Pub Rants

Category: publishing contracts

Writers: Please Read Your Contracts

by Kristin Nelson

I know for a fact that some of my clients don’t actually read the final contract they sign. I also freely admit that this makes me nervous. No person should ever be so trusting, even though I know I do a heck of a job on every contract negotiation. I actually prefer that all my clients read their 25+ page contract from first page to last. In fact, I even welcome questions or any concerns a particular clause might raise.

Why? Because I’ve looked at that publisher’s contract a million times, and my familiarity with it might actually be a liability rather than an asset. It never hurts to have a fresh pair of eyes on a contract I’ve read three times before I send on to the client for signing.

Fresh eyes might be a fresh perspective, and a client’s questions based on his or her interpretation of the contract language might actually make me evaluate familiar clauses in a whole new way.

Not to mention, Publishers Weekly just ran a story called For Major Publishers, Will Print No Longer Be the Norm? In it, PW highlights that agents are concerned about publishers who no longer guarantee a publication format in their contracts. In short, publishers are becoming more hesitant to commit to printing a physical edition of your book–just in case they want to do eBook first or eBook only.

Well, a big reason a lot of writers are interested in partnering with publishers is because publishers offer the advantage of producing both print and electronic formats. And if a print edition is not guaranteed…well, that might change the author’s desire to sign a contract.

Luckily, we here at NLA have made it a standard to specify the production of a print edition in our authors’ contracts. It’s always a tough discussion, but we are sure to get publishers to guarantee that they will produce a print edition in the deal-points stage, before contracts are even drawn up. That way, the expectation is clear early on so the author can decide whether or not to accept the publisher’s offer. This has been our standard for years now, but I’m guessing that getting publishers to agree to it is only going to get tougher.

Thinking like an agent ensures that you read your entire contract. Word for word. And that you start thinking like a negotiator. What have you read about in the news lately that might need to be covered in a publishing contract? Maybe you’ve read about “subscription services,” which is quickly becoming a hot-button issue. If you see that, or anything else, in your contract that you don’t understand, have a conversation with your agent. It’s probably rare you’ll think of something that your agent hasn’t, but, honestly, you never know.

Fresh eyes can be a powerful tool.

Contracts: One Little “s” Can Change Everything

by Kristin Nelson

Publishing contracts may not be my favorite part of the job, but I have to admit, they are never boring. Case in point, this past month I’ve been working on an Australian contract for one of my clients. All the requested changes had been handled; we were simply awaiting the final clean contract in PDF.

When a contract arrives, I always compare the signature copy to our master redline. Just in case. When a contract goes through five or more drafts, it’s likely something was accidentally added or omitted.

In reviewing this particular contract, I noticed one very small change in the Out of Print clause that hadn’t been present in any of the previous drafts. “The Work” had been changed to “The Works.” To make a long story short, and to diminish the narrative tension here, it was simply a drafting error on the publisher’s part. The final contract was corrected quickly but I highlight this error because the addition of an “s” radically changes the Out of Print clause.

Let me explain why. In OOP clauses, we include sales thresholds as one of the determiners of whether a title is out of print. For example, a contract may include a line that reads that if “The work” is has sold fewer than 250 copies in two accounting periods, then it is considered out of print.

This is a simplification of the whole clause, but it will give you the general gist of where I’m going.

If this contract happens to be for multiple books, then the addition of an “s” can have major consequences. If the line is changed to “The Works,” suddenly it’s not just one title that needs to sell fewer than 250 copies in two accounting periods, it’s ALL the works in the contract together that need to fall below the sales threshold.

As you can imagine, if the sales of more than one book are being counted in the total for the sales threshold, that will make it that much more difficult for the author to ever get his or her rights back. The definition for Out of Print has changed substantially.

To think like an agent, know that it’s not necessary for there to be a major word change in any given clause to radically change the contract. In this instance, one little “s” can change everything.

The UK Contract – Now Equally As Important As the U.S. Contract

by Kristin Nelson

In today’s global digital publishing environment, negotiating a UK contract has now become equally as important as the home-court US contract. So if you want to think like an agent, spend as much time reviewing your UK contract as you do your US one.

Now that used to be easy. UK contracts traditionally have topped out at twelve or thirteen pages. A veritable reading breeze in comparison to the 25+ page marathons you get from US Publishers.

Not so any longer, from what I can tell. I’ve negotiated several UK contracts that are giving the US a run for its money in terms of length.

In fact, one UK contract’s out-of-print clause (a.k.a. the OOP) recently made me burst out laughing. The clause stated that a book would not be deemed out of print until earnings for that title, in all formats, added up to less than 75 pounds in two accounting periods.

Seventy-five pounds during a one-year period.

That is laughable, but I don’t think this publisher’s intent was to be funny.

Depending on the price point of the title (and let’s just say the average price in the UK is ten pounds), that would be the equivalent of selling something like eight copies, in any format (which would include high discount, special sales, premiums, book club, audio etc.) in one year.

Sheesh. I think a publisher would really be messing something up if they can’t sell eight copies of a particular book in a twelve-month period. Typical UK contracts set an out-of-print threshold of several hundred copies, so if you were going to do an earnings equivalent instead, it would need to be around fifteen-hundred pounds to be reasonable.

Definitely not a number you want to overlook!

Where Did All of Kristin’s Good Content on Contracts Go? To our eNewsletter!

by Kristin Nelson

In October, NLA implemented a new feature–a special News Alert eMail blast for subscribers of our newsletter. Today, a blast went out informing readers of how Harpercollins subscription service with Scribd will work and how authors will get paid.

Because my time is so limited these days (sadly!), regular or daily blog posts that alert readers about changes to publishing contracts and how that impacts authors just isn’t possible for me. But I am still doing great posts 2 or 3 times a months. Those columns can be found in NLA’s Monthly newsletter for our subscribers.

If you’ve been suffering from Pub Rants withdrawal, that would be the place to go to get your fix. Our eNewsletter is free. Just click on the Newsletter button at the bottom of our web page to sign up.

And for those of you who weren’t subscribers yet and missed that blast,  here’s the link to where you can see the news.

By the way, this is exactly the type of content I plan to tackle in tonight’s webinar:

Wednesday, November 13, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. Mountain Time.

THE NITTY GRITTY – HOW DIGITAL IS TRANSFORMING THE PUBLISHING LANDSCAPE.

There’s still time to register.

Indie Author & Agent Partners – Thought 2

by Kristin Nelson

So last week when I was out in New York for the Writers Digest Conference, I gave a talk on why successful indie authors might want to partner with agents.

As I was putting together my talking points, I actually came to the conclusion that why they partner is the wrong question. The real question might be when should indie authors partner with an agent.

If  indie authors are becoming successful, an agent can accelerate their exposure in a big way. For example, I couple of weeks ago I took on self-publishing phenom Jasinda Wilder. On March 16, she released her 18th novel FALLING INTO YOU.

In less than one month, she sold 140,000 digital copies of this title.

Yes, you read that right.

That’s a crazy number of copies in a short period of time. She hit the NYT and USA Today list for several weeks in a row.

She decided to partner with me. My job is now to accelerate her exposure in any way possible. Within a week Publishers Weekly did a feature story on her and I imagine this won’t be the last coverage given her extraordinary success.

Would Jasinda get coverage without me? Sure. But there is no doubt I’m stomping on the gas. This can be incredibly beneficial in talking with publishers and for foreign deals.

Indie & Agent Partners: Thought 1

by Kristin Nelson

On Thursday I’m flying to New York City to give a presentation at the Writers Digest Conference on Friday morning. My topic is why a successful indie self-publishing author might want to partner with an agent.

If you are an indie author that doesn’t see the value in having an agent, I’m not really going to change your mind so there really is no purpose in reading my next several blog posts where I share my thoughts. However, if you are curious, I’m happy to share several reasons on why they do. Now of course I can only speak to why several indie authors have decided to partner with me. It’s going to vary depending on the author and the agent.  But I represent several and they find our relationship invaluable.

Thought 1: People are complaining about the archaic nature of publishing and why doesn’t it change.

Okey dokey. Let’s quit complaining and start having conversations to instigate change because how do you think change happens?

In May of 2012, I had Hugh Howey fly out to New York to sit-down with publishers. I thought it was important for them to meet him in-person just so they could see for themselves what a reasonable, personable, and forward-thinking author he was. He was not, and has never been, anti-traditional publisher. In fact, he’s fairly pro-publisher. But a partnership has to make sense and there is a lot of stuff from traditional publishing that doesn’t make sense.

Before Hugh got on the plane, we both knew that it was very unlikely that the meetings would result in an offer that we’d be willing to take.  Yet, WE DID IT ANYWAY. Why? And this might be kind of silly but both of us felt kind of strongly that having in-person conversations with publishers about our sticking points (ebook royalty rate, sales thresholds in out of print clauses, and non-compete clauses) was necessary in order to facilitate possible change in the future. In other words, we weren’t going to see the benefit of it but maybe a future indie publishing author would because we had started the conversation.

