Whether a writer or publishing related service provider is presented with a contract or is asked to draft one, there are a number of questions that every publishing-related contract should answer.
You may be a freelance writer or book author, a ghostwriter or co-writer, a business that hires writers, one of two joint authors, an editor, book publicist, illustrator, or agent. No matter what role you play in writing and publishing, the questions presented here are basic to every contract you may consider signing, revising, or drafting.
- Who are the parties? If a party is a limited liability company or corporation, that should be included.
- What are the parties’ business or personal addresses, phone numbers and email addresses?
- What are the services to be provided and which party is to provide them?
- When do services begin and end?
- Are delays in providing services acceptable? If so, when and why?
- If you are the recipient of a copyrighted product or service, will ownership of the product or service be assigned to you in the contract or will the vendor license its use?
- If one party is the owner of a copyrighted work and the other party is a vendor who is to make revisions or alter the copyrighted work, will the vendor’s services be defined as contributions to the copyrighted work? For example, if an editor makes revisions to your manuscript, does the editor assign ownership of their contributions to you under the contract?
- Is one party licensing a service or product from the other? If so, licensing terms must be included.
- What is the total sum, if any, that one party pays the other? Will the sum be paid at once or in stages?
- Are refunds provided by the payee, i.e., party receiving payment? If so, under what circumstances?
- If the recipient of services is not satisfied with the product or service, will the service/product provider be willing to correct one or more mistakes with no additional compensation or is additional compensation necessary?
- Will either party be allowed to terminate? If so, when, why, and how?
- If the parties cannot resolve a problem, what do they do? Mediate, arbitrate, or agree to mediate and, if that is not successful, then arbitrate?
- Do the parties want the option of filing a legal action against the other where either party resides or works? If so, in what city and under what state’s laws?
Some of these questions may not be necessary while still others could be helpful depending on the subject of the contract. However, the attempt to answer these questions can provide a substantive portion of a contractual relationship.
And when it comes to involving a literary attorney to either review and revise a contract or draft one based on your answers, they will compliment your foresight!