Publishing Choices For Writers - Self-Publishing Vanity Presses (Part One)

Another type of publishing under the self-publishing umbrella is what is euphemistically called Vanity publishing or a Vanity press. A vanity publisher is one which will publish any book as long as an author is willing to pay for it. Because it is almost impossible for someone to get into a traditional publishing house as an unknown, vanity presses are very attractive to new authors.

The name vanity publishing stems from the fact that certain publishers, for a fee, will publish any work by appealing to an author's vanity. These authors would be willing to pay a fee to see their name in print, no matter what the quality of the manuscript. As such, vanity presses gained a reputation of being more interested in the money they got from the authors than in the quality of work since the author takes on not only all the costs but also all the risks of the success of their book. Basically then, vanity presses have nothing to lose by publishing any type of work.

This stigma attached to vanity publishers has only recently begun to be re-evaluated as the publishing industry's choices have expanded and new vanity presses have changed the vanity press business model. However, depending upon who you talk to and their outlook on vanity publishing, an author will need to look closely as to whether or not they want to choose to publish with a vanity publisher.

There are several keys to recognizing whether or not a company is a vanity publisher. The vanity publishing business model is based upon obtaining profits from being paid by the author rather than from any sales of a book. Since they will have already received their income from making the book, a true vanity publisher does not have to be concerned with the quality of the work they publish because they do not care whether or not the book ever sells.

A second key to look for when trying to determine whether an author wants to work with a vanity publisher are the services that are provided to help the author with their book. A true vanity publisher will offer no services to an author and will take a work and publish it "as is", no matter how many spelling or grammatical errors the work contains. If an author just wants to see their book in print, then this will not be an issue. However, if an author wants to have a book they are proud of displaying, then having the option to take advantage of editorial and design services is a necessity in any publisher they choose.

More recently, hybrid vanity publishing houses have emerged which are changing the way the public is looking at vanity publishing. Author House, IUniverse, Lulu, UPublish, Xlibris are all examples of hybrid vanity presses. Like vanity presses, they will publish any work for a fee, no matter the quality of the work with no editorial quality assurance review. However, these houses have added editorial and design services that an author can pay for, thus making them not true vanity houses, but rather vanity hybrids. If an author takes advantage of the editorial, cover design and layout services, these presses can produce excellent work.

Why would any author want to publish with a vanity house if it has such a bad reputation? In part two of this series about vanity publishing, I will discuss several reasons why a vanity press may be an appropriate option for an author.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books ( http://www.ourlittlebooks.com ) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report/. Enjoy!

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Publishing Choices For Writers Series - Introduction

Most everyone feels they have a book in them. Eventually, a small percentage of those people will actually become an author and write a book. It used to be that even a smaller percentage of those who actually wrote a book were ever able to get it published despite the fact that was their goal. However, with advancing technology, anyone who has written a book can now get it published in some form or another. For authors, the world of publishing has blow wide open.

There are basically two types of publishers- the traditional publishers and self-publishers. Traditional publishers are any publisher who pays an author an "advance" in hopes of recