Contract Basics for Beginners

I’m not a lawyer or an agent, but I am an author who looks over contracts and reads carefully every single word before I sign anything. I think every author has an obligation to do this, no matter how much you trust your agent (and I trust mine implicitly). You just never know when a mistake has been made, and you just need to know what the nitty-gritty is IMHO. I remember that the contract I signed with SoHo for The Bishop’s Wife stipulated that I had to turn in bk 2 on Jan 1 of 2014. When I turned in the ms to my editor, she was surprised. She had completely forgotten what my contractual obligations were, but I hadn’t. Anyway, here are some basic things I think you should look for.


What is the advance offer? How is it divided? Into two pieces (signing, delivery) or three (signing, delivery, publication) or four pieces (paperback publication)?
When is the due date for the ms(s) contracted?
What is the percentage you will get as a royalty? (Often you get a different percentage for different sales, but there is a “regular” percentage for normal sales).
Are there any bonuses for selling more books—like an increase in percentage for royalty if you sell over 10,000 copies, for instance?
Do you maintain foreign rights for your book or does the publisher keep those?
Ditto for film rights, audio book rights, play rights, and so on?
Will accounting on any subsequent books be combined with the first one? This means that all the books have to earn out before you get any royalty on any of them.
Does the publisher have right of first refusal on a new manuscript? Any manuscript at all or a specific genre? (More specificity is better)
If yes to #8, how many days do they have to accept or reject it? (Fewer days is better)
Do you have the right to any stories you write in the same world as the book you are contracting or do you have to get permission from the publisher to sell those? (This usually means that you can’t move your series to another publisher, but it can extend beyond that).
(There are publishers who put things into contracts like eternal rights to all manuscripts you ever write. Do NOT sign something like this. Ever! No matter what the publisher says to you about how friendly they are, how much they love you and your book and how hard they are going to work to promote it, what matter is what is in the contract.)