Book Publishing Contracts

What kind of contract will we offer? This is a question that is at the front of the mind of most experienced, professional authors.

At Mapletree Publishing Company, contract terms are considered negotiable. Fees, royalties, how they are computed, marketing, subsidiary rights, etc., can all be on the table. Terms of the contract will change from one author to another and possibly from one work to another. Yes, we will have certain critical contract provisions that we won't want to budge much on because they insure us against unreasonable risks. However, there are many provisions that are freely negotiable. If it's important to you, ask.

Also, if you feel you can get a better deal from another publisher, let us know. We are in the marketplace and are confident we can be competitive for the manuscripts we really want.

Every author is unique in what she or he expects from her or his work. You may be embarking on a career centered around becoming an expert in the subject matter of your book. You may have several books in mind or just one. We recognize the individuality of each author and each work, and will try to deal with what is important to you, blend it with what is important to us, and negotiate a contract that maximizes each of those for each party. That's our business philosophy.

If you are serious about dealing with Mapletree Publishing Company, call or e-mail, and we will provide you with a sample contract.

FAQ:

Q. Who will own the copyright and subsidiary rights?

A. As the author, you will own the copyright. As part of the book contract, we will purchase from you the right to use that copyright in publishing your book, and will include terms that will protect our investment in that book. We'll be flexible, but we will want to retain certain rights in exchange for the risk we will be taking in publishing your work. Otherwise, there is no incentive for us to promote your book or to invest money in it.

Q. What about subsidiary rights?

A. Subsidiary rights, for those unfamiliar with the term, are portions of the rights to your book that we might sell to another business. Examples would be movie rights, book club rights, T-shirt rights, etc. Authors like to have the sale of subsidiary rights promoted for their works. Who knows if the work will interest some movie-maker, or a book club, or a foreign publisher? We have worked to develop contacts that will enable us to promote the sale of these rights, and positioning ourselves to profit from that also helps you, the author. Typically, we split the sale of those rights fifty-fifty with the author, which gives each of us incentive to pursue those sales.

Some authors have had bad experiences with publishers that sit on those rights, having reserved the rights to themselves while never exploiting them. However, we intend to pursue all practical avenues for the sale of any rights that may be of interest to a buyer. We have cultivated national and international contacts for this express purpose. However, if we are unsuccessful and then activity on the book dies down, our contracts all include a provision for the automatic return of all rights, including unsold subsidiary rights, to the author.

Q. How about rights to future works?

A. Authors generally don't like to sign commitments to be tied forever to a certain publisher with a certain royalty rate or advance. We understand that and will try to be reasonable. The publisher's side of this issue is that if we invest promotional energy and expenses in you in order to make your book a success, it isn't fair for you to take that "good will" that we have helped generate and strike a deal with a competing publisher who has thus far invested nothing in you. In the absence of any right to publish future works of yours, we are less inclined to invest much in promoting you. We like to strike a reasonable ground that obligates you to try us with further works, but gives you a little negotiating room as far as terms and gives you the right to try to find better terms elsewhere. After all, if your first book is a smashing success, we think you have a right to demand better payment on your next book—you've earned it!

Q. Will you be open with information you provide to the author?

A. Our typical contract gives you certain rights of information. You will have the right to receive explanations for things we don't like, the right to be consulted on manuscript changes, the right to receive responses from us within certain time frames, and even the right, if you question royalty statements from us, to audit our books!

Q. Your contract mentions the term "territory." What is that?

A. Territory is publishing jargon for the geographic area for which the publishing contract is valid. In most cases, that will be the entire world. However, there may be exceptions to that. For example, if the book has already been published in the United Kingdom, that country would be excluded from the territory of our contract.

Q. Why would you be interested in including places such as South America or Europe in the publishing contract? Surely you won't be publishing in those countries.

A. It is true that as an American publisher we are not familiar with the markets of other countries and thus wouldn't be publishing your book ourselves in those countries. However, we are in an excellent position to be able to sell translation rights to foreign publishers and we do have contacts in other countries. When you assign those rights to us, that gives us incentive to cultivate those deals on your behalf. We have contacts that help us promote our books internationally. Pursuing those rights sales can be profitable for both of us.

Q. The contract mentions a delivery date. It seems to be too soon for me to have a final edited copy of the manuscript ready by then.

A. The delivery date mentioned is the date you deliver your first draft. In most cases, we have that draft from you before we sign the contract, and the insertion of a date is only a formality. If we are signing the contract based on a book proposal, and you feel like the proposed delivery date doesn't give you enough time, let us know. We do want a deadline, but we're flexible in setting that up. It just helps us in planning our editorial calendar when we know when to expect the book.

Q. How do you figure royalties?

A. We calculate the royalties on the wholesale price paid to us by whatever outlet purchases the books. This is in keeping with present-day trends in the publishing business.

