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Coffee & Conversation: Contract Terms Series (Net vs Gross)

13 Monday Sep 2021

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Contract Terms Series (IANAL)

There’s a bunch of contract terms for writers that can be difficult to parse for newcomers to the genre, so I want to go over a few in a short, easy contract terms series.

(Note: I am not a lawyer. I am merely speaking from experience on the author side.)

NET vs GROSS

You know the story where super famous people don’t get paid despite the movies they star in, the songs they wrote, etc., bringing in millions? This is often a net vs. gross issue. (Hollywood bastards)

Gross is your total amount that something makes. It really shouldn’t ever be negative. Why? Because even if you only sold one copy/one ticket/one anything, well, you got a positive amount for that. (Extreme couponing aside XD)

Net, on the other hand, is your final income number. The gross number minus all expenses. So, the costs of overhead, the costs of production, marketing, etc., etc., etc.,

The way you get screwed is by having your contract be written in NET instead of GROSS. This means that the company can subtract whatever bills they want from the gross, until they’re negative perhaps… Thereby leaving them not having to pay anyone with contracts dealing with royalties based off net.

Yeah. Messed up, right? Well, big companies are sometimes greedy little buggers.

So, when looking over payment on your contracts, make DAMN SURE that it says GROSS and that the word net doesn’t appear anywhere. Publishers can pay their expenses out of their share. Not yours.

~ ~ ~ ~

This is my final post in my contract series for now. I’m not an expert on the subject. Just sharing what I do know in the hopes that it helps someone out there. If I think of something else, or if someone has a question I can answer concerning contracts in the publishing sphere, I might do a few more.

Just be aware that I’m not a lawyer, I don’t play one on TV, and if you’re ever in a situation where you’ve got a big contract with a big name publisher, you probably want to get a lawyer who specializes in such things to look it over because they will certainly catch far more than you can alone. I mean, unless you are a lawyer specializing in publisher contracts ;)

~Emmi

Canvas Blues – LXXIX: Yesteryears

08 Wednesday Sep 2021

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CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LXXIX: Yesteryears

The inside of Dylan’s house was a mausoleum of white and ivory granite and tile. Folded tables and oak cabinetry were staples of the décor, while old, knitted rag dolls stared down from the hall shelf. One of his parents must have been military because paraphernalia dotted the walls—giant photos of airplanes, spread eagle wings, a service award.

Though Robbie’s nose leaked blood between his fingers, he held his head back in a solid attempt to keep from splashing a mess across the floor before Brendon could help him to the bathroom. There, Brendon wet down a gray washcloth and helped to wash the blood away, smearing it so much that it painted Robbie’s freckles and poured into his mouth to line his teeth when he smiled grimly.

“What set him off?”

As if Casey was a bomb with a fuse that could be lit by just any passing stranger. A fuse shrinking over time, getting tired of flaring, traveling that same, well-worn path to an inevitable explosion.

But that was Casey’s Dad. Not Casey. Casey wasn’t a bomb; he didn’t have a fuse.

“Other than you?” asked Brendon, admittedly annoyed because of course there was something to see in Casey. There was everything to see. And Robbie’ question over what Brendon saw in Casey hadn’t been one that deserved an answer.

Robbie shrugged and leaned further forward over the sink, letting fat, blood-tinged drops dribble out against the porcelain. “I’d been talking to you. Not him.”

“I know.”

“I meant it too.” Robbie turned his head sideways to look at Brendon. “Why are you with him?” Continue reading →

Coffee & Conversation: Contract Terms Series (Attribution)

06 Monday Sep 2021

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Contract Terms Series (IANAL)

There’s a bunch of contract terms for writers that can be difficult to parse for newcomers to the genre, so I want to go over a few in a short, easy contract terms series.

(Note: I am not a lawyer. I am merely speaking from experience on the author side.)

ATTRIBUTION

This is an easy one and is mostly in reference to pen names, but ultimately, anyone who wants to be attributed probably needs to have at least something written in their contract about it.

Attribution is just how you, as the author, will be attributed within/on the book. IE, your author name and your copyright on the copyright page, etc.

This is important particularly for pen names because legal documents are written up with the use of your legal name for legal reasons. Which can mean that the author’s pen name/name they want to be attributed as, isn’t anywhere on the page UNLESS some form of attribution phrasing is used somewhere in the contract.

