Tag Archives: Contracts

Know Your Rights

I blogged about copyrights awhile back, but this topic is a little different. Today’s discussion is about your rights to your story.

Bill_of_Rights

No, the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights is not where you go to find out about them. Your story rights are embodied in the laws of the country you live in, and by agreement with the country where your publisher is.

How do rights differ from copyrights? The copyright (©) to your written story is something you own and always retain. Think of the copyright as a bundle or collection of individual rights. If you want your story published or distributed by someone else (the usual case), then you’ll likely end up agreeing by contract to transfer part of that bundle of rights, usually in exchange for payment to you. But you always keep the copyright.

Rights are exclusive in nature, meaning you are granting one, and only one, publisher the right to print and distribute your work. No other publisher may do so legally. Also, since you are selling your rights to a single publisher, you are prohibited from selling those same rights to another publisher. This exclusivity is the normal case, but some contracts may specify nonexclusive rights.

There are three aspects to rights: media, term, and territory.

  • Media means the form of publication, for example hardcover, paperback, e-book, audiobook, podcast, serialized, etc. The contract should specify the payment type and amount for each of the different media types cited in the contract. You retain the rights to any types not cited.
  • Term refers to the time period for which you’re granting rights to the publisher, usually expressed in years after the date of the contract. After that time, the specified rights revert to you, and you may then sell them to someone else if you wish.
  • Territory is the geographic region in which the publisher may exercise these rights.

There are two categories of rights:

  • Primary Rights, or just Rights. When the publishing company buys your rights, they have certain media immediately in mind that they intend to exercise. Maybe they want to publish your work in hardcover now, and paperback later. These uses of your work are the subject of the primary rights.
  • Subsidiary (or Secondary) Rights. The publisher has no immediate intent to exercise subsidiary rights, but would like to buy them from you now to allow later use. These often include movie and TV rights, merchandizing rights, dramatic and performance rights.

You’ll encounter some other terminology with respect to story rights. These definitions assume you’ve sold the specified right to a publisher.

  • First Rights: The publisher can publish your story for the first time anywhere and in any format
  • Second (Reprint) Rights: The publisher can publish your story following a first publication elsewhere.
  • One-Time Rights: The publisher can publish your work once.
  • First Serial Rights: The publisher can publish your story for the first time, and may do so all at once or a piece at a time in a periodical publication.
  • Second Serial Rights: After initial publication, the publisher can publish excerpts of your story in several magazines or newspapers.

If you’re offered a publishing contract, read the Rights section with care. Look up unfamiliar legal verbiage or ask someone with contracting expertise. You can negotiate with publishers and get them to change the contract before you sign; contracts are mutual agreements between two parties.

Here, here, and here, are some very good websites with more information about story rights.

I know what you’re wondering at this point, and the answer is no. After this exploration of story rights, there will not be a companion blog post on the subject of story lefts, written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 5, 2014Permalink

It’s All You, Dave

Remember ‘Dave’ from the Staples™ TV commercial from a Dave - Staplesfew years ago?  The guy walked into an office where everyone looked suspiciously like him, and they all greeted each other by saying, “Dave.”  The commercial closed with the voiceover saying, “In a small business, it’s all you.”

If you’re a writer these days, you’re much like Dave.  After all, in your corporation of one, you fill the following positions:

  • President.  Congratulations! You made it to the top, the big cheese, the high muckety-muck.  The company bears your name.  You’re praised when it succeeds, and blamed when…well, let’s not focus on that.
  • Vice President of Purchasing.  In days gone by, this job entailed keeping your business furnished with a functional typewriter, paper, pens, a nice desk, and a comfortable chair.  Now the job responsibilities have shrunk to ensuring a functional computer and a solid Internet connection.
  • V.P. of Research & Development.  This is one of the best jobs in the company, the department doing all the research for your stories.  If you write historical fiction, this is particularly important.  It’s so much fun, however, that this job will take over your company if left unchecked.
  • V.P. of Contracting.  You may not be a lawyer, but you’re going to have to know some basics about contracts.  Just reading the darn things can be tedious—nothing at all like reading fiction.  Once you sign, you’re bound by that agreement.
  • V.P. of Production.  Finally, a fun job.  This is the one you signed up for.  You manage the mental machinery that takes ideas from the R&D department, plus some coffee, and produces polished prose.
  • V.P. of Marketing and Sales.  Your company won’t promote itself, that’s for sure.  If you contract with a big publishing firm, they’ll take care of this, but with smaller publishers or with self-publishing, you’ve got to get your name out there by yourself.  You’ve got to work the social media, speak at conferences, arrange book signings, etc.
  • Chief Financial Officer (CFO).  Unless you’ve got someone else handling the books, the ledgers, the taxes for you, it’s up to you.  Skill in accounting doesn’t always go hand in hand with skill in writing, so your on-the-job training better not take too long.
  • V. P. of Customer Service.  When your customers (readers) complain about the product, to whom do they turn?  You.  Although there’s no need to respond to negative reviews, you should respond to comments on your blog posts, and e-mails from readers.

