You’ve made it! Finally a publisher has read your manuscript and liked it! If this isn’t magic, then what is, huh? But before you make the big announcement, take a moment to understand the terms that the publisher is offering you.
Publishers usually retain sole and exclusive licence to produce, publish and reproduce the work for any number of editions and units, so if you have submitted your work to more than one publishing house, withdraw it. You will have to warrant that the work you’ve submitted is original and not plagiarised in any way from any source. If legal issues crop up later on plagiarism charges, you will be held responsible. You may also be prohibited from bringing out any other competing work that may interfere with or injure the sale of the work accepted by the publishing house.
Read the copyright terms carefully. Is the publisher asking for an outright purchase? This would mean that the publisher has complete rights over your story and is free to do whatever they wish with the content without paying you extra. If you retain copyright, will you get paid for translations of your work too? What percentage of royalty will you be paid against sales? Usually, publishing houses pay a signing amount in advance to the writer that is non-refundable. The royalty amount earned in excess of this is paid according to the timeline set by the publishers (usually annually, at the end of the financial year).
If the manuscript you submitted is incomplete or a planned series and more work needs to be done after the contract is signed, the timeline will probably be included in the contract. Usually, the publisher and writer settle for a mutually acceptable timeline.
Are you expected to pay for the cost of publication either in part or whole? There are fraudsters in every form of business, so keep an eye out for publishing houses that will publish anything, as long as the author is paying a large sum! Some publishing houses will offer you a percentage of the sales if
you contribute to the cost of production. This is again a grey area. If you haven’t worked with them previously or if you don’t know anyone who has, can you trust them to be honest in providing you actual sales figures?
Are you expected to promote the work yourself? Doing readings and launches in the town and out, along with online promos and so on. How much time and effort are you willing to put into this?
There might be other terms and conditions that are included in the contract. Be sure to read and understand them. Don’t be in a big hurry to get it all done and over with and see your book in print… as fabulous a moment as that might be!
Read it? Signed it? Mailed it? All right then, call up that sanctimonious uncle who pitied you for never becoming an engineer. Feel free to gloat.