by Jay Hartman
Q: I’m pretty unhappy with my current publisher. I’m thinking I’d rather take the books the self-publishing route, or maybe find a different publisher instead. How hard is it going to be to get out of my existing contract?
A: There’s no one right answer here.
First, how hard it is to get out of the contract depends a lot on what you signed on for when you went into it. Before signing any contract with a publisher, you should always have an attorney or knowledgeable person go through it with a fine-toothed comb. In fact, if you don’t have access to such a person, The Author’s Guild will review the contract free of charge for members, to warn of any potential pitfalls. Other organizations offer the same benefit.
Here are a few things that should be immediate red flags for any author signing a contract with a publisher:
- A contract term longer than 5-10 years. This isn’t necessarily a hard no, but ten years is a pretty long time on that end of things and locks an author in regardless of how things are going. NEVER agree to lifetime contracts unless the publisher is guaranteeing that X number of dollars is going to be spent consistently on the marketing and promotion of your title. If you’re a short story author or part of an anthology, you definitely need to ask for the ability to resell your short story to other venues after a period of six months to a year in exchange for allowing the story to remain in the publisher’s catalog or anthology.
- Any requirement to purchase a set number of copies of their book. The publisher chose to accept the risk of taking on the author on the gamble that it would pay off with sales. Those sales shouldn’t be coming from the author. That’s borderline vanity publishing. Some big publishers still have that requirement, but it’s an insurance policy for them against any advances they’ve paid out. If you’re not getting an advance, never agree to more than five or ten copies. As an author, you’d want to buy copies of your book for promotional reasons but avoid excessive requirements such as 100 or more copies.
- Do not give away rights for which a publisher doesn’t have a solution. For example, if a publisher isn’t actively pursuing movie rights, they shouldn’t be asking for film rights.
- Contracts missing an escape clause. You need to have some recourse spelled out in your contract in case the publisher doesn’t deliver on promises or if you’re unhappy. Most things are built into contracts to protect the publisher, but as an author you need to protect your rights and your work.
OK, so let’s say your publisher gave you a decent contract but for whatever reason you’ve decided you want to shake things up a bit and move to another publisher or self-publish. Maybe you’re unhappy with a lack of marketing and promotion from the publisher. Maybe the publisher missed a promised release date. Maybe you want more control of cover art, content, and where a book is sold.
What’s the best way to go about ending that relationship?
- Write a letter. Send an email to the Editor-in-Chief or whomever your main contact is at your publisher. Let them know why you’re unhappy and why you’re seeking a change. If you are agent-represented, have them contact the publisher on your behalf. Be clear and professional:
- Keep emotion out of the letter: “You guys don’t care about your authors at all!”
- Stick to the facts: “I see I’ve only sold two copies in the last year.”
- Propose a solution: “In light of this, I’m requesting my rights back to my work.”
- Offer a timeline that makes sense: “I’d like this completed no later than the end of November 2023.”
- Understand the publisher doesn’t have to allow you out of your contract before the date it ends. Ultimately, ending a contract early is completely up to the publisher because you signed a document agreeing to their terms. Still, no publisher worth their salt wants an ongoing relationship with an unhappy author. That’s poor business and can lead to either side negatively affecting reputations and sales.
- Allow for a reasonable timeline but stick to your guns. If your books are sold through multiple retailers, it takes time to get the books pulled down from vendors. It’s not unreasonable for a publisher to need up to 30 days to pull books from sale. However, more than thirty days is egregious. In this day and age of automation, most publishers are using ONIX where a single press of a button unpublishes a title from all vendors. Even if the book is only sold through Amazon, the process of taking down a title takes less than two minutes. The publisher will want more time so they can continue to earn sales and do things on their timeline. Again, thirty days is more than adequate.
- Require accounting for copies sold during the transition. Until the books are completely pulled down from vendors, you’re entitled to any royalties earned. Make sure you get a royalty statement and payment for the interim time it takes.
- Find out what you can continue to use from the previous publisher in your new edition. ISBNs are not transferable, as they are attached to the publisher. However, find out what the publisher is willing to let you have (possibly with a cost) for things such as the cover art. They may say you can’t use the existing book description. A few edits and that’s not a problem at all.
A lot more goes into this, so if you have any questions regarding contracts and either beginning or ending them, please send your questions to jhartman@thehartmanagency.com and I’ll do my best to address them in future columns.
Looking to get The Publisher Perspective? Send your questions to jhartman@thejayhartmanagency.com with TPP in your subject line. If your question is used, we’ll send you a free ebook from Untreed Reads.
Jay A. Hartman, founder of Untreed Reads Publishing, promotes ebooks with an emphasis on independent authors and publishers. He’s written about the ebook industry for fifteen years and previously served as content editor for KnowBetter.com, one of the internet’s oldest sites reporting on ebooks and epublishing.