It’s a small thing, but very important for a lot of people.

In other words, make sure they have a legal requirement to get your names right :)

~Emmi

Canvas Blues – LXXVIII: Yesteryears

01 Wednesday Sep 2021

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CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LXXVIII: Yesteryears

Dylan’s garage—with its nice gym equipment, with its fancy bikes on their fancy hooks on the wall, with its expensive cars that didn’t even include the one his parents were driving that wasn’t there at the moment—had this open, hollow feel to it despite the four of them taking up so much space, filling the air with intensity and riled hormones.

In the driveway, the Mustang glared them down with sun-reflecting headlights splotchy from dirt roads far from here. The gentle warmth of an autumn breeze coasted down the street ruffling HOA-controlled lawns with a hoity-toity attitude. Like the breeze had stepped up on the social ladder when it soured over Ol’ North Main.

“Your friend,” said Dylan, with an eye roll at the word “friend” as he turned to Robbie, “thinks he can just barge into my house. But, man, I don’t want lice. Mom would kill me.” But he smiled as he said it, reminding Brendon of when Dylan had pestered Donna Pierceman with idiotic questions during art class, as if art was beneath him, a useless endeavor when one could be a lawyer, a doctor, an upstanding member of society rather than playing finger-paints.

“Lice,” snapped Casey. “I’ll give you lice.” And he stepped forward, fist pulled back, but slow-like. As if Casey were thinking about punching Dylan rather than having already decided to do it.

Brendon grabbed his arm. “He’s just being a dick, trying to rile you up.”

Dylan laughed, a giggle almost, a lilting up and down sound that rankled along Brendon’s spine in a pitter-patter of condescension and classism. Robbie had hopped the steps by now, had approached with concern Ving across his forehead. He gave Dylan a light punch in the arm, one of those hey-stop-it, but hey-you’re-kind-of-right sorts of jabs.

“No one thinks you have lice, Case,” said Robbie. “But what are you doing here?”

“No one invited you,” added Dylan.

“That’s damn obvious,” said Casey. “Can’t invite the folks from the wrong end of Castlebrock, can you? Or is it just those you can use?”

Brendon rocked back, putting space between him and Casey. Use. The thought hadn’t occurred to him before, and now, with it chilling in the air between the four of them, he wondered, casting Robbie a glance as the idea of it percolated insidiously, round and round, without any real logical sense to its confines. Continue reading →

Coffee & Conversation: Contract Terms Series (Right of First Refusal)

30 Monday Aug 2021

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Contract Terms Series (IANAL)

There’s a bunch of contract terms for writers that can be difficult to parse for newcomers to the genre, so I want to go over a few in a short, easy contract terms series.

(Note: I am not a lawyer. I am merely speaking from experience on the author side.)

RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL

This is a fun one. This is the right of the publisher to see an associated work/story before any other competitors. I say “associated” here, but in some cases that isn’t necessary.

Essentially, let’s say you are signing a contract for one book with your publisher. You want to write sequels to this book. The publisher thinks the book might do well. But no one knows the future. So, instead of buying or optioning a second/third/etc. book, the publisher adds a clause that states they get the right to see any associated books (as in, associated with the book they’re buying) first. You would not then be allowed to submit any books involving the contracted book’s characters or setting, etc. to anyone other than that publisher.

They still have the right to refuse the book, of course, at which point you are free to shop the book anywhere you like. But if you were to sell that second/third/etc. book elsewhere without your contracted publisher getting a chance to say NO first, then you would be in breach of contract.

Also of note: Even if you submit this book and even if they offer you a contract for it, you, as the author, still have full rights to say NO to whatever the contract is. So in some extreme cases, when the author knows they won’t be working with a publisher anymore, this can turn slightly toxic, with a publisher holding onto a story for a prolonged period of time. Just for funsies, I guess.

Right of First Refusal can be applied to non-associated works as well. Ergo, the first book you write next, etc., though the language there is a little more generic and I’m not entirely sure how that would work. It can also be applied to all lengths and forms, as in you write a short story tie-in and the first refusal terminology wasn’t strict enough to ignore short stories. (This can happen even if the publisher doesn’t even TAKE short stories. So can be a little silly.)

When looking at your contract, make sure that 1) the right of first refusal is specific, and 2) that there is a specific time limit they must respond to once you have proof of submission.

