New Contract in the Works

If you like DEXTER, you'll enjoy this one!

 

New Contract in the Works

We are in the process of editing our contract for several reasons. Our contract is based upon one produced by EPIC and recommended to both authors and publishers as “a standard of fairness” in the e-book industry. 

 

A copy will be posted to this blog when it is complete and you will all be able to offer input, questions and advice, before it goes up on the web site for signing. Once the Board of Directors has adopted the new contract its terms will apply to all contracts presently in effect, though we would like all of you to send us the additional information asked for at that time.

 

Planned Changes:

 

We like our contract, but would like it to reflect a few changes that have come up in the industry over the years:

1. Only one contract should be necessary and it should cover both e-book publication and POD publication. When the present one was written, we did not produce paper books and the second contract was added to cover that when we began.

2. Language should be clear and easy to understand.  Each time a new author is signed, we inevitably get questions via e-mail about what something means. Sure, the answers are posted on the web site, but the language in the contract should be clear and understandable on its own.

3. We need to provide for eventualities. The copyright laws assure your rights for the next 150 years. A few of our authors have suffered illnesses. One had a stroke on the tennis court and if his daughter had not kindly informed us, we would not have had any information on who could accept his royalty payments for him. So you will be asked for that information as well.

4. The present contract gives some information about the obligations of the Publisher, but they are only general ones. We believe an author should understand exactly what the responsibilities of the publisher are and will outline them in specific terms.

5. ALL ROYALTY PAYMENTS AND PERCENTAGES WILL REMAIN THE SAME, but we would like to implement the electronic transfer of funds via PayPal if at all possible. All payment will be sent as “money owed” so the full amount should be received by the author and transfer costs will accrue to the Publisher’s account. Postage is going up again in the new year.

6. Royalty payments will change to reflect the present practice of paying every author, every cent, every quarter. It costs more time and trouble in bookkeeping to wait until the amount reaches a certain level and regardless of the contract wording we have not been holding any monies back for the past five years.