All those fancy job titles lose some luster when they’re combined in one person, and that’s you.  However, look at the bright side:  decisions get made quickly in your company of one.  All those departments see eye-to-eye; they’re on the same page, so to speak.  No in-fighting, no hidden agendas, no stabbing in the back.

Unlike the conclusion of the commercial, there is no Easy button to push.  Purchasing is the only department Staples™ can help.

However, there are Help buttons, many sources of information to help writers figure out all these specialized jobs.  In fact my blog is dedicated to providing that information.

So, ‘Dave,’ get back to work.  It’s all you.  And I’ll return to my work, too.  At my company, it’s all—

                                                          Poseidon’s Scribe

February 9, 2014Permalink

We’d Like to Offer You a Contract…

You’ve sent your short story around to different markets, gotten rejections, but finally one publisher accepts your story.  Hooray!  Then an e-mail arrives with a long, legal document for you to sign.  It’s your first writing contract.  It looks so complicated, and all you want to do is see your story published, so you think about signing that contract without really reading it.

Don’t do that.

At its most basic level, a contract is a written agreement between two willing parties.  Each has something to offer, something the other party wants, so the contract should be for mutual benefit.  The writer has his story and wants both money and a published story.  The publisher is able to ensure books get printed and offered to the public and is willing to pay writers for good stories.  Pretty simple, right?  What could go wrong?

Writing contracts (for short stories, with which I have experience), have a fairly standard structure.  Here are the basic parts, though contracts vary by publisher:

  • Definitions of Author, Publisher, and Work
  • Permissions Author grants the Publisher
  • Rights being purchased by Publisher and the time period (term) of the rights (when they revert back to the Author, both in case the book isn’t published and if it is)
  • Payments and Royalties paid by Publisher to Author, including Author copies of published book.  In the case of royalties, some contracts also state how the Publisher will provide periodic royalty statements.
  • Termination of Agreement – some contracts stipulate how the agreement will be or could be terminated
  • Author Warranties (author owns Work, no other conflicting contracts, Work is original, Work doesn’t defame others, etc.)
  • Author Indemnities – (Author holds Publisher blameless in lawsuits if Author has misrepresented anything in contract)
  • No competing publication (Author agrees not to publish Work elsewhere first)
  • Changes in Text or Title – Publisher agrees not change the work without Author permission (approval of galleys), but usually minor copy-editing changes are allowed.
  • Venue – links the contract to the laws of a specific country or state
  • Signatures

For several reasons, you might be tempted to sign your first writing contract without reading it:

1.  All those unfamiliar legal words are intimidating.

2.  I’m anxious to get published.

3.  It’s probably one of their standard contracts, anyway.  A lot of writers must have signed a contract just like this.

4.  Most publishers are above-board and honest, aren’t they?

If if all are those are true, read the contract anyway.  But suppose you do read it and there are parts you don’t understand.  Communicate with the publisher and ask him or her what those clauses mean.  If you’re still confused, you can hire an intellectual property lawyer, but that shouldn’t be necessary for most short story contracts.  Don’t sign the contract until you understand the terms and agree to them.

It’s a truism that contracts favor the party that writes them.  You can attest to that, I’m sure, from other types of contracts you’ve seen which always spell out in detail what you’re supposed to do and what bad things will happen if you don’t, but gloss over the expectations and penalties for the other party.

Remember–a contract is an agreement between two willing parties who each give something and get something.  So you can negotiate terms.  If there’s something you don’t like in the contract or something missing, negotiate to make it right.  Walking away from a bad deal is always an option–right up until you sign it.

Feel free to let me know what your experience with short story contracts has been.  But hereinafter in consideration of the mutual covenants herein contained, the party of the first part shall be referred to as–

                                                                      Poseidon’s Scribe

May 13, 2012Permalink