And these conversations could only occur via a reasonable author partnering with a reasonable agent who were meeting with affable and reasonable publishers and editors and having frank, smart, and intelligent conversations with them about current contractual sticking points.

For Hugh, it resulted in a very unexpected print-rights only offer five months later (much to our surprise). That was way sooner than either of us had ever thought to hope.

I imagine that in the not-so-distant-future other indie authors (and who might be unagented) might be thanking Hugh for having partnered with an agent (way) back in 2012 so as to have these meetings. Just as they might be thanking Bella Andre and her agent for pulling off one of the first print-rights only deals (that was publicly announced -there might be others I’m unaware of).

 

 

If You Remember One Thing, It Should Be This: Never Sign An Unnegotiated Boilerplate Contract With Any Publisher

by Kristin Nelson

(Just a note, this post is from our archives. Some references and links may be from past years.)

STATUS: I feel like I need to flex my brain muscles to get back into shape for daily blogging.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now?  DANCE HALL DAYS by Wang Chung

I recently talked to a writer who had signed a small publisher’s boilerplate contract.

Shudders.

Let me start by saying that the signed contract was with an established and reputable small publisher. Still I shudder.

Let me highlight here that I wouldn’t want a writer to sign the boilerplate contract with any publisher -be it a small one or a big six publisher. All boilerplates are terrible. That’s why agents negotiate the heck out of them.

Pitfalls of Boilerplate Contracts

1) Every publishing boilerplate I’ve seen grants the publisher all rights. Oh boy. Honestly folks, you never want to grant rights to a publisher for things they won’t exploit effectively such as dramatic rights (film/tv), merchandizing, theme park rights etc. The rights will just sit there. And you can’t earn money unless those rights are sold.

2) Boilerplates have no recourse if the publisher fails to publish. Then writers are stuck in limbo forever! They can’t contractually demand the rights back for failure to publish. Writer is stuck. Not good.

3) Boilerplates often have no out of print clauses. I recently derailed a deal because I could not get the small publisher to insert one. They would have had the rights into perpetuity with the author having no way to ever get the rights back unless the publisher felt like it. Uh, no.

4) I’ve seen boilerplates that have a never-ending option clauses. If the publisher doesn’t take the writer’s next book, they still get to see the one after that and the one after that….. Yep, that author will never successfully be placed at a new home if that is the case as the new publisher would want an option for next work at the very least. That can’t be granted if the above is the case.

5) Boilerplate contracts don’t allow the author to see copies of sublicense deals. If that is the case, how can an author know what was sold and on what terms to verify the royalty statements? Good point, right?

And I could go on and on.

Creative Commons Photo Credit: Best Picko

Importance Of Specifying Format Of Initial Edition

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Auction tomorrow. Always fun.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? FADE INTO YOU by Mazzy Star

Here’s a contract tip that is both simple and yet can have a large consequence if not done.

As an agency, it’s been a long-time policy for our deals that publisher must specify initial publication format in the contract. For example, if a publisher wins a book at auction and part of them winning was a commitment to doing the book as a hardcover (for example), then when it comes time for publication, we don’t suddenly want the publisher to do the book as a trade paperback original instead.

One reason for this has to do with the author’s ability to earn out an advance. If a publisher paid a solid six-figures for something, the author is going to need the hardcover sales (with the higher price point) to earn out. Not to mention, with a hardcover initial edition, the author gets two publishing shots toward earn-out as the publisher, as a general rule, will publish the trade pb edition about a year later.

Makes sense.

Here’s another reason for specifying format of initial edition. As agents, we want to ensure that a publisher will do both a print AND electronic edition and not just publish a digital-only edition if that was not the original intent for accepting deal/contract. (Sidenote: Obviously, if an agent is selling a title to a digital-only publisher, then ebook only as initial format is understood.)

In this rapidly changing publishing landscape, and the rise of ebook sales, it is conceivable that a publisher buys a book with the intention of doing both formats and then decides later to not do the print edition and publish it only as an ebook.

I have not heard of this happening–yet. But why chance it?

Part of our job is to anticipate possible issues.

Scarier Than Halloween

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: The last 70 degree day. Okay, I’ll admit it. I popped out early to play a round of really bad golf. The weather was beautiful. The company sparkling. Kristin shanked every shot into trees. Ah yes, I’m THAT horrible beginner on the golf course that you never ever want to play behind of.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? THRILLER by Michael Jackson (I mean, duh, what else could possibly be playing on the iPod tonight.)

