IDK. I dug up the contract I signed. According to it, I granted the publisher: "Exclusive worldwide English and foreign language rights to publish and sell the WORK in Ebook Edition, Printed Trade Paperback Edition, and Audio book edition." The contract length was five years, and I retained copyright. "AUTHOR owns the original characters and controls their use in sequels or series books, whether published by PUBLISHER or another PUBLISHER." So in other words, I gave the publisher the exclusive right to sell my book for five years, after which it reverts to me and I can do whatever I want with it. So basically, as long as they're publishing my book, I can't publish the book with someone else... but once the contract is over, I can go find a different publisher or self-publish it on Amazon (though finding a second publisher would be unlikely). If I write a sequel, I can do whatever I want with it. I can publish it with someone else, self-publish it, or offer it to the publisher.
Dude, you said they took "publication rights", which according to a published poster don't even exist and posted a little legal snippit that explained some of the things they'd do if you agreed to publish with them, none of which were "we own any exclusive rights that don't allow you to publish elsewhere". Come on. Even I think you could do better than this.
Not what I said, ChickenFreak. I said you're the only one who cuts hairs to try and save an argument. Two different things.
Oh, so now you're the one arguing for proper definitions? And that was you that said they did that, not me.
Believing what? Are you accusing me of lying? I am not. You are the only person I've seen make an argument and carry it so hard over stuff like "you said 'exactly' but didn't use it AS A LITERAL DEFINITION'.
Not so much that as much as the fact that the stuff you quoted from them didn't support your argument, man.
So my list of rights that Amazon asks from you didn't support my argument that Amazon does in deed ask rights from you? How very odd, must have been my presentation.
My publisher's contract is very similar: 3. PUBLISHING RIGHTS The Author hereby grants the Publisher the exclusive right to publish the book in hardcover, trade paperback, mass-market paperback, print-on-demand formats, and in electronic (ebook) format (including email, download, disk, CD, or any other digital format known) and distribute the Work, in whole or in part, in the English language throughout the world. 3B. The Author grants the Publisher non-exclusive subsidiary rights to: a. book clubs or similar organizations b. excerpt and quotation c. special edition d. translations e. audio 3C. All rights not specifically granted to the Publisher are reserved to the Author. For audio and translation subsidiary rights, Publisher will seek acknowledgment and confirmation from author before taking action. Author is not obligated to inform Publisher if they pursue subsidiary options elsewhere. 3D. The right to publish, distribute, and license the Work by Less Than Three Press will be terminated on [5 years after acceptance], with an option for renewal at that time. 9. REVERSION OF RIGHTS In the event the Work is not completed or there is no edition of the Work in ebook available for sale, the Author may demand in writing at any time the reassignment to themself of all rights granted under this agreement. In such event, the Publisher shall have six (6) months during which it may make arrangements for printing or may submit other evidence of anticipated earnings from the Work, and upon satisfactory evidence of such, this agreement shall continue. If, however, at the end of six (6) months, the Publisher shall not have made any such arrangements or submitted any evidence, all rights hereby granted to the Publisher shall revert to the Author. 9 B. In the event that there is no license for the publication of any reprint, or the parties do not renew the license at the end of the agreement term, all rights hereby granted to the Publisher will automatically revert to the Author. 9C. If the Work fails to make sales for a period of two (2) consecutive years, or if the Work does not sell more than 200 copies within the first three (3) years of the term of the contract, the Work shall be considered Out of Print and all rights hereby granted to the Publisher will reverted to the Author. Determination of sales will include purchases of the ebook and print volume from Less Than Three Press and third party party vendors, less returns. Tracking of sales does not begin until the first quarter in which the ebook is available for purchase by Less Than Three Press and third party vendors. Sales tracking will include preorders. 9D. If a petition of bankruptcy is filed by or against the Publisher, or if the Publisher liquidates its business for any cause, this agreement shall terminate automatically without notice, and the termination will be effective as of the date of filing the petition, appointment, or declaration of liquidation proceedings, and all rights hereby granted to the Publisher will revert to the Author. 9E. Upon the termination of this agreement for any cause under this Article, all rights granted to the Publisher will revert to the Author for their use at any time and the Publisher will return to the Author all property originally furnished by the Author. .