~Emmi

Canvas Blues – LXXVII: Present

25 Wednesday Aug 2021

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CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LXXVII: Present

“I spent so many hours on that painting,” said Brendon. “It was a birthday present. There was this old car out in the forest at a dump site that Casey found when we were kids. A bunch of old cars, actually, but that one in particular he loved playing in. I wanted to give him something of it, but make it more alive.”

“Do you try to make things alive often in your paintings?”

Brendon rubbed his thumb over the divots in his glass. “You think that’s the clue, then? That if I try to make things alive that they might become so?”

“Just another thought. Trying to solve the mystery of Brendon Kotes.” The corner of Orion’s lips tugged up and those bright blue eyes, shadowed here in Brendon’s bedroom, all but shimmered with suggestion.

With a hard, hard breath, Brendon straightened, the action pressing their thighs closer together. Yet still, Orion didn’t pull away. So Brendon didn’t either, his heart beginning a painful thud as his sticky dreams from last night came sneaking through his mind, teasing, testing things that might not come.

“I’m not really a mystery.”

That corner tug slowly gave way to a gently warm smile filled with disbelief. “Then that must mean I am a much slower man than I always give myself credit for.” He leaned in as he spoke, gaze never leaving Brendon’s, not even when Brendon flicked his tongue out to wet dry lips in instinctual anticipation.

“You think highly of your abilities.”

“I do,” agreed Orion on a rumble that pulled straight from his throat like the deep purr of an engine. Then his lips touched Brendon’s in a gentle, coaxing question. The whiskey on his breath burned a track down into Brendon’s lungs. Continue reading →

Coffee & Conversation: Contract Terms Series (Non-Compete)

23 Monday Aug 2021

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Contract Terms Series (IANAL)

There’s a bunch of contract terms for writers that can be difficult to parse for newcomers to the genre, so I want to go over a few in a short, easy contract terms series.

(Note: I am not a lawyer. I am merely speaking from experience on the author side.)

NON-COMPETE

This is a confusing one. Non-compete has to do with non-competition.

Now, some of this might feel like another way of saying exclusivity, so that the publisher’s version of your words/story doesn’t have to compete with another publisher’s version of your words/story. You can think about this concerning versions of books that are out of copyright, like say, a lot of classics. You can buy many, many different versions of the classics, right? Well, all those versions are competing with one another, kind of. But this isn’t quite all what non-compete clauses tend to do, though exclusivity clauses can be called non-compete clauses in some contracts.

In a lot of ways non-compete clauses can be…well…not good. At least for the author.

Publishers make money by selling many books by many different authors. Authors make money by selling fewer books/stories to many different publishers. What this means is, if an author has two novels, but a publisher only wants to publish one of them, the author then needs to shop the second novel with OTHER publishers in order to make money from its sale. Sames goes for novel three, or any number of short stories, novellas, and even non-fiction. Not every publisher wants the same kind of stories. Not every publisher wants the same length of stories. Not every publisher can take all a single writer write sometimes.

A non-compete clause can cut off that author’s capability of making a living if it’s worded nefariously.

What a non-compete clause can enforce is an author not attempting to publish anything else at the same time as the contracted ‘work’ will be published, or to work with another publisher at the same time. So you can see how this can really limit authors.

Non-compete clauses are basically a publisher’s desire not to undermine their bottom line if an author were to sell elsewhere. In theory, it’s an understandable gesture, particularly if it’s brought in from other career fields where the non-compete clause is meant to stop people from going after company clients, etc. But in the publishing sphere, stopping an author from shopping their other books can be a death knell. A not very nice one.

So when looking over your contracts, make sure you 1) read your non-compete clause closely to make sure it doesn’t handcuff you to a single publisher.

~Emmi

Canvas Blues – LXXVI: Yesteryears

18 Wednesday Aug 2021

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CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LXXVI: Yesteryears

Robbie wasn’t at his house, his mother giving an apologetic moue while glancing at Casey’s Mustang with a hint of disapproval. Might have been disapproval for the roaring it’d done going up the hill or might have been the fact it looked cheap in comparison to the metallic expensives sitting in the garages of this opulent zone of Castlebrock.

“He went up to Dylan’s house,” she said.

“Dylan Westerman?” asked Casey, his jaw stiffening.

“Yes. I’m not sure if they’re still there though.”

Casey spun away before Mrs. Frey could finish and was hopping down the concrete steps and crossing through the grass and mulch and gardenias while Brendon rushed a “Thank you.”

Inside the Mustang, Brendon picked the Le Mans painting back up to hold in his lap. The back seat sat laden with grocery bags bursting at the seams with Casey’s clothes. His book bag, so full it bloated, lay haphazardly on top of the mountain. But Brendon’s painting had been in the front passenger seat in a place of honor, the Le Mans not weighed down by reality, by hatred of a father to be left behind.

They pulled into Dylan’s canted driveway, the hedges trimmed to boxes, the mulch a gleaming red, the three-car garage door sitting open with both Dylan’s Audi and Robbie’s BMW in the far spots while the bay right in front of them stood starkly empty but for a few gym machines and mats.

“Robbie!” Casey shouted even before he closed the car door, before the slam rattled the Mustang, made it vibrate the painting as Brendon balanced it on the seat. “Robbie fucking Frey!”

“The whole neighborhood will hear you,” warned Brendon, trotting behind, his stomach doing flips.

“Let them,” Casey all but snarled and in that moment Brendon was just happy it wasn’t directed toward him. Continue reading →

Coffee & Conversation: Contract Terms Series (Language)

16 Monday Aug 2021

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Contract Terms Series (IANAL)

There’s a bunch of contract terms for writers that can be difficult to parse for newcomers to the genre, so I want to go over a few in a short, easy contract terms series.

(Note: I am not a lawyer. I am merely speaking from experience on the author side.)

LANGUAGE

This is an easy one. Language rights has to do with what language the contract holder has the right to publish the words/story in. Might seem like a simple, pointless thing to think about, but it’s not.

Translation rights are impacted by language grabs. And some authors make A LOT of money on translation rights. (I’m not one of them, but maybe one day).

Please note that where you can SELL a book is not the same as LANGUAGE rights. For instance, if I wanted to sell a book in Brazil, I need the right and ownership to do so and it can be in any language I want, including English. If, on the other and, I wanted to sell a book written in Portuguese, I need Portuguese rights, and this is not impacted in any way by the right to publish in particular countries. I’m using Brazil and Portuguese as my example because of the difference in name, but the same can be said for Germany/German, Spain/Spanish, etc.

Language/= right to sell in particular country.

If you sell First English Rights for Paperback, Exclusive for Three years, you are selling the right for the publisher to be the first place and only place (for three years) to publish and sell your book in the paperback format in the English language. They would not have the right to publish a German translation in any country, whether first or not.

Language is important! There are A LOT of languages out there. If your book explodes, for instance, and you don’t specific ENGLISH (or whatever your first/selling language is), then your publisher has the RIGHT to translate your book in however many languages they want. They still have to pay your royalties based on your contract wording on how much you get per format sale, but you would lose the opportunity to negotiate your own translation deals for possibly better royalty rates.

When looking at language in your contract, make sure that 1) the contract specifies the exact language(s) that the publisher will be using. Otherwise, they can grab all those languages and argue that the wording of your contract allows it.

~Emmi

Canvas Blues – LXXV: Yesteryears

11 Wednesday Aug 2021

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CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

LXXV: Yesteryears

Saturday came with a sprinkle, leaving yellow pollen outlines to mark parked cars even long after they’d driven off. Brendon’s father decided to replace the mailbox—“Been pooling water for months ever since those stupid kids batted a three hundred down the street”—and his mother had gone off shopping with Aunt Laurel, leaving Brendon alone during that auspicious morning.

Had he been able to go back, just not answered the door, remained crossed-legged on his bed sketching out a thirty-by-thirty-inch spaceship on cheap poster board…

But he hadn’t known, had he?

Casey scowled when Brendon opened the door. “What’s this I hear about you writing comics with Robbie?”

“I—”

“Is that where you are all these nights? Not actually doing homework?”

“We only meet up like once or twice a week. I didn’t think you’d care. Aren’t the two of you friends again?”

“Friends?” Casey scoffed and tossed his hair out of his eyes distractedly. “He’s no friend of mine.”

Brendon sagged against the door frame. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened. Unless you mean my boyfriend is chilling at a stuck-up douche’s house when I call.” Continue reading →