Last month, we touched on the topic of negotiating a contract. Let's go over some of the prominent sections in a typical contract and discuss what items might be most worthwhile to negotiate.

Grant of Rights

In order to discuss this section, you should have a good basic understanding of copyright and the concept of a grant of rights. You can legally offer to sell all kinds of rights to publish your work. You could offer first print rights, foreign language rights, all rights-you can even make up your own rights, like Eastern Seaboard rights or Latin-derived language rights. Go to www.copyright.gov, read it and understand it. If you have any questions, ask in the forum.

Due to the nature of RPG publishing, publishers aren't willing to yield very much on rights compared to rest of the book trade. In many cases, you're creating a derivative work based on their intellectual property. By legal default, they might already own what you write.

While you don't have much wiggle room here, you might be able to sell only print rights, saving electronic rights for later. On the other hand, if you're selling the work to a PDF publisher, you might reverse this concept and retain print publication rights for sale later. If so, be honest and forthcoming with your publisher; don't "forget to mention" that you've already sold the electronic rights and that you're offering a reprint.

If you write generic, system-less material, the question of copyright becomes clear: you own it. You have much more freedom as to what you want to do with it. You could sell first print rights for an anthology and then republish the material as part of a larger work of your own.

Payment

Your cash payment is the most basic and perhaps most important element of a contract. I've included a discussion on the merits of writing for royalties vs. writing for a word rate in a previous column, so you might want to read that in conjunction with this article.

Although I've mentioned it before, it's worth repeating: if the publisher pays a royalty rate, make sure the contract is clear on whether the royalties are paid on net price or on cover price. The net price is typically about 40-45% of the cover price, so royalties are similarly less.

I have seen new publishers offer an advance on works published in the RPG industry. Typically, these newcomers show signs of an Implosion (see July's article) waiting to happen. However, here's an explanation in case you see it in a contract: advance is short for "advance against royalties" and it's a fraction of your royalties that the publisher pays you in advance of the book's publication. Typically, in the book trade, the advance is what the publisher expects to pay you if the first print run sells through ("earns out" in publishing parlance). If the book does better than expected, you earn more. If not, you don't earn less--you never have to pay an advance back.

With a word rate, you certainly have the right to ask for a greater rate per word. If you have extensive experience, point that out. If you have an established fan base, mention it. If you had to spend long hours in research on this book compared to other books you've written for the publisher, cite that as a reason for asking for a greater rate. If the publisher normally lists 3 cents/word as their normal rate, it's perfectly acceptable for you to ask for 5 or 6 cents/word. I've worked with several publications for which the difference between their advertised rate and their frequently-paid rates was quite different. White Wolf, for example, advertised a rate of 3-7 cents/word for D20 material, although they quickly offered that they will negotiate up to 9 cents/word for the right person.

When looking at word rate, it's standard for the publisher to pay based on their final, edited word count, not on what you submit. That's normal and not likely to change for any reason. It's very helpful to find out what their procedure is, however: do they make changes in-house without consulting you, or do they send you a list of changes and dump it back on you? Ask.

Climbing Royalties

A standard element of a royalty rate in the book trade is a climbing rate. The standard rate might be 10%, but if the book sells over x number of copies, the rate for those copies increases to 12.5%, and then at y copies, it becomes 15%. If you can't get the publisher to budge on the base rate, ask about a climbing rate and then negotiate either the percentage points or the levels at which your higher rates kick in. Or both.

Kill Fee

A kill fee is a payment the publisher makes to you in the event that the publisher agrees to use a work and ends up not publishing it. In the case of an article or other work paid on a word rate, a common kill fee is half the expected rate.

Note that you have still sold your rights to this article and may not resell them to another market. I will never advice deceit or shady tactics and urge you not to consider this option if you receive a kill fee. Not only is it unethical, it's stupid: the industry's too small for other publishers not to find out about it.

Payment Terms

It might be easier to negotiate when the market pays you rather than how much they pay you. If a magazine pays on publication, you can ask for payment on acceptance. That might get you a check up to two years sooner than you expected.

Some publishers offer payment in installments. Part of the payment will be on contract signing, and another payment might be due when you send in your first draft. You can always ask for larger amounts up front. You might have to buy several books for research, attend one of the conventions to meet the publisher in person, or have other costs.

Cover Credit

Most publishers give an author cover credit if he contributes more than 5-10% of the text. Otherwise, that writer receives credit inside the cover as an "Additional Contributor" or something similar. Find out what your publisher's policies are and, in the case of a collaboration, how they determine primary credit.

If you have substantial name recognition and the publisher is new, you both benefit if your name is more prominent. You might insist on a certain size relative to the title, or that your name appear as part of the title (as in a fictional Gary Gygax's Complete Guide to Anagrams and Homages).

Comp Copies

A typical number of complimentary copies ranges from 2 to 5. RPG publishers, who often have to provide comp copies to a relatively large number of writers, artists and playtesters, prefer to keep this number low. However, it's not unreasonable for you to ask for a few more. For comparison, mainstream publishers typically offer 25-50, and many give up to 100 without blinking.

You might want to purchase additional copies to sell at local conventions, give away to local game stores, or at local author events, or even to give to friends and family. You can ask for a discount on these books-typically up to 50% or even 60% off.

Art Approval

Publishers are leery about extending the right to approve art to writers, and I understand their concern. A good writer is not necessarily a good art director. On the other hand, including this clause could have saved the author of Crunchy Frog's The Horror Beneath some embarrassment.

You have the strongest case for asking for this right if you're selling a campaign setting rather than a supplement for someone else's setting and if tone and image are strong elements of your setting. You also have a case if you're writing an adventure: you don't want the cover art (front or back) to give away a key secret or encounter that takes place during the adventure.

Remainders

Not often mentioned in the RPG market, remainders are the leftover books the publisher might still have in storage upon moving the book from front- or mid-list to backlist. You should have the right to buy these remainders at cost. While not everyone needs them, your situation could change in 3-4 years and you might wish you had written this option into your contract.

Other Items

Occasionally, you might see a mention of an Option on Next Work. Often in the book trade, publishers offer multiple-book contracts to authors. A single book by a single author doesn't make much money, but an entire line of works can be very lucrative. This item might appear in an RPG contract as a holdover from a template the company used when drafting their standard contract. Cross it out if you don't want to agree to it, and I can't think of any company that will protest.

Nearly all contracts include a variation of the Publisher's Right to Terminate. If you turn in garbage, they're not obligated to print it. If you argue this point, all you'll do is raise eyebrows and generate doubt as to your ability to complete the project. Don't touch it. Other reasons to terminate a project might include cancellation of the product line, the end of a license period, or just plain being short on cash. If you negotiated a kill fee, you'll be glad you did.

If you have a question about a publisher's contract, please post it here. Keep the publisher anonymous, and if you'd prefer to send me a private message because your public association makes anonymity impossible, feel free.