Actually, no. I'm from Iowa and I've only been living in Mass for a year now. I will acclimate into a full Masshole soon, though. It will be at least one more moon cycle before I can construct my cocoon.
I was aware contracts generally came with time lengths before any given rights were returned back to you, but I guess on this I have been wrong. It's been my understanding that I couldn't write a sequel and have it published elsewhere while a publisher is currently publishing the novel using those characters/IP/etc.
If a contract required rights to my characters and intellectual property I would run screaming from them as fast as possible. I'm writing a sequel to my first novel now, and while I will give first dibs to that publisher out of courtesy, it's not a requirement by any means.
The answer to that is "it depends." Some publishers ask for something called "right of first refusal" for sequels. Basically, if you write a sequel, then they want to look and it first and see if they want to publish it. If they don't, you're free to take it elsewhere. This is a specific right, though. You don't have to give them right of first refusal for sequels; you can negotiate out of it. Or some publishers don't even care enough to ask. That's just my experience, though. It may be different for some publishers. They might take different rights.
Just to add to this: I have a friend who's doing this right now. She's writing a loosely connected series. Each book has the same setting (it's a sci-fi setting she created), but each book has different main characters. She has three books so far, and each has a different publisher. All three of them are available for sale right now. She didn't set out to do it that way, it just sort of happened. Again, it's possible some publishers are different and would prevent this from happening.
The way I had it explained to me, publishers would want you to give them the rights to your IP so you wouldn't run off and publish your book (or IP series) with another publisher. I guess that wasn't really the truth, though.
I think if you pitch a book upfront as a continuous series this might be true. But if you publish a book and then down the line decide to write a sequel I don't think most reputable publishers would have a clause in the original contract ruling that out.
Then I believe this was my case. My manuscript was picked up as the first in a series and had/has an entire planned line of work.
Yeah, I would say that if a publisher has advance notice that a book is not a stand-alone and in fact is part of a planned series they would be wise to lock their rights down at the forefront. If they're accepting your MS in part because of the expectation of a series of works, they should have the rights to that series IMO. That's just good business. But they still have to ask, explicitly and clearly, which is not part of most general publishing contracts.
That article says: "Over all, e-books account for only about 14 percent of all general consumer fiction and nonfiction books sold" and "we are not to the point where e-books are a majority of unit sales and certainly not a majority of revenue." So... it's hard to take it as evidence that e-books have overtaken print... I'm not saying e-books aren't an important market or an important opportunity. But there's a lot of hyperbole in the self- vs. publisher world, so I think it's important to be as precise with numbers as we can.
In terms of the discussion over what rights publishers take: This is one of the problems with the traditional "Ra-Ra Self-Publishing" cheerleaders - they've lumped every form of publishing that isn't self-publishing into one category and then pick and choose the worst features from every member of that category and say "Traditional Publishing does x, y, and z", when there are actually lots of publishers who don't do any of the list, lots of publishers who only do one bad thing from the list but make up for it with something else that's really cool, etc. Self-publishing is dominated by Amazon. It's therefore fairly easy to define the terms of self-publishing, at least in a snapshot of the current moment. (As someone who's been doing this for a while, I can absolutely confirm that Amazon has changed a lot of details of its contracts over the years). Publishers, on the other hand, are diverse. Even a single publisher may have different contracts for different divisions, different authors, etc. And there are huge differences between different publishers, different types of publishers, different genres/categories, etc. Any blanket statement make about publishers needs to come with a strong qualifying statement ("At least some publishers..." or whatever). It's frustrating to not be able to get a clearer, more detailed picture of the publishing world. But pretending things are clear when they aren't isn't a solution to the frustration, it's just an additional layer of fog.
