Samples
Recent contracts, clause by clause
Three composites drawn from UK and US trade deals of 2024–25. They are not anyone’s confidential file. They are the shape of the paper that lands on a desk after the champagne email. Click a clause to see what it is doing, and whether you should leave it alone.
Composite · 2025 · UK · Agented
The midlist trade deal
A composite of agented UK independent deals signed in 2024–25. The money is modest, the royalty schedule is traditional, and the rights grant is the main place an agent earns their 15%.
- House
- Established independent (UK)
- Advance
- £12,000 in three instalments
- Genre
- Literary / book-club fiction
A workable, slightly cautious deal. Signable once audio is on a use-it-or-lose-it, translation is reserved or split 80/20, and joint accounting is out.
Clause 1
Grant of rights
In line with recent trade practice. Not a battle worth dying on.
Contract language
The Author hereby grants to the Publisher the exclusive licence to publish the Work in volume form, including hardcover, paperback, and electronic book, in the English language throughout the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, and in the Open Market, for the full term of copyright.
In plain English
You are licensing — not assigning — English-language print and ebook rights in the UK, Commonwealth, and the open market, for life of copyright. The US, translation, and (in this draft) film are outside the grant. That is the right shape for a UK independent.
What to do
Ask for a 10- or 15-year term, or at least a reversion trigger that actually works in a POD world. Keep ‘exclusive licence’; never ‘assigns’.
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.