Some publishing houses have complex formulas for calculating royalties and factor in certain overhead costs as deductions before paying them. We feel that such a system is too open to abuse by the publisher, and we don't want to be in a position to be accused of manipulating those figures. We've kept the calculations as simple as possible.

We do, however, generally have a sliding scale for royalty percentages, as most publishing houses do. The more copies of your book that are sold, the higher the royalty rate. By the time we've sold 10,000 copies we figure that we've recovered much of our investment and you're entitled to the highest rate.

Q. The contract says that royalties are credited to the author's account rather than being paid to the author. What does that mean?

A. When we publish your book, we set up an account for you at our publishing house. This account accumulates royalties and is deducted for returns. We don't pay what we owe you as we receive the money. Instead, the money accumulates in this account, and we clear the account by making payments once a quarter. A certain portion of this account will probably not be paid right away because returns by bookstores from initial orders are almost inevitable, and we don't want to be in the awkward position of having to ask that you return royalties that you have already been paid.

Q. What is meant by "net copies sold."

A. In the publishing industry, bookstores have become accustomed to being able to return books that haven't sold to the publisher. Net copies sold means that the only books counted as sold are those that stay sold. Books that are sold and then returned aren't counted.

Q. Will you make changes in my book without my knowledge?

A. All publishers, other than publishers who make no investment in the books they publish, insist on control over the final content of the book in exchange for the financial risk they take. We are not different in that, but we will work on all changes cooperatively with you and want to promote full communication between us on all editorial, design, and other matters.

Vanity publishers—publishers who ask you to pay them for publishing your book—have a superficial appeal to some new authors because they let you retain all rights and they give you full control over everything. The reason they do this is that they plan to make no investment in your book whatsoever, so they have no stake in its success.

Q. Will you promote my book?

A. We will promote your book aggressively, with energy, expertise, and creativity. We feel that book promotion is one of our strong points as a publisher.

Every title for which we sign a contract involves an investment by us of at least $10,000—usually more. This gives us great incentive to promote your book, in order to give us a return on that investment. This, after all, is our livelihood—we make our living selling books.

Also, since promoting the author is one of the most effective ways of marketing a book, we'll want you fully engaged in that. Don't expect us to do it all—if you do that, your book will not likely succeed. We will coach, schedule, and boost you, but in large measure it's you that we're selling, so we need your full involvement.

Q. Do you pay advances?

A. Whether or not we pay advances and, if so, the size of the advance, depends on several factors.

One factor is the amount of capital available in the company. The publishing business is in large measure a capital-management business. We have a lot of up-front expenses for which we hope to be paid months down the road. This ties up our money. Thus there is only a certain amount of money that can be committed to advances. If there is too much paid in advances, then there isn't enough left for promotion, or maybe editorial expenses have to be trimmed, which is kind of counter-productive. Publishers such as Mapletree that are expanding rapidly tend to invest their money in that expansion rather than in advances.

A second factor is the demand for your work among various publishers. Authors that are sought by more than one publisher can use that position to negotiate the advance. New authors often aren't in that position. It's a matter of marketplace demand. However, we will add that again, it may be counter-productive for an author to put too much emphasis on the advance and smarter to put more emphasis on negotiating the royalty rate. The more that is paid for advances, the more a company may be compromised when it comes time to set a promotion budget.

A third factor is the marketability of your work. We are taking a risk with every book project that we undertake. We will be investing editorial expenses, jacket design expenses, printing expenses, promotional expenses, and so forth. Most of these we will pay up front, and then we will be paid by bookstores and distributors beginning three to five months after books are sold. Will our investment pay off? Maybe or maybe not. How sure we are of the payoff will help determine what advance we may or may not be willing to pay.

Also, remember that getting an advance doesn't mean that you are getting more money for your book. An advance is money received up front instead of money received after the book sells. Mapletree prefers to offer generous royalties rather than advances, as the authors receive more total money for their books that way.

Q. Our book was written by a co-author team. How does that affect the contract?

A. When there is more than one author to a manuscript, all of the authors need to sign the contract, because all of them are creators of copyright-protected material. However, we prefer to have the authors designate one author as the "principal author." This principal author will then be responsible for meeting deadlines and responding to our requests. There may also be issues that arise among the authors, and having one author designated as "principal" is a way to help settle those matters with a minimum of conflict.

In such a case, royalty payment arrangements can be made in whatever manner suits the authors. Most often, we will pay the authors individually in proportions that are acceptable to all of them and are spelled out in the contract, but other arrangements can be made. Also, the principal author isn't necessarily one who will receive more royalty than any other author, she is merely the one who will be our contact person and who will take first responsibility for responding to requests that we may make.

We recommend that when there are co-authors, that the authors enter into a separate agreement among themselves that will specify how various issues will be settled. In a case where you don't want to designate one of the authors as the "principal" one, you may want to agree on another non-author as a deadlock-breaker for the creative, business, and legal decisions that will need to be made.

If you feel like you would need help in crafting such an agreement, we would be happy to assist you with that. We have a sample collaboration agreement that you would be welcome to use.