On Traditional Publishing Agreements

by

In Today’s Journal

* A New Short Story
* Bradbury Reminder
* On Traditional Publishing Agreements (guest post)
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

A New Short Story

“Silence, Ah Silence” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. A bi-directional crazy story. Go check it out. It’s free.

If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else.

Bradbury Reminder

Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get your Bradbury Challenge story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.

Remember, if you finish a story earlier in the week, you can send the info to me early too. It never hurts to avoid pushing the deadline.

On Traditional Publishing Agreements

a guest post by Dan Baldwin (Thanks, Dan!)

When you hear “We’ll take care of it from now on” from a traditional publisher, consider the real meaning: The “it” refers to important rights to the work you have labored over, worried over, and might be just about to hand over to a stranger.

Before signing a contract, have your IP attorney read it and advise you on signing or no way in hell do you sign this.

For example, the clause below is a direct transcript of just one section of a clause from a contract I received from a traditional publisher. This one clause referred to television rights:

“(b) Additional Subsidiary Rights. Author hereby grants to Publisher the following additional subsidiary rights on an exclusive basis. The grant of any of these rights shall include the right to permit others (including, without limitation, Publisher’s subsidiaries and affiliated companies and Publisher’s or such others’ respective sublicensees or designees) to exercise such rights. The proceeds received shall be divided between the Authors’ and Publisher as specified: Author’s Percentage: 50% Publisher’s Percentage: 50%

“Television and Motion Picture Rights” means the right to create adaptations of each Work in the form of television programs, motion pictures or other audio-visual works and to reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast and exhibit copies of such programs, motion pictures and audio-visual works (deep breath)

“and to publicly perform such programs, motion pictures and audio-visual works via network, cable or satellite television, in motion picture theaters, and via other media in any digital or electronic form or by any digital or electronic means (including, without limitation, in any database or any mechanical, electronic, digital, optical or other storage or retrieval system, via the Internet, satellite, cable or any other (deep breath)

“mechanical, electronic, digital, optical or other distribution system, on any computer system or intranet, and on or via any storage or recording device, whether now known or hereafter developed, including any computer chip, memory chip or device, CD-ROM, digital audio tape, compact discs, or DVD), in any language or languages throughout the universe.

Yeah. That was one of those “no way in hell am I going to sign that” agreements. Essentially the clause took the rights to my “it” away from me.

I responded respectfully, but forcibly, that the contract would be limited to publication of the single book in question and not to any further works of those characters, settings, and so on and so on. It’s my work; I decide which rights to grant and which to keep.

What was the publisher’s response?

“Okay.”

That was it. No big deal. You can’t blame the publisher, really. Acquiring as many rights as possible is part of their job.

But it’s not only a part of the writer’s job to hold on to as many of those rights as possible, it’s his duty.

As the author of a work

  • you don’t have to give away all your rights to your own work just to get published,
  • you can negotiate with a publisher, and
  • signing a bad contract can be much worse than not having a contract at all.

If you want to give away some or all your rights, that’s your business, but make sure it’s your decision to do so. When reading the clauses in your contract, invest the time to ask yourself one of my favorite questions. “Why is this a good idea?”

If you can’t arrive at a satisfactory answer, it’s time to put down your literary foot and start negotiating. Wheel ‘n deal. It’s okay to give a little to get a little. But don’t give away the farm just to see your name on the cover of a book.

*

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Anthropic Agrees To Pay Record $1.5 Billion To Settle Authors’ AI Lawsuit

How to Know When a Book Cover Is Killing Your Sales

Kickstarter Friday Four fiction kickstarters Dean recommends for study. TNDJ’s Kathryn Kaleigh is among them!

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 780

Writing of Blackwell Ops 47: Sam Granger | Special Duty

Day 1…… 3250 words. To date…… 3250
Day 2…… 1110 words. To date…… 4360
Day 3…… 3323 words. To date…… 7683
Day 4…… 1656 words. To date…… 9339
Day 5…… 1413 words. To date…… 10752

Fiction for September……………… XXXX
Fiction for 2025………………………. 534149
Nonfiction for September.………… 4090
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 190340
2025 consumable words…………….. 716875

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 13
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 117
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 301
Short story collections……………………. 29

Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.

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Questions on writing and publishing are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.