Collaboration

Negotiating a contract between a publisher and a single author is complicated enough, but how are publishing agreements handled in the case of a work produced by two or more collaborators? Though such arrangements can take as many forms as there are creative teams, three general standards exist.

1. Co-authorship: the collaborators enter into an arrangement wherein each receives equal credit, compensation, and responsibility for the work. Ideally, co-authors enjoy a 50/50 split of royalties and advances, but the proceeds can be divided in differing proportions as long as all of the authors agree on the terms.

The catch is that, while co-authors are entitled to all of the same rights as a single author, they are also bound by all of the same obligations. A collaborator named in a book contract as co-author is legally required to provide or pay for additional art and front/back matter along with the other writer(s) and is equally subject to the penalties and costs of litigation and/or breach of contract. As a rule, a contributor to a particular work should only be named a co-author if he understands and accepts these duties and is willing to make a long term commitment to the project.

2. Work for hire: pieces produced on a work for hire basis are legally treated as though the contracting party were the original author for all intents and purposes. The actual creator receives some form of payment but is not entitled to royalties and reserves no primary or subsidiary rights in the project--sometimes not even credit.

Copyright law provides very strict rules regulating the conditions under which work for hire agreements can be made. The most important guideline is that the party producing the work first be made aware of and agree to the conditions listed above (a piece commissioned on other terms cannot be made work for hire after the fact).

As the name implies, the vast majority of works made for hire are produced in the normal course of an artist or writer's employment. For example, an illustrator working at a graphic design firm is probably hired with the explicit understanding that all art produced during the term of employment will belong to the company. Instead of royalties, the artist is paid a salary.

3. Grant of rights: in the case of an author who receives limited material assistance from one or more collaborators with no desire to take on the burden of a book contract's warranties, indemnities, and obligations, the parties involved can privately negotiate a grant of rights.

The mechanics and legal effects of such a grant are very similar to what happens when an author sells the rights in a book to a publisher. Suppose for example that a third party contributor created a setting, character, or unique item that the author incorporated into a book. Such a collaborator probably wouldn't be entitled to the 50 percent share of a co-author (and probably isn't invested enough in the project to relish taking on the professional and legal responsibilities involved). Instead, the collaborator can sell some or all of the rights to his creation to the author, who will then deal with the publisher directly and leave the contributor free of any further obligation.

There doesn't seem to be an established precedent dictating the rate of compensation for an independent collaborator. The value of the character or setting rights is tied to the value of the whole manuscript, which can't be known until a publisher bids on it. However, such arrangements should be formalized in writing before the book contract is signed, because the publisher will want to be sure that the author possesses all the relevant rights to the work before finalizing their own agreement.

One rule that does govern agreements between authors and third party contributors is that something of tangible value should be paid by the author in exchange for the collaborator's rights--whether said compensation takes the form of a share of the royalties, a one-time payment, etc. Still, an independent contributor probably isn't going to earn as much as a full-fledged co-author.

Some publishers will deal separately with third party collaborators, but such circumstances are far from ideal due to the intricacies of subsidiary rights. Imagine a toy manufacturer who wants to make a line of action figures based on a book featuring contributions by one or more collaborators in addition to the author. If the collaborators retain full ownership of their contributions, the toy company will have to approach everyone separately and negotiate several different contracts to acquire the rights they need.

It's far more convenient and expedient for everyone involved with the book's creation to gather all of the rights in one place and agree on a means of distributing compensation beforehand. The likelihood of publication and expansion into other media also increases dramatically under such an arrangement.