Two kinds of promise

Publishing depends on two different kinds of promise, and Pubblish keeps them apart on purpose. One is about rights: who may publish a book, where, and for how long. The other is about delivery: which company carries your books into shops, and what they keep for doing it. Both belong in Contracts, in two kinds of record. This page explains why.

A rights promise

“You may publish this book in English, in print and ebook, worldwide, for seven years, exclusively — and here is what you pay me for it.”

A book starts as a bundle of rights owned by whoever wrote it: print, ebook, audio, translation, film. Each of those can be split by language, by country and by time. A contract passes one part of that bundle from one party to another. The money terms are what you pay for that part.

Rights promises work in both directions. An author grants rights to you. You might grant translation rights on to a publisher in another country. Pubblish records both in one kind of record, with a Direction field saying which way the rights move.

A supply promise

“We carry your paperbacks to shops everywhere except North America, and we keep 55% of the list price for doing it.”

No rights move here. A distributor does not become part-owner of anything. This is a delivery service: which company gets your books into stores, where they do it, and what cut they keep. An arrangement with a single retailer is the same promise, smaller.

Why the difference matters

The two look alike written down. Both name a party, some books, some territories, some dates. That resemblance is why it is tempting to store them as one thing. The rest of Pubblish treats them differently.

Royalties come from rights promises only. A royalty exists because somebody let you publish their book and the contract says what each sale owes them. A distributor’s cut creates no royalty. It is taken before the money gets to you, and the sales report you upload already reflects that.

Only rights promises answer “what do I hold in this book?” Each book’s Rights page adds up its rights contracts and reports on every right in the book. Supply arrangements are not part of that answer. See The Rights page.

Only supply promises answer “who sells this, and where?” The ONIX export — the metadata file sent to retailers — asks that question when it names a supplier for each market.

If the two were one record, every screen would have to check which kind it was before reading a single field. Territories means “where you may publish” on a rights contract and “where they ship” on a supply arrangement. Two small, separate records are simpler than one record that has to be read two ways.

What each record holds

A rights contract records:

  • Who — one entry from your People list, and which way the rights travel
  • What it covers — one book, a named list, or every title; narrowed by right type, territories, dates, and whether it is exclusive
  • Money — the rate typed once for the whole contract, with a row naming a book when that one book differs
  • Notes — anything else worth keeping

A supply arrangement records:

  • Who — one People entry: the distributor, wholesaler or store
  • What they carry — one book, a list, or every title, in the formats they handle
  • Where — the territories they serve
  • Their cut — the share they keep, for reference
  • Notes — anything else worth keeping

Both point at the same People list. Amazon and IngramSpark are entries there, exactly as your authors are.

One list, two kinds

Pubblish shows both in one table on the Contracts page, with a Type column and three filter buttons: All, Rights contracts and Supply arrangements. They share a page because you go looking for them in the same moment. They stay separate records because the rest of Pubblish reads them differently.