A Brief News Item

Earlier this week, I received the contract for my second short story, "Reign of Terror" from Title Goes Here:. I submitted the signed forms yesterday, officially granting them first North American serial rights. The tale is scheduled to see print in their April issue.

Art and Additional Materials

Visual art seems to enjoy pride of first place among the aesthetic fields. One of the primary reasons for its universal appeal is probably its immediacy. Anyone can get the gist of a drawing or painting after even a cursory glimpse, but extracting the meat of a literary piece takes significantly more time and effort. Artists, therefore, seem to achieve recognition more easily than writers.

If you want a practical example, try finding a comic book publisher who's accepting unsolicited script submissions. Even bigger studios periodically have open calls for new artists, but unless a story is accompanied by finished pencils at least, good luck getting it in the door.

An interesting observation I made during my unsuccessful bid to launch a web comic is that, while many authors (myself included) openly admit that they can barely manage artwork equaling grade school notebook sketches, every artist I've ever spoken to judges his writing to be on par with his art.

Having been rebuffed by pencilers who already had stories to go along with their artwork, and thus no need for me, I resolved to abandon comics for the time being in order to focus on novels--an medium dedicated entirely to the written word...or so I thought, until I came upon a common clause included in many standard book contracts imposing upon the author the obligation of providing additional materials, including original art.

Since, as I stated, I can't draw, the obvious answer was to include no artwork in my book, other than the front and back cover, which are the publisher's problem. However, I soon discovered that the standard contract specifies that the inclusion of additional artwork is at the publisher's sole discretion. If I do get a book deal, the publisher can demand interior art. Now, publishers know very well that there's every chance a particular author can't draw or paint as well as he can write (a rare combination despite what many artists seem to think), so they add a clause stipulating that the author will be forced to pay for the services of a third-party artist (or even the publisher's own art department).

Usually the publisher will just go ahead and farm out the production of additional materials for the novel, including permissions and indexes (or even maps made by actual cartographers) in addition to original art. Then they'll charge a debit to the author's account which, like the advance, is recoupable via royalties.

Long story short, if you're an author with a book deal on the horizon, make sure to renegotiate these generally unfavorable provisions of most standard literary contracts.

Literary Contracts: Author Compensation

It's time to cover the fun part of a book contract: the royalty clauses.

The standard author/publisher relationship involves a transfer of rights (by grant or possibly other means) from the former to the latter. The publishing house gets the right to exploit the work in a number of ways, and the writer receives some form of compensation in exchange. The most common form of author compensation is the royalty payment.

The frequency and size of royalties can vary, but every royalty is a payment made to the author of a work derived from a percentage of the book's price. A common practice is for the author to receive 10% of the cover price (or more accurately, the publisher's invoice price) for the first 5000 copies sold, 12% on the next 5000, and 15% for every sale over 10,000 copies.

Now we come to the topic of advances. Contrary to a popular misconception, an advance isn't like a signing bonus. It is instead exactly what the name implies: an advance payment against future royalties. Publishers calculate advances based on projections of initial sales. For example, a publisher might offer an advance on the first 1000 copies sold. At the standard royalty rate of 10% and an invoice price of $20.00, the advance comes out to $2000.

The amount of the advance is important because the publisher doesn't have to start making royalty payments until the advance has been recouped in sales. The way it's done is that the publisher keeps the 10% royalty for every copy until royalties on actual sales exceed the advance amount. Therefore, an advance is more like a lump sum court settlement or lottery payout than a bonus (although you can and should get them in installments).

Although royalty payments technically begin after the advance has been paid back, very few books ever manage sufficient sales to do so. Therefore, the advance is likely the only compensation a writer will receive. The good news is that authors aren't obliged to issue refunds on advances to publishers if their books don't sell.

Alternate methods of compensation do exist. For instance, a publisher might offer a writer a percentage of net retail sales. However, as we all know, "...the net is fantasy." (1:18)

Literary Contracts

I've been reading Kirsch's Guide to the Book Contract in preparation for the hypothetical day when a publisher offers me a book deal. The horror stories of authors who entered into Faustian bargains by signing the publisher's first offer are manifold. The tragic tale of Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster is the classic example.

The sage advice to always read and negotiate a book contract has been repeated from many quarters, but  I didn't realize how important understanding the terms of any legal agreement is until I actually read a sample contract. Publishers have had a couple of centuries to refine their dealings with authors, whereas every new author is a private individual who's starting from scratch. As a result, most boilerplate literary contracts heavily favor the publisher.

A few deal points I've learned to watch out for are language that makes broad (or even total) transfers of rights from the author to the publisher--even rights that the publishing house can't exploit directly such as film, TV, and merchandising. Other points of contention include clauses that grant the publisher total control over the form, content, and exploitation of the work without author approval (or even involvement). Unfortunately, it seems to require a lot of clout on the author's part before a publisher will relinquish this kind of control. Sometimes arrangements like this can be good, since the publisher likely knows a lot more about marketing than the author does. However, problems can arise if author and publisher have differing ideas about licensing IPs from the book to a flamethrower manufacturer.

The stuff that really requires the author's careful attention are the warranties and indemnities. This section lays out the writer's duties toward the publisher, including guaranteeing that nothing in the book will get the publisher sued. Indemnity clauses often stipulate that if someone does bring a claim, the author has to pay the legal fees. There are other things that a careless author might be forced to pay for under a standard contract, including late revisions, artwork, additional research, proofs, etc. These clauses seem to be included as incentives for the author to do his job on time.

Finally, off-the-rack book contracts feature a whole slew of escape clauses and other conditions under which the publisher can back out of the deal. If these clauses are invoked, the author won't get an advance, or worse--will have to refund advances already paid.

Luckily, publishing is one industry in which negotiating isn't only acceptable, it's expected. There are few better ways to prove that you're an amateur than immediately signing your first contract un-negotiated. Read the document. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and don't hesitate to haggle for what you want. Chances are you won't get every deal point, but life is compromise.