Tisha MorrisFounder & Principal Attorney, Legacy Arts Law PC · 🎬 Entertainment Attorney | Protecting & Empowering Filmmakers, Authors, Artists & Creators | Founder of Legacy Arts Law® | Legal Clarity for Creatives

Subsidiary Rights in Publishing Contracts #publishingtips #authortube #publishingindustry

24 Jul 2024 · 1 min

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In this short video, author Tisha Morris warns writers to scrutinize subsidiary rights clauses before signing any publishing contract, whether with a hybrid, traditional, or small press. She explains that large publishers typically have teams to exploit rights for audiobooks, ebooks, TV, and film, but smaller publishers may not. Authors should confirm which rights the publisher will actively develop and negotiate to retain or revert rights for formats the publisher won’t exploit. Tisha advises inserting clear clauses at the front of the contract, using reversion provisions if rights aren’t used within a set timeframe, and generally staying proactive about audiobook, ebook, and media rights to maximize a book’s potential.

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Hey TikTok, this is Tisha. Today I want to talk about one of the biggest overlooked areas in publishing contracts. So if you're an author and you're signing with a publisher, whether it's hybrid or whatever kind of publisher, listen up. You want to be careful of whether you're signing away your subsidiary rights to a publisher who's not going to exploit them. It's one thing if it's a big publisher, traditional publishing, who has a, has a whole team who works on TV, film, and so forth. But if it's a smaller publisher, are they going to make an audiobook? Are they going to make it, make an ebook? These are questions you need to find out before you sign, and if they're not, then don't agree to have your rights signed off on. All right, so it's easier to do it on the front of the contract as opposed to down the line. So if they're not going to make an audiobook, you may not want to make— you may want to make an audiobook. Same with the ebook, same with TV film, even in nonfiction. If your book needs to be used in a documentary, you want to have those rights already ready to go. You can also do writer reversion where they don't exploit it within a year or two, you get the rights back. More tips follow me.