DOWNLOAD A PDF FILE OF OUR WISDOM HOUSE BOOKS PUBLISHING CONTRACT
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
ABOUT PUBLISHING CONTRACTS
- Be sure they guarantee you all rights to your own work. Some "inexpensive" online publishers keep your rights and do a very poor publishing job. When you later want to take your book to a professional, you will have to pay thousands to get the rights to your book back. Others have the ISBN in their name, so you never see what sales your book actually makes, leaving you to trust the publisher's accounting. (At Wisdom House Books, you get the copyright AND the ISBN in your name. The checks come directly to you, bypassing the publisher altogether!)
- Be sure the royalty agreement is laid out in clear terms so you know exactly how much money the publisher is taking from your pocket. (At Wisdom House Books, there are no surprises. You get 100% royalties!)
- Make sure you know what the definition of "editing" is for your publisher, and know the definition of a "page." Don't get charged for editing blank pages or pages with only a few words on them. If page count is not determined by a word count, they may lay out your book to have more pages in order to charge you a higher fee. And make sure a qualified, experienced editor is editing your book. Some publishers call running a manuscript through software "editing." (It's all spelled out and simplified in our contract, and you only get the most professional, qualified editors.)
- If you are using your book to increase your credibility for professional reasons, don't settle for a publisher who does not insist on editing and proofing your manuscript using at least two professional, qualified book editors according to the Chicago Manual of Style. There is nothing worse than paying money to have your book edited and published and realizing once you have it in hand that it was done poorly and will do more to hurt your career than help it. (We are so proud that our editors are trained, vetted, tested, and tried. It's guaranteed in your Wisdom House Book! We also provide a second editor to proof your book for any errors the first one may have missed. You won't find that elsewhere!)
- Ensure that you get to set the price for the book. Publishers have been known to set the price of a book so high that no one will buy it, just to get a higher return from the books your friends and family buy. (Of course we let you set your own price!)
- Don't sign a contract you don't have the right to terminate at any time. (You are the boss, and you don't make the final payment until you are 100% satisfied that your book is ready to go to print.)
- If the publisher charges you royalties, they should be giving you some quality service for those royalties—primarily free book promotion by experienced professionals. (We don't keep your royalties. We allow you to determine how much you want to spend on book promotion and direct you to professionals who know what they're doing. We believe publishers should wear only one hat at a time. Better to do one thing well than a lot of things poorly.)
- People do judge books by their covers, and they will judge the author by the cover of his/her book as well. The contract should stipulate that the cover will be designed by a professional, experienced book designer, and that the design will be original and not a template. (Just by looking at our book covers, you can see that we hire talented professionals, but it's also spelled out in our contract.)
THE WISDOM HOUSE BOOKS
PUBLISHING CONTRACT
Tel. 512-637-1333
"The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny ... it is the light that guides your way."
--Heraclitus
"The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."
--Socrates
"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
--Dr. Seuss
