Taking out a contract

Imagine you are a new writer and you are lucky enough to be taken on by a publisher. Before long you will be faced with a contract. It's natural to want to get it signed as quickly as possible before they realize they've made a mistake and change their mind. But hold on. You need to read it and make sure you are happy with it. This won't upset the publisher - they expect you to check it.

Now it might be you have an agent. Well, good for you. But even so I would read through that contract. Because some agents are better at making deals than sorting out the fine legal detail, and in the end, it's your neck that's on the line. It might look boring and/or complicated, but you need to read every word. Just take it slowly and most of it is quite comprehensible.

If you are in the UK and you already have an agent or a publishing contract I'd recommend making use of the Society of Authors contract checking service (unfortunately you need to have an agency or a contract before you can join), but even if you do this it's worth checking through yourself.

I can't identify every nasty that could be in there, but here are a few things to look out for:

Has it got your name and address right - trivial but can be messed up.
Are the basics of the book right - length, delivery date and the like.
If there are illustrations, who is paying for them? These can cost a lot, so if it's you it's worth querying this.
It's usual for them to expect you to warrant that the book is your original work.
The contract should specify that the book will contain a copyright statement in your name and the assertion that you are the author.
Your advance (initial payment from the publisher) will typically be split into two (on signing/acceptance) or three (signing/acceptance/publications) chunks. These shouldn't be too heavily loaded to the later payments. You can always try negotiating on the advance, though the publisher may not have much movement. Your advance is only returnable if you don't write the book, or the book isn't acceptable (this, of course, can be a bone of contention). They can't have it back even if they only sell two copies of the book.
Check the royalties (the payment per book sold, which will first offset the advance, then be paid to you if the advance is ever paid off) - it's not unusual for paperbacks to start around 7.5% and hardbacks around 10%. This is likely to be 'net' or 'on revenue', not on cover price - so it's a percentage of what the bookstore pays them. If there isn't an escalator (the percentage increases after so many thousand sales) ask for one. Most publishers will give way on this, as they only pay if they're making a fair amount of money.
A fair number of contracts have a 'witholding' clause. This means they can withold a percentage of the royalties in case booksellers return too many books. This is quite common and as long as it's not more than about 15%, not too onerous.
Ebooks cause a lot of concerns. These days you won't get much higher percentages on ebooks than on ordinary books, but you can argue for a little more.
Subsidiary rights like translations and serialization should bring you at least 50%, otherwise they are ripping you off.
If Accounts are rendered annually, ask for six monthly accounting, otherwise they are sitting on your money for around 15 months.
There should be a specified number of free copies for you - this is typically between 5 and 20. If you have an agent they should get their own free copies on top of this - you shouldn't have to share.
Going out of print is a thorny issue. If it's the sort of book you might want to resell or publish yourself after it goes out of print, make sure the 'out of print' clause doesn't include Print on Demand and ebooks, and has minimum sales levels. Otherwise the publisher can hang onto the book indefinitely.

If in doubt, ask. Once you sign up there's no going back.

Updated to correct requirements to join SoA - thanks, Emma

Why I hate opera

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Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

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