Contract Review requested

Find a literary attorney to explain it to you.

Matthew having a contract in hand makes it much easier to get an agent.

Why not write an agent that reps your kind of book that you think would suit you and ask if said agent would be interested in repping you?

If you're UK-based you can join the Society of Authors, which costs about £100, and then take advantage of their free-to-members contract-checking service. I've used it several times and it's great.

I'm going to move this thread to the Round Table, as I think it probably fits in better there, but if the room mods there think it might be better elsewhere expect it to be on the move again.

The three biggest areas for landmines are the option clause, the indemnity clause, and the reversion clause.

Not that landmines can't be hidden anywhere.

Matthew,

I don't have an answer for you, I just wanted to say congratulations and .

James D. Macdonald said:

The three biggest areas for landmines are the option clause, the indemnity clause, and the reversion clause.

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Non-compete clauses seem to be much discussed over the past couple years too.

J. Tanner said:

Non-compete clauses seem to be much discussed over the past couple years too.

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I wouldn't know; I've never seen one.

I've only seen non-compete clauses in technical book contracts.

Agent Janet Grant seems to think non-compete clauses are a major problem, based on her third point in this blog post.

http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/publishers-contracts-and-how-they-got-that-way/

They can be a big problem if they appear in a contract: but my experience is like Jim's and Medie's. They are rare in contracts from decent established publishers, unless you're writing technical books or non-fiction.

Strike them out.

I get, and sign, contracts with non-compete clauses. But it's because I write technical books and because if I have a similar book/subject, the same publisher is always willing to look at the proposal. I work different categories, with one publisher for each category. The only loss I have is that I can't self-publish in that category.

I strike out options for future books because I have multiple publishers and can't sign those. Never had a complaint on those. In my line, reversions are a non-concern because by the time the rights would revert the technology is obsolete.

Beyond that, for me, the majority is trying to get a larger advance and trying to get better royalties on electronic editions. Sometimes it even works.

Jeff

You could check out the Authors Guild, which offers free contract reviews to members ($90 a year.) Their site is:

https://www.authorsguild.org

You could also try getting an agent based on the contract you have in hand. However, agent interest will probably be in direct proportion to how much money your publisher is offering for the work and how "nichey" the niche is.

I realized how much I needed my agent's know-how when I looked at the thirty page contract he sent me -- I would never have known to delete and reword all the seemingly innocuous boilerplate he deleted and reworded! So continuing to pursue an agent with this or future work, yes, I'd recommend it.

Medievalist said:

I've only seen non-compete clauses in technical book contracts.

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I've seen a couple, usually along the lines of 'you can't publish a book in the same genre with another publisher within x time frame of your books release' although I've heard of a couple of folk who got offered a deal with a very blanket 'you can't publish anything within x time frame' - which is a really shit idea to agree to.

I actually get where the publisher is coming from in the first instance, I mean, if you are spending time and money promoting an author and their book, only for another publisher or the author themselves via SP ride on the coat tails of your hard work and put out a competing book which could take advantage of your campaign while denying you of the profits, I mean, in business terms it's a sound concept.

For the writer looking to capitalise on every opportunity that they can get, it's not so great.

Old Hack said:

They can be a big problem if they appear in a contract: but my experience is like Jim's and Medie's. They are rare in contracts from decent established publishers, unless you're writing technical books or non-fiction.

Strike them out.

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Do you think they might be a bigger problem for new(ish) and non big name authors then for established writers? I ask because many established writers tend to stick with the same publishers, while it's much more common for the new writer, especially those who write cross genre, to publish with several publishers.