The Rights page

Every title has a Rights page. It answers one question: who holds each of this title’s rights today?

The page reads your rights contracts. It works out the answer each time you open it. Nothing on it is stored, and you cannot edit it. When you change a contract, the page changes.

The subtitle says so at the top: Rights, worked out from your contracts.

Where to find it

Three routes lead to the same page:

  • Open a title and click Rights in the Quick actions card.
  • Open a title for editing and click Rights in the row of buttons at the top.
  • Open a rights contract and click any title named in the Titles column of What it covers.

The three columns

The page is one table. Each row is a right type: print, ebook, audio, translation, large print, book club, first and second serial, film and TV, merchandising, and anthology permissions.

Column What it shows
Right The right type this row is about
You hold What you may do with it, and which contract brought it in
Granted out Who else has it, where, and until when
Still available A short verdict, with a sentence explaining it

You hold shows Yours when you own the title outright. Otherwise it lists each inward contract that adds the right. Each entry shows who it came from, the territories and the term. Exclusive grants and rights you may sell onward carry a small label. If no contract adds the right, the column reads Nothing.

Granted out lists each outward contract that passes the right to someone else. Each entry shows who has it, where, and until when. Exclusive grants are marked. If nobody else has the right, the column reads Nothing.

Only contracts running today appear in either column. A contract that ended last year does not.

The verdict in Still available

The last column gives one of six answers. Pubblish prints a sentence under each.

Verdict The sentence under it
Free to grant Nobody has it, and you haven’t used it.
In use You publish this yourself.
Partly granted out Free everywhere the exclusive grant doesn’t reach.
All granted out Nothing left to grant while that runs.
Yours, but not to sell on The contract doesn’t let you sell it on.
Not yours No contract brings this one in.

In use is worked out from your editions. If a title has a paperback, the print right is in use.

Only three right types are read this way: print, ebook and audio. Those are the three that show up in your editions. A translation or a film option does not, so Pubblish never marks those rights as in use.

A right can be free when the edition does not exist yet. The sentence then says which edition is missing, for example No audiobook yet.

Yours, but not to sell on means the inward contract did not tick May be sold onward. You may publish the book. You may not license that right to anyone else.

The ownership rule

Pubblish treats a title with no inward rights contract as fully yours. Every right shows Yours.

One line at the top of the page says why:

  • No contract mentions this title, so every right is yours. Add a rights contract when you grant one out. Nothing on file at all.
  • No contract grants you rights in this title, so Pubblish treats them all as yours. You have contracts on this title, but they only ever grant rights away.

When one inward contract covers the title, the rule stops applying. You then hold exactly what that contract brought in. Every other right reads Not yours.

An expired inward contract does not return the rights to you. The right reads Not yours.

What “Worldwide except” means

The page writes territories exactly as the contract records them. There are three forms:

  • Worldwide: everywhere, with no list.
  • Worldwide except United States, Canada: everywhere apart from the named territories.
  • A plain list of territories: only those territories.

The page does not work out which country sits inside which region. It reports what the contract says. If one grant covers Worldwide except United States and another covers United States, the page shows both. You interpret them.

What the page will not do

The page never refuses anything. It never blocks a save. It never merges two overlapping grants into one answer. It reports what a person reading your contracts by hand would say.