POD Practices, Part 3: You Gotta Fight For Your Right
Today we continue discussing those publish-on-demand (or print-on-demand) foibles that have given the process a bad name. Our topic for this post is rights reversion.
When an author signs a contract with a publisher, somewhere in that contract there should be a clause covering rights reversion–spelling out under what circumstances the publisher ceases to have rights to publish the book, and the author is free to sell those rights to someone else. This is important. No publisher should be permitted to monopolize rights to a work beyond their ability to utilize those rights. If they can’t publish, they have no business holding publication rights.
Non-POD publishers tend to specify rights reversion based on the book going out of print. Let’s turn to The Author’s Guild for an explanation of that…
Your publisher should only have the exclusive rights to your work while it is actively marketing and selling your book, i.e., while your book is “in print.” An out-of-print clause will allow you to terminate the contract and regain all rights granted to your publisher after the book stops earning money.
So here’s the million-dollar question: When can a POD-published book be considered out of print? Never. At least, not unless you’re very careful how “out of print” is defined. The Author’s Guild defines it as being when the publisher is no longer marketing the book, which is wise, but not self-evident, as you will see.
Certain bad apples of the POD family have developed a reputation for sitting on author’s rights for too long. PublishAmerica famously contracts for seven years, which would be fantastically long even for a commercial publisher, let alone a vanity outfit. Another start-up POD publisher (whom I do not recommend signing with, for all the reasons outlined here) originally used a contract that specifically denied that a work was out of print until such time as it was no longer available for sale. This meant that the work, being print-on-demand, could never go out of print at all, and rights would never revert to the author.
The Author’s Guild recommends negotiating a minimum number of sales taking place during each accounting period for the book to be considered in print, failing which all rights should revert to the author. Another option is to agree to a certain period of time–six or twelve months after the book goes on sale, maybe, certainly not seven years!–after which each party has the right to terminate the contract for any reason.
Part of treating the author fairly is to respect his right to make a living or at least to earn a profit. A POD publisher who strives for respectability should make sure their contract reflects that respect in its rights reversion clause. When the publisher can no longer market the book effectively, it’s time to set the author free.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:24 am
At Flying Pen Press, the publication rights will revert to the author if we publish the book and it is not a success. However, as Scott Humphries (our senior editor) points out, the work will have been improved by having gone through a complete editing process. Unlike vanity presses, FPP assumes the majority of risk in publishing a work, so it’s in our best interest to make sure the work is polished before publishing it. At a vanity press, the author assumes the risk by paying for the product to be printed. That’s disrespectful to the author, and is not the philosophy that we intend to follow with Flying Pen Press.
I’m not exactly sure what the criteria is for “success;” I will try and find out that information and get back to you. I think I can speak for the company in saying that it won’t take seven years to determine whether a book is successful, though.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 pm
As promised, here are the details about rights reversion in the standard Flying Pen Press contract. Basically, FPP contracts to hold the publication rights for 2 years, after which either FPP or the author has the right to terminate the contract.
In other words, if an author is not happy with the way FPP is handling his or her book after two years, s/he can take it elsewhere.
“Successful” is not the smartest term to use, though. It’s more about satisfaction with the relationship. If both parties are satisfied with the book’s presentation and sales, the contract is likely to continue past two years. If either party is dissatisfied, the two year option to terminate the relationship comes into play.
In that respect, “success” is placed on FPP; if the author is happy with the FPP publishing relationship after two years, we have succeeded in our goal.
May 7th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Thanks for the update, Stace. That sounds like a thoroughly workable plan–at least to my uneducated ears!
Just in case you were worried or I was misrepresenting myself here:
1) If I make any comparison between PublishAmerica and Flying Pen Press, it’s only to show how FPP is explicitly stating intentions to do right what PA does emphatically wrong.
2) This series of articles about the POD phenomenon started because FPP got me thinking about POD, but that’s what it is–a bunch of hopefully educational meditations on the state of the industry. If this has felt like a very long lecture aimed specifically at you and Debbie and the rest of the FPP team, it’s completely unintentional!
and 3) I will not be at Heidi’s on Wednesday after all. I’m, er, gonna stay home with John and we’re gonna listen to Rush get interviewed live on Rockline. OK, that’s a lame excuse, but just in case anyone was wondering….
and 4) I should probably take this to email, shouldn’t I?