How to read a publishing contract (6)

After the clause about making sure you get it right the first time, there is a clause about correcting the mistakes if you didn't all get it right. That's not pessimistic, it's realistic. There will always be mistakes in a book...

6. Author's Corrections

The Author undertakes to read, check and correct the proofs and to return them to the Publishers within 14 (fourteen) days of their receipt, failing which the Publishers may consider the proofs as passed for press. The cost of all alterations and corrections made by the Author in the finished artwork and in the proofs (other than the correction of artists', copy editors' and printers' errors) above 10% (ten per cent) of the original cost of composition and/or artists' fees shall be borne by the Author. Should any charge arise under this clause the amount may be deducted from anysum which may become due to the Author under this Agreement. In the event of such charge exceeding the payments due to the Author under this Agreement the Author agrees to pay the Publishers the balance due promptly on receipt of such charge.

This means you have to check everything very carefully because if mistakes which are your fault get through to proof stage you may have to pay to have them corrected.

read, check and correct the proofs: There are usually several points at which you get the chance to check the book, and you should make sure there will be such opportunities. Typically, they are:

• edited text - the editor may ask you for some changes in advance of editing, and may ask you for further changes when (s)he has edited the text. You should then see the edited text so that you can check it yourself. Make sure the editor has not introduced anything that is inaccurate (if it is a non-fiction book). If it is fiction, the editor should have discussed any changes with you in detail and made sure you agreed to them, or asked you to make all changes. In a non-fiction book, many editors take a very cavalier attitude, or are ignorant of the topic, and make changes that damage the accuracy or integrity of the book. This is such a large and troublesome issue that I will write a separate post on it at some point. For now, just be aware that you have to look out for this.
• artwork rough/picture selection - after the illustrator has been briefed, (s)he will produce roughs, which are pencil sketches of the proposed illustrations. You need to check these carefully to make sure they show exactly what is needed. If there is something in the roughs which you should have objected to, but which makes it through to the final artwork, you may have to pay to have the picture redrawn because you should have spotted the mistake at the roughs stage. If the error is not evident in the roughs, that counts as an illustrator's error and you won't have to pay. But if there is anything which you can foresee may go wrong or be missed out, flag it early (a) to be on the safe side and (b) to save time and everyone's work later. If the book is illustrated with photos from a picture library, you should see the selection of photos, preferably before layout, so that you can approve them or ask for them to be changed. If you accept a photo at this stage and change your mind later, you may be asked to pay the cost of changing it (picture research fees, picture licensing if it has got that far).
• layout - the layouts will probably be sent to you as PDF files. The layouts are the text and pictures combined into pages, so this is the point at which you will see how the text and pictures relate to each other, where page breaks fall, and so on. Make sure the pictures are in the right places, read the text carefully, write any captions if they are needed (or check the editor has written sensible captions if you are not doing them yourself). You may receive layouts as printed pages, though this is less common these days. In highly illustrated books, a PDF may be too large to send to you and then you will have printed pages. You can either mark them up (in pen, never pencil) and send them back, or make a list of changes which you email to the editor. The latter takes longer but has the advantage that you keep your copy of the proofs, which is useful if you need to discuss changes with the editor, and there is no chance of them being lost in the post.
• proofs - layouts are not proofs. Proofs are page proofs, and are generally produced by the printers. They should be on nice quality paper, in full colour (if the book is in colour) and at full size. They should look exactly like the printed pages will look with the exception that they have not been trimmed (so the pages are printed on larger sheets of paper). You might, perhaps, come across the term galley proofs. This is a relic from the age of the dinosaurs when proofs were printed on long strips of paper. You won't actually see a galley proof (I don't think I've seen one since the 1980s), so if you come across the term the publisher will really mean page proofs (ie they are printed on pages).

alterations and corrections - alterations are changes you make to improve the book; corrections are changes you make because something was wrong. Alterations can generally be avoided, whereas corrections must be made. So if you want to change the name of a character because you have just found that another author is publishing a book with a very similar character with the same name (this happened to me once), you can ask to make an alteration. In this case, the publisher felt it was in their interests to change the name and it was accomplished quickly and without any fuss. If you write a book about picking and eating mushrooms and find that you have included a deadly fungus in a recipe, that is a mistake and you will need to correct it (otherwise you are going to fall foul of clause 13...). The publisher will want you to correct it, anyway.

Now, these are fairly straightforward and the publisher is unlikely to want you to pay for them. Suppose you had written a book about a Roman soldier with a magic sword and you had sent the illustrator reference (ie pictures on which to base the illustrations) which showed a Greek sword. At the last minute, you notice there is the wrong type of sword in every picture. You supplied the reference, so the illustrator is not at fault. You will very likely have to pay to have all the sword pictures redrawn, or the book will go out with the wrong sword in it and you will look a fool - because, believe me, people WILL pick up on it. The world is full of fanatics who seem to spend every waking minute looking for mistakes in books so that they can complain to the publishers.

