Obligations
What each side actually has to do
A contract is not a compliment. It is a list of duties. Yours are mostly about the manuscript and the warranties. Theirs are mostly about publishing, paying, and not sitting on rights they will not use. If a duty has no date and no consequence, it is a hope.
The path of a deal
1
Offer
A phone call or email: advance, territories, editor. Nothing is binding. Take notes.
2
Deal memo
A page of heads of terms. Still not the contract. Useful when the first draft ‘forgets’ the royalty you were promised.
3
First draft
Their boilerplate, with your book’s name at the top. Read it as if they meant every word, because the next owner of the company will.
4
Mark-up
Agent or solicitor in the margins. This is the job. A contract that comes back unaltered was not read.
5
Signature
Once it is signed, the grant is live. Advances on signature should follow in days, not months.
6
Delivery & publication
The second half of the deal. Clauses you ignored in the excitement — option, non-compete, reversion — start to matter here.
The author
Deliver the book
On time, at the agreed length, in the agreed form. If life intervenes, write and ask — silence is what turns delay into breach.
Revise in good faith
Editorial notes are part of the job. A contract that lets them reject without a revision window is unbalanced; a novelist who will not edit is also unbalanced.
Warrant what you can warrant
Original work, right to license it, no knowing infringement. For memoir and investigative non-fiction, this is the clause that should send you to a specialist.
Help them sell it
Reasonable publicity: jacket information, a few events, not a nationwide tour you are paying for. Put a boundary on unpaid labour.
Do not compete with yourself on their clock
Only to the extent the non-compete is fair. You still have to earn a living.
The publisher
Publish
A book deal without a publication duty is a storage agreement. Date it. Give yourself an exit if they miss it.
Pay
The advance on the stated days, royalties on the stated cycle, sub-licence income passed through when it is large enough to matter.
Account
Statements you can read, a reserve that tapers, an audit right that is not theatre.
Consult
Title, jacket, and copy are their decision on a standard deal, and your name on the spine. Consultation should be real enough that a surprise jacket is a mistake, not a policy.
Look after the rights they took
If they took translation, they should sell it or give it back. If they took audio, they should produce it. A right that is not used is a right that should revert.
Anatomy
The usual order of a trade contract
01
Parties, recitals, the work
Who is signing, and what the ‘Work’ is — usually a title, a delivery length, and sometimes a series name. Recitals (‘whereas’) are narrative; the numbered clauses are the deal.
WatchIf the contracting party is an imprint that does not exist as a company, you want the parent named. If you write as a limited company, the company should be the party, with you guaranteeing delivery.
02
Grant of rights
The engine of the contract. Rights, languages, territory, term, exclusivity. A licence to publish is not a sale of copyright.
Watch‘All media hereafter devised’, world all languages, and assignment language. List what they are getting. Silence should mean you kept it.
03
Delivery, acceptance, timing
When the manuscript is due, in what form, and on what standard the publisher may accept or reject it. Publication timetable sits here or in a later clause.
WatchPurely subjective acceptance; no chance to revise; a delivery date you cannot meet; no long-stop on publication.
04
Advance
How much, when, against what. Instalments are normal. Signing / acceptance / publication is the classic three.
WatchPublication instalments tied to a paperback that may never exist; advances repayable on termination for convenience; joint recoupment from other books.
05
Royalties
The schedule by format: hardback, paperback, mass-market, ebook, audio, high-discount, export, special sales, remainders.
WatchNet instead of list on ordinary home sales; a high-discount threshold so low it catches everything; escalators that reset; ‘electronic’ undefined.
06
Subsidiary rights
A table of rights the publisher may license onward, and how the proceeds are split. Sometimes also who has the right to make the deal.
Watch50/50 on translation, US, and film; sole discretion with no consultation; no reversion of unsold rights; related-party sublicences.
07
Accounting, reserve, audit
Statement dates, payment dates, reserve against returns, pass-through of big sublicences, and your right to inspect the books.
WatchIndefinite reserves; no audit; a fee to audit even when they were wrong; statements that net everything into one number.
08
Author’s copies, remainders, reprints
A small number of free copies, an author-purchase discount, rules on remaindering and on letting a title go.
WatchRemaindering within months of publication; no first refusal on remainder copies; author copies counted as sales against the advance (they should not be).
09
Warranties, indemnity, permissions
You promise the work is yours and lawful. You indemnify them if it is not. You usually handle third-party permissions (epigraphs, lyrics, images).
WatchIndemnity on alleged claims; no cap; publisher may settle without you; lyrics left to you with no budget.
10
Moral rights, name, publicity
UK moral rights; the right (and duty) to use your name; jacket-copy and biographical notes; a reasonable publicity undertaking from you.
WatchA total moral-rights waiver; a publicity schedule that amounts to a second job with no fee; use of your name on other titles.
11
Competitive works & option
What you may not publish while this book is alive, and what first look they have at the next one.
WatchA non-compete that covers your genre; an option on two books at the same terms; matching rights; an option that runs from a complete manuscript and lasts a season.
12
Reversion, termination, failure to publish
How the book comes back if they do not publish, stop publishing, go bust, or let sales collapse.
WatchOut-of-print defined as ‘still listed’; no insolvency trigger; termination that does not unwind exclusive sublicences you never approved.
13
New technology, AI, future formats
A 2020s clause, still unstable. Internal tools versus training versus generative substitute editions.
WatchTraining rights gifted; ‘hereafter devised’ used to vacuum up AI; no extra fee, no consent, no reversion.
14
Boilerplate
Notices, governing law, assignment of the contract, entire agreement, force majeure, counterparts.
WatchPublisher may assign to anyone; force majeure with no end; governing law in a country you cannot litigate in; an entire-agreement clause that wipes a side letter about marketing.
This is a practical guide, not legal advice. The sample contracts are composites drawn from typical UK and US trade terms in the mid-2020s, not copies of any one publisher’s agreement. Always have an agent or a publishing solicitor read a deal before you sign it.