What’s scarier than Halloween? Writers signing publishing contracts not fully understanding what they are signing.

I figured I’d devote this entry to scary clauses in contracts that actual writers have signed.

1. The option clause into perpetuity.

Such a monster! I’ve seen this in too many small publishing house contracts to count. Any decent option clause will allow the publisher a look at the next project (usually narrowed down to specific type and genre) and that’s it. Unsuspecting writers have signed contracts where they literally have to show a publisher every work they do–even if the publisher doesn’t want it. The clause obligates them to then show their next project, and then the next project and so on.

I think any writer can get out of this (and the court will rule in the author’s favor) but probably not without some substantial cost and a good lawyer.

2. Low royalties based on net.

Don’t get me wrong, having royalties based on net isn’t necessarily egregious. It is when the publisher tries to pass off royalties based on net to be equivalent to royalties based on retail price. In other words, they offer they same as “standard” such as 10% to 5000 copies, 12.5% on next 5000, and 15% thereafter but it’s based on net receipts.

Sounds good until you calculate the math. 10% of net equals about 5% of retail price. Not exactly the same thing so do your monster math.

3. Warranties and Indemnities clauses where the author is on the hook for all the costs.

The author should only be fully responsible if they are found guilty and in breach of this clause. I’ve seen clauses where authors are on the hook for the full cost of even an alleged breach and yet they have no say in the proceedings. Oi! Even Frankenstein got a better deal.

4. Joint accounting.

Publishers love joint accounting. That means they link the monies of multiple books together. In short, an author doesn’t see a penny of royalties until ALL books in the contract earn out and only then are royalties paid. You might be waiting years and years to kill that zombie.

5. Unmodified competing works clauses.

If you aren’t really really careful, you might be legally obligated to not pursue any other writing work until the books in your contract are out of print and the rights revert back to you.

This is definitely worst case scenario but depending on the language in the contract, you might have backed yourself into this corner. Talk about hamstringing your career as a writer.

For me, in this digital age, the above are way scarier than anything that might go bump in the night.

Singing To My Choir!

by Kristin Nelson

STATUS: Monday it was 80 degrees. Today it’s snowing. Tomorrow it will be sunny and in the high 50s. And beautiful again by the weekend. Not sure what shoes to keep out or put into storage.

What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? CHINA GIRL by David Bowie

So last week, in my status, I mentioned that we had received three covers and nixed three covers. So needless to say, it’s been nothing but cover talks, phone calls, and strategy ever since.

For the newer writers out there, an author does not get approval over covers unless he/she is at a very high level as an author. At NLA (and I imagine this is true for most agents), we always put cover consultation in the contract.

However, the definition of “consult” can be very loose. I’ve had some editors involve the author from the very first illustrative sketch to the final version. I’ve had some editors send it to the author when complete and simply say here it is. (To me, that’s not consult and I argue it.) For most editors, they are really invested in the author liking the cover so they actually allow a lot of input.

I’ve been lucky this week. The editors were fully supportive, nixed the covers and sent them back to the drawing board.

And then this morning, one of my authors sent me this link to PW’s Blog Shelftalker. I immediately read it and felt an overwhelming urge to say “Amen!” and “Keep singing my song!”

In the past weeks I’ve said everything mentioned here:

1. Misleading cover image that doesn’t remotely match the novel’s content.

Please, I beg you, for women’s fiction, no more pictures of pastoral objects like a bike or a hammock on a lovely sun porch. Debbie Macomber already has that cover thank you.

2. Same Old Cover Designs That Fit The Popular Trend.

I echo Elizabeth, please, no more covers of models in gowns, young women lying down, partial face images. When we got the ARE mailing of the “hot summer books” from a variety of young adult publishers, it was clear that any one title sent in that bunch was going to have trouble standing out. Every single one had a picture of a girl in some kind of dark, mysterious background or in a dark nature setting.

But I would like to add one to the list. No more jarringly ugly covers. I literally got a cover where the colors clashed so badly, I couldn’t figure out why somebody thought that color palette was a good idea.

Trust me, I’m not an art major or graphic designer but I am an avid reader and have seen my share of art through the ages. I know ugly when I see it.

In talking to one editor recently, I said, “all I have is my immediate gut reaction and right now, my gut says Oh Please No.

I could have kissed the editor when she said, “no prob; we’ll throw it out.”