On Writing & Publishing by Robin D. Owens

Personal notes on writing techniques, writing a novel, my writing career and threading your way through publishing a book.

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Location: Denver, United States

RITA Award Winning Author -- that's like the Oscar, folks! Futuristic/Fantasy Romance and Fantasy with Romantic Subplots.

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Contracts -- Electonic

I got my first electronic contract yesterday. I haven't opened it up, because I know I'll have to spend time comparing it to my last contract. I think my agent has seen this one, but I'm not sure, so I have an email out to her.

Then I print out the 3 copies (thus I have the mailing cost, but at least it's instantaneous to me and won't get lost in the mail on the way to me which has happened to friends) and sign them and send them to my agent and publisher.

I DO have my previous contract, and I can tell when the general boilerplate of the contracts change because some author at the top has held out for rights that filter down to all of us.

Read your contracts yourself.

May your business day be easy today.
Robin

3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

What are the different types of rights that you could demand, or would make a difference and filter down to you?

12:31 PM  
Blogger FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens said...

Ah, that is a thorny question. I negotiated HeartMate and Heart Thief myself and asked for the audio and movie rights and got them (actually my editor laughed, but I was ok with that).

Rights are something that an agent should certainly negotiate with the publisher and there will be back and forth on that. I'm pretty sure that Luna has all the foreign rights to my books, but that I still have audio and movie rights.

Even since I started in 2001, the publisher claimed e-rights, so unless you have clout, it's rare for a NY publishing house author to have those.

Robin

2:47 PM  
Anonymous Peggy said...

The good news is that it should be much easier to compare contracts in the future, assuming they're sent to you in e-format as well. A document comparison program will highlight any changes.

(Speaking as a contracts paralegal, here -- I do document comparisons a lot.)

10:43 AM  

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