The best way to avoid any arguments over this clause later is to check at every stage so that no errors get through to proofs. It does not actually cost very much to change the text these days as there is no such thing as real metal typesetting any more. Even so, any changes to page breaks have a knock-on effect, anything that requires changing or moving pictures causes problems, and changes that go over more than one page (such as changing the spelling of a name) can become expensive. The files sent to the printers will usually have to be regenerated (small text changes to a single page are often handled by the printers, but not larger changes or changes to pictures).

original cost of composition = what the publisher has paid to make the pages look like they do. Originally, 'composition' meant the compositor's fee. The compositor used metal type to make a plate for the pages, then used a computer to do this. Now, page make-up is done in a layout program such as Quark or InDesign and there is no compositor. Composition means doing the layout and producing the files for repro. Notice that this clause covers composition 'and/or artists' fees'. The latter are likely to be much higher (per page) than the cost of composition, but changing a picture will also mean redoing the page layout.

The only dodgy part of this clause is the final point, that if the costs exceed what they are paying you, you will have to pay the extra. To be honest, you would need to screw up pretty badly for this to happen - unless it is an academic book for which you are getting practically no money. In that case, I'd argue against this final bit. Normally, though, you would have to be quite incompetent to run up such a large bill for changes and corrections that you were paying the publisher. Even then, it's reasonable as you have incurred the cost. If you are so bad at the business that you can't check the book properly in advance, frankly it serves you right. However, it is important that you make sure there are opportunities to check before page proofs. If the contract is from a publisher you haven't worked with before, it is worth checking before signing that you will see edited text and layouts before page proofs. You will always spot errors once the text has been away from your for a while, so it's important that you can correct them at a relatively early (and free) stage.

Most arguments arising from this clause are likely to be over who is responsible for the errors, and I'll deal with that another day. On balance, apart from checking at which stages prior to proofs you will see the book, you can accept this clause without a fuss (unless you might fall foul of the 'you pay us' clause at the end).

How to read a publishing contract (5)

I'm back! LBF done (new post on it soon - or maybe not; perhaps we've all had enough LBF now), and back to that contract. Incidentally, I had a stroppyish email from an editor who said she couldn't pass my invoice for payment of the on-signature tranche because I hadn't sent the contract back. Ooooops. Don't forget that you actually have to get to the end of the contract, negotiate, sign it and send it back some day!

Here we go. This is a pretty crucial clause as if you don't send the book in, and in a form the publisher likes, it won't be published:

5. Conditions and Acceptance

The Publishers shall have the right as a condition of acceptance to require such amendments or corrections by the Author to the typescript and/or illustrative material as they think fit. Should the Author fail to carry out such amendments or corrections to the satisfaction of the Publishers, they shall have the right to reject the work, and in such event this Agreement shall be terminated and all rights in the Work shall revert to the Author, any advance payment made to the Author shall forthwith become repayable to the Publishers. The Author shall not be at liberty to publish the Work or enter into an agreement for publication of the Work elsewhere until such advance has been repaid.

This means that if the publisher wants you to change things in the book, you have to make those changes before they will publish the book. If you don't make the changes, the book will be rejected, you have to repay any money you've had, and you can take the book elsewhere. This might look fairly non-controversial and straightforward, but it means more than it appears to mean.

When you first read this clause, you will probably think it means 'does the book do as it set out to do what it says in the synopsis?' and 'does the book have errors, inconsistencies and other faults that must be corrected?' This is certainly part of what it means. Let's look at this first.

If yours is a non-fiction book,and the editor/consultant has checked the book and found there are things that are wrong and need to be corrected, you need to put them right. It might mean you have missed something out that you have to add, or that you have included something they consider irrelevant that you must remove. In either a fiction or non-fiction book it can mean that your writing is not good enough and you need to improve the style, or that the structure does not work and you need to improve the narrative flow or the logic of the argument. If it is fiction, the characters may be inconsistent, or the action implausible, or any number of other faults, all of which may not have been obvious from the synopsis. All of these aspects are to do with you, the writer, having done the job badly and the publisher wanting you to put it right. Fair enough.

But what if you don't agree that the features the publisher has identified as faults are actually faults? What if the changes the publisher wants are unacceptable to you? We'll leave aside whether you are right - whether it would actually be a better book if you did as you were told - as I can't judge that without seeing your book and the publisher's requirements. It is enough that you are certain the publisher is wrong and you don't want to make the changes. This clause works in your favour as well as theirs. It means that if you are adamant that you won't change a character, restructure the plot, rewrite in a less/more flowery style, add a chapter on nuclear power, remove an incident, add counter-arguments or whatever - you don't have to. You can say 'I will not make these changes, as it will then not be the book I wanted to write, or a book I want my name on. So the agreement is at an end and I will take my book away and here is your money. Goodbye.'

Scary? Well, maybe. But it's scary for them, too, especially if your book is part of a series and the rest of the series is all on target.

Of course, you don't need to say all that at once - it depends how strongly you feel and how strongly you think they feel. If they say your book is badly written, it probably is, to be honest (especially if you haven't published (m)any other books or your previous books have been heavily edited). They are the experts. If it is a difference of opinion - they think it would be better if you did certain things, but you think what they want would change the argument/nature of the book in a way unacceptable to you - it's worth arguing your case. If you can put a cogent and persuasive case, they may agree you are right. But this is all for the future - let's not jump ahead to your book encountering problems. The point here is that this clause is your friend: it means you keep control over your book as long as you are willing to walk away from the money and from publication. Maybe you aren't. But it's not a clause you can get struck out, and it's not a clause you should try to get struck out, as it gives you as much protection as it gives the publisher.

This one gets through without argument. By the way, 'advance' may also be 'fee' if the book is for a flat fee. And you only have to correct the illustrations if you are the illustrator. There will be more about corrections in clause 6.