Recording an author contract

A rights contract records a promise about rights. Someone grants your workspace the right to publish a book, or you grant a right on to somebody else. This guide covers three parts: the contract itself, what it covers, and what it pays.

You need editor access or higher to create a contract. Adding the money needs administrator access and a plan that includes Royalties.

Start the contract

Open Contracts from the sidebar, in the Business section, and click New rights contract.

The form has three short sections.

The contract

Field What to put in it
Contract name What you call this contract. The list shows this.
Contract with The person or company on the other side, from your People list
Direction Rights granted to us, or Rights we grant

Direction is the field to get right. Choose Rights granted to us when an author is letting you publish. Choose Rights we grant when you are passing a right on to a foreign publisher, a film producer or anyone else. Royalty runs only ever pay on contracts granted to you.

Dates

Start date and End date are both optional. Leave the start blank if the contract always applied, and the end blank if it still runs.

Notes takes anything worth remembering.

Click Add contract. Pubblish opens the contract’s own page.

Say what it covers

A contract page opens with a section headed What it covers, and it is empty. Click Add coverage to add the first row.

One row is one right, over a set of books, in a set of territories. One contract can need several rows: print worldwide in one, audio in North America in another.

The right

  • Right — print, ebook, audio, translation, film and TV, and the rest of your right types.
  • Language — only for a translation right. Leave it on Not a translation right otherwise.

Which titles

Tick Every title to cover the whole catalogue, including books you add later. Or leave it unticked and pick books in the Titles box. It has to be one or the other. Ticking both, or neither, is refused.

Where

Territory mode is three radio buttons, and only one of them can be right:

  • Worldwide — the grant covers everywhere. No territory list at all.
  • Worldwide except… — the grant covers everywhere except the territories you tick.
  • Only these territories — the grant covers nothing but the territories you tick.

The territory tick-boxes appear as soon as you choose one of the last two, and disappear again on Worldwide. Switching back to Worldwide clears whatever you had ticked.

Terms

  • Exclusive — nobody else may be granted this right in these territories.
  • May be sold onward — you can grant this right on to someone else. A publisher selling translation rights on an author’s behalf needs this ticked.
  • Start date and End date — leave both blank and the row follows the contract’s own dates. The coverage table then shows Follows the contract.

Click Add coverage. The row appears in the table under What it covers, showing Right, Titles, Territories, Terms and Dates. Each named book in the Titles column links to its own rights page — see The Rights page.

Add what it pays

A section headed Money appears below coverage. It holds the royalty rates this contract pays.

You only see this section if your plan includes Royalties and you are an administrator or the owner. Editors do not see it at all.

Click Add a royalty rate.

Who and what

  • Payee — who gets paid. Payees are the pen names you pay royalties to. If the contract names a person who is already set up as a payee, they are chosen for you. If the person you need is missing from the list, they have not been set up to be paid yet.
  • Title — leave this on Everything the contract covers. That is the normal case: one rate for the whole contract. Name a book only when that one book pays something different. The list offers the books this contract covers, and nothing else.

The rate

  • Ebook royalty % — a percentage of the net revenue the channel reports. This is also what audio sales are paid at.
  • Print royalty % — a percentage of your own list price.

Both boxes start at your workspace’s default rates, which you set on the Royalties Settings page. At least one of the two has to hold a figure, or the rate pays nothing and is refused.

When it applies

Effective from and Effective to are both optional. Leave them blank and the rate runs for exactly as long as the contract does. A rate can no longer outlive the agreement it belongs to.

Click Add rate.

Two warnings you might see

The Money section says These rates apply to nothing yet when the contract has rates but no coverage. A rate reaches books through coverage, so fill in What it covers and the warning goes.

It says Rates on an outward contract are never paid when the contract’s direction is Rights we grant. Royalty runs read inward contracts only. Either the direction is wrong, or the rate does not belong here.

Changing a rate later

Editing a rate does not overwrite it. Changing the percentages starts a new rate from the date you pick, and the old rate keeps paying earlier sales. Sales are always paid at the rate that was running on the day they were made.

The edit form carries one extra box for this, New rate starts, filled in with today’s date. Four things count as a change to what the rate pays: the ebook percentage, the print percentage, the payee, and the title. Moving any of them splits the rate. Editing only the notes or the dates saves in place.

Pubblish refuses a change date that would leave a row covering no days at all. It also refuses one that falls inside a period you have already issued statements for. The message names the date you have to start on or after.

Deleting a rate needs administrator access. You cannot delete a rate that an issued statement already used. The row says On issued statements where the delete button would be. Editing it still works, because editing splits it rather than erasing it.

What locks once a contract holds a rate

A contract with money on it becomes partly read-only for anyone without the royalties permission.

On the edit form, Direction, Start date and End date are greyed out, with a line above saying Locked while this contract holds royalty rates. The name, the other party and the notes stay editable. Those three boxes are locked because they change what the money is worth. Direction decides whether a rate pays at all. A rate with no dates of its own runs for exactly as long as the contract does.

Coverage locks the same way. Add coverage and the row Edit and Delete controls disappear, and the section says Coverage is locked while this contract holds royalty rates. A whole-contract rate pays on whatever the coverage names, so changing coverage changes what the money applies to.

An administrator or the owner sees all of it unlocked.