooks are often “sold” as licenses that allow the publisher to control use of the product indefinitely, whether through DRM or by simply attaching EULAs no one will ever read to every download.

This works out great for publishers, who can make irrational, unilateral decisions to pull their catalogs from platforms as a “bargaining tool,” leaving purchasers without access to their purchased goods. But publishers (including music publishers like UMG) only use the term “license” when it’s most advantageous for them. When it comes to paying authors, the terminology suddenly changes. Now it’s a “sale,” with all the disadvantages for authors that entails.

“Sales” is a historical term, meant to reference physical sales and the additional costs (printing, packaging, shipping) built into the process. Licenses — and the ebooks attached to them — have none of these costs, hence the higher payout rate. But, according to a recently-filed lawsuit, Simon and Schuster is treating ebooks like physical sales in order to pay authors lower royalties.

Lloyd Jassin of CopyLaw points out why this is worth litigating:

The distinction is significant, because the royalty rate for sales is much lower than the rate for the license of rights. If categorized as a license the author receives 50% of net receipts, rather than 25% of net typically paid to authors for the “sale” of an eBook.

Jassin also points out that after Eminem’s win over UMG on the sale/license issue (dealing with digital album/track sales), most publishers rewrote their contracts to make the screwing explicit.

In the wake of the Eminem decision, most publishers amended their contracts, so the sale or license of an “eBook” is unambiguously treated as a sale. The lawsuit, therefore, challenges the publisher’s interpretation of their legacy or backlist contracts.   

Read the full post on Techdirt

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Quick Links: Know Your Rights

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Today’s offering is a bit long, but well worth the time. Do yourself a favor and read the comment section too. With the changes in copyright law and the advent of self publishing, the terms offered to authors have changed, and not for the better.  Kristine Kathryn Rusch at The Passive Voice explains the new contract world. What are your thoughts on the changes to authors contracts?

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Know Your Rights

23 April 2016

Publishing contractKristine Kathryn Rusch

I recently got an email that sent a chill through me. It was a newsletter from a traditional publishing organization. This organization is geared toward publishers and editors, not toward writers.

The newsletter was essentially an ad for an upcoming seminar that will teach publishers to understand intellectual property and expand their rights business.

Why did this send a chill through me? Because the one thing that has protected writers who signed bad contracts is the fact that their traditional publishers have no idea how to exploit the rights they licensed.

. . . .

[I]n short, most publishers ask for more than they have ever used in the past. Publishers have been very short sighted in how they published books.

. . . .

Ten years ago, it was relatively easy to get the rights reverted on a book like that. Essentially both parties agreed that the terms of the contract had been met, that the parties no longer had need of the relationship, and so they severed their business relationship.

It wasn’t easy-peasy, but it wasn’t hard either. It usually took a letter or two.

By 2005, however, most agents refused to write that letter which severed the contract. The reason was simple from the agent’s perspective. Many, many, many agents used a combination of their agency agreement and a clause in the writer’s book contract to define their relationship with the writer, and determine who controlled the marketing and finances of that book.

It wasn’t in the agent’s best interest to cancel the contract. In fact, the longer the contract existed, the better it was for the agent.

Writers with agents would have to write those letters themselves—and then, publishers would often contact the agent to find out why the agent was “letting” the writer do this.

. . . .

In the last year or so, I’ve been hearing from writers who say it’s almost impossible to get their rights reverted. The publishers want to hold onto those rights as long as possible.

Read the full post on The Passive Voice

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