The Telemachus Press Blog

Entries for ' legal'

21

Before you sign up with any self-publishing company, there are several parts of the publishing agreement where you need to take a moment and focus before signing on the dotted line. I’d like to talk about just one of these today: your publishing rights, sometimes included in sections like “The Grant” and “The Territory” or maybe you will find it somewhere else. As a new author you might be moving quickly to get your book published, but just so you know, this is a big one. Slow down.

The contract might reference the fact that you continue to own your copyright, it will always be yours and lead you to believe that this by itself is all the intellectual property protection that you will ever need. In other parts of the contract you will note, if you give the document a careful read, that you might very well be (and almost definitely will be) granting to the self-publishing company your publishing rights. The agreement might vaguely reference “General Publication Rights” in different media and different geographies or it may specifically include “Primary Rights,” “Trade Edition Rights,” “Mass Market Reprint Rights,” “Book Club Rights,” “Transcription Rights,” “Direct Mail Rights,” “Secondary Rights,” “Dramatic Rights,” “Movie Rights,” “Television Rights,” “Foreign Language Rights” and my all time favorite, “All rights not specifically granted herein.” You really need to seek competent legal counsel to understand just what you are giving away. Are you really locking your book up with this company and under their control forever? The implications of this are very, very significant.

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Posted in: Self-Publishing