The Fine Print

Although I am an independent editor, I worked at several New York publishing houses for two decades, and during that time I became well versed in the legal issues involved in that industry. One night I received a call from a friend of a friend who was very upset about, of all things, the contract with their publisher. The author, owner of a wonderful ice cream shop, had been signed up to write a book about making different-flavored ice cream at home. Yet he wasn’t a writer; he made ice cream. So upon a friend’s recommendation he hired a young woman who called herself a ghostwriter. 

All was going swimmingly until the inexperienced ghostwriter took a look at the contract. She discovered all sorts of very threatening legal clauses that could put not only her but the author, his wife, children, and all their descendants in jail for 99 years. Well, I exaggerate, but that was the alarm level of the poor fellow calling me. Over the course of an hour I managed to calm him down, giving him the same advice contained in this post. 

If you are fortunate enough to sell your manuscript to a publisher, you should be aware that 98% of all book contract clauses are boilerplate. I have reviewed literally thousands of contracts, and almost all of the clauses appear in every one of them. They are framed by the legal eagles at the publishing house, who take their responsibilities to protect their employer seriously. So they have a clause to cover every contingency you can imagine. 

As alarming as the pages upon pages of clauses seem, you need to ask yourself a simple question. How often do you hear about publishers suing authors? Very seldom. There is a simple reason why. A publisher does not want to sue the originators of the money it makes. In other words, all those fancy clauses hardly ever take effect. Publishers sue authors for basically one reason: to get back advance money they paid out for a manuscript that the author never ended up delivering. So unless you plan to scam your publisher, you shouldn’t antagonize your editor or your agent about what is never going to happen. 

The key clauses in a contract are the advance (money paid up-front that is usually represents what the publisher thinks you'll earn over the lifetime of the book) and the percentage of the gross sales you'll be paid for the different phases (hardcover, paperback, ebook). The advance clause is usually the only one that ever changes from contract to contract, besides the line for your signature. 

You have plenty of reasons to protect yourself in the publishing world. You need to know how many copies of the book the publisher is going to distribute. You should fight to have it released during a good sales period of the year. You should lobby for as many promotion dollars as you can. But the contract? If you see any issues, take it up with your agent—and be guided by what she says.

Copyright @ 2026, John Paine