Once I get my first contract and sign for a multi-million dollar advance, I'll look like this lady above. wink. wink. I'm kidding. But, when publishing does become part of my world, today's lecture recap will come in handy. This is day 4 in the SCBWI spring conference recap. This one will be short and sweet.
Gail Gross from Intellectual Property Attorney, LLC, spoke about the technical side of contracts and negotiations. I scribbled notes furiously while she promised to "go slow," but I was soon left in her dust of terms and negotiations. Two things I learned from this lecture:
1) When I get published, if I don't have an agent, I better hire someone to read over the contract for me because I don't know enough to know if it's fair and if all of the rights are taken care of properly.
2) I need an agent.
3) I promised only two, but here's a bonus. When I start getting royalty reports, I should do the math myself and make sure the "numbers add up." Since I was a nerd and loved math in school, (I often taught English using mathematical equations since it just made more sense to me that way), I think I'll enjoy this part of the publishing experience. Gail also cautioned that "cumulative" does not necessarily mean publishers are calculating from the beginning of the contract. Sometimes it's just from the beginning of the last time they fixed or upgraded their computers.
**Photo courtesy of Okie Book Woman
1 comment:
Gail really was great. Authors need a reminder every once in a while that it is, at least in part, a little about the numbers!
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