What constitutes a good contract
*transcript cleaned by Kaitlyn Gastineau


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What constitutes a good contract?


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So it's been really great to,


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you know, understand the process
to get to the contract.


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But I'm even interested to see
like what constitutes a good contract


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once you do get it.


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And if it is and because of that contract,
is there something that would be


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beneficial to know in the book proposal process
when you're shopping for


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publishers in the first place?


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So is there something
that is in the contract


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that would be best to know
about what different type of presses,


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I'm just trying to,
like you said, be as transparent.


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I want to know all the things to know
going into this process,


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what that all looks like.


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So most presses,


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their contracts are standard templates


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that have been approved
by the university's general counsel.


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And so your ability to
negotiate is really limited,


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which by that I


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mean don't think and also don't set it,


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don't feel like you have to go line
by line and edit a contract.


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I've seen some first time authors do that
and really


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that just there's nothing we can do there.


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A lot of the language that we've we think
through a lot of the language like Cat


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mentioned earlier, often with most books,
we're just trying to break even.


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We're not trying to or at least I hope
most presses aren't trying to exploit you.


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We're not trying to trick you.


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But in terms of things
that you can negotiate,


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I think we talked about scaling royalties.


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I think Cat mentioned that earlier.


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So usually for first time
authors, royalties are going to be like


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around 5 to 7%.


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But you can you can see if they
if they can bump it up once you've sold,


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usually it starts at like a thousand books
or something like that.


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And the advice that I got about scaling
I didn't know existed, 


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but Scott told me that


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and was like you can, you can't change the fact
that they have scale,


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but you can maybe say, like,
I want the bump at 500 versus


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1000 and see if they say,
I want the bump at like 250 versus 500.


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And see what see they say.


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So now those small kinds of changes
are at least possible.


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You can also ask this.


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These are all really small things
because we're it's small


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stakes in some regards,
but you can ask for more author copies.


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Usually you get like ten, I'd say,
and then after that, you


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you can buy more to 40% for us
anyway, 40% discount,


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but you can ask for more If you feel


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you want more you can pay attention to.


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We've been talking
so much about the proposal process,


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about the writing process.


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One other thing to keep in mind


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is that's only the first half
of the publishing process.


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Once your book goes into production,
you still need to handle copyediting.


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Some presses will ask you to review
proofs, stuff like that.


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And so another thing
I recommend to authors is


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look at your personal schedule and look at
the timeline laid out in your contract.


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See if you want more turnaround
time to review copy edits.


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If you want more turnaround
time to review proofs.


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You don't want to ask for too much time.


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But if like an extra week would help,
like now's the time to ask for that.


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And it just it'll give you more space


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to make sure your book's
as polished as possible.


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And I'm sure I'm forgetting. Oh,


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the other way


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to make money off of books is licensing.


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And so this is a small thing too.


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But if you have images in your books
when you're asking for permissions,


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make sure that you get permission
non- you want


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nonexclusive rights in perpetuity
for all for world and all languages.


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Because what that means
is that when the press is selling,


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it is licensing out your book
to other publishers.


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They then don't have to worry.


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They don't, they don't or rather,


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if a foreign press asks for rights to your
to publish your book,


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for example, I work on African studies,


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so we get requests
to publish the book in Africa.


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I don't have to say like,


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Oh no, we can't actually give you
the rights to this because this one quote,


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We only have permission to publish
in the US or something like that.


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So just do what you can to make it easy
for the press to sell your book,


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to license your book to other presses,
and I'll stop there.


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That's some really nitty gritty stuff,
Something relevant contract wise


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is that some presses have a
right of first refusal for your next book


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project written into a contract.
So think about if


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That's something that is important to you.


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If you're with a press that you like that,


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you want to keep working with
maybe that's fine.


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But if maybe you didn't have
the greatest experience


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or you want to try out new press,
you just don't want to be beholden.


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You can talk about that right of first
refusal and have that cross at some places.


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And also increasingly,
if you're writing a book that you think


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you have this inkling
and everyone thinks this but it's not true


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that it's going to be a part of a popular
audience is going to like your book too,


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we all think this like
every academic is like but my


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book is going to be the one that crosses over.


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No, it's like it stops and that's it. Right but like


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But like we all think that, like, someone's
going to really want


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to do something with this.


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Something that she told me to say
about licensing first, like reporting.


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Right.


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So like how much you'll get paid
if they turn it into an audiobook


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or if it gets licensed out to become part of
a film which Algorithms of Oppression did.


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Right. So we saw that happen.


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And so it's not unheard of.


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Academic texts
can actually end up in a motion picture.


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It can end up right and you don't see that coming.


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So this is not a huge concern.


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It's probably not going to be relevant
But that right of first refusal is something


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that I had to in mind too in terms
of whether or not I wanted to publish my next.


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Academic press book with that
same publisher, [someone in the background]: some 


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time it's going to be me.