Firstly, many thanks to Heather Massey for mentioning an upcoming title of mine, War Games, on her fantastic blog, The Galaxy Express. In the post, Heather excerpted part of the novel’s background where I say:

The [publishing] house accepted the revised novel BUT I wasn’t happy with some of the contract clauses. This is a tough one. Every author wants so badly to see their work in print. But the clauses were rather infantile…and they tied any future stories down to a mindboggling degree. I walked away.

More than a year later, when I look back on that decision, I’m still happy I made it. (And, for the record, I do not publish anything with the house I walked away from.)

With all that in mind, I thought I’d post a short series with what I consider to be criminally bad clauses that publishers foist on authors because, unfortunately, supply far exceeds demand, especially in these trying times. With this series, I’m only dealing with contracts I’ve had personal dealings with so your mileage may vary, but I’ll try to be as comprehensive as possible. (And if anyone would like to copy-paste one of their clauses in the Comments (anonymously, if you wish), that would be great too.)

For the first in this series, I’ll tackle the Length of Rights. This is very important to authors because having rights run out means you’re free to take back that story and do with it what you will. Remember that the publisher isn’t buying your book but only the rights to publish your book under their moniker. So stay sharp!

I have signed contracts varying from two years to, well, more. The house offering two/four years is my favourite and I’ll work with them gladly because it’s such a short period of time and I know they’ve previously given back rights and republished extensively revised stories after this time from authors happy to stick with them. As far as I’m concerned, that publishing house has proven its bona fides to me. With that contract, the length of rights withholding (“the Term”) is defined upfront as:

“the Term” shall mean a period of 2 years for single Works and series Works, and 4 years for contributing stories in anthologies and seasonal collection Works, ending on the anniversary of the date of the Initial Publication Date.

Then you get the longer but straightforward rights clauses. Seven years. I wince, but it’s doable and, hey!, at least it’s not “length of copyright”, right? Another house offered:

If at any time after the expiry of seven (7) years following the first date of exercise of any of the Rights, all of the following are or become applicable in respect of the Work, namely the Work is not in print…, not for sale and no other Rights are being exercised in respect of the Work by Publisher, its Related Licensees or Unrelated Licensees, then Author may make written demand to Publisher to exercise any of the Rights within eighteen (18) months from receipt of such demand. If none of the Rights is exercised pursuant to such written demand, Author shall have the right to request that the Rights revert upon written notice to Publisher. [that's a badly phrased sentence, isn't it? You have to read the next sentence for it to make full sense] Upon receipt of such written notice, Publisher shall revert the Rights to Author subject to any existing agreements which shall not be extended or renewed and which will continue to be subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

Soooo that means 7 years + letter + however long Publisher takes to process the letter, assuming the book is defined as “out of print”. The other thing to watch is when that rights clock kicks in. With some publishers, it’s when you sign the contract, with others it’s when the book is published. It varies, so make sure you take note of which it is. At the top of each contract (which I print and file religiously), I write down the Publication date and the date when the rights can revert to me. In this way, especially when dealing with varying terms from different publishers, I can easily track when what is about to expire.

Back to the contracts. You can see that I’ve arranged them on the scale of not-so-bad to freakin’-awful, can’t you?

And so we come to Acme Coyote Publishing (shortened to AC-Pub…a fictitious name, obviously), which initially handled War Games. And their Reversion of Rights clause looked something like this:

The terms of the contract will remain in effect as long as the work is made available for sale in any form as outlined in Section 1A with the following exception:

If the work is not made available for print within three years of the date of the contract, the print rights will revert to the author.

Hmmmmm. So AC-Pub has three years to print the puppy and if they don’t, I get back the print rights. Only the print rights. Which makes Section 1A very very important. What’s exactly in Section 1A? How about:

1A) Exclusive, worldwide in all countries and in all languages, right to:

i) Print, publish, distribute, sell, and market the Work in the following formats: print, hard cover and soft cover (of large or small format), electronic, digital, and audio versions
ii) License publication of mass market edition(s) by other publishers.
iii) License publication of foreign language edition(s) by other publishers.
iv) License publication of reprint edition(s) by other publishers.
v) Switch the Work in part or in whole to Mass Market when and if market demand justifies mass sales.

So, if AC-Pub don’t print the book within 3 years of the contract date, I get my print rights back BUT still lose everything else. Wily sons of bitches, aren’t they? This is Not Good and what it means is that, as long as they have one digital copy for sale in their shop, I’m locked up. And did you like the way the two clauses are not concurrent, which means you have to go hopping all over the contract to pull all the pieces together? All contracts are like that. I suggest having a pencil and notepad handy when you get your paperwork. Publishers? You can’t trust ‘em.

Anyway, when it came to AC-Pub, the warning bells started ringing then and they only got more deafening as I continued reading the contract.

Part II next Wednesday on the right of first refusal.

POSTSCRIPT the First: With thanks to iconcubic for the use of the icon.

POSTSCRIPT the Second: And congratulations to Karen Haas who won the Sexy Scavenger Hunt prize pack! Happy reading Karen!