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 · 2024 · US · Agented
The big-house debut
A composite of 2024 US Big Five debut contracts. The advance is the headline; the grant is a rights vacuum cleaner. An agent’s job here is to put fences back in.
- House
- Big Five imprint (US, world English)
- Advance
- $40,000 on signature / acceptance / publication
- Genre
- Debut literary novel
Take the money, narrow the grant. World rights and film do not belong in a debut novel contract unless they are paid for as if they did.
Clause 1
Grant of rights
Strike this, cap it, or walk away.
Contract language
Author hereby grants Publisher the exclusive right to publish, reproduce, distribute, and sell the Work in all languages, in all editions, in all media now known or hereafter devised, throughout the world, for the full term of copyright.
In plain English
World. All languages. All media. Life of copyright. This is a grab. A US house needs US (and usually Canadian) volume and ebook. It does not need Japanese, nor the film, nor the game, in order to print a novel in New York.
What to do
Limit to English language, US and Canada, volume and ebook, plus audio if they will produce it. Reserve translation, UK, film/TV, dramatic, merchandising, and graphic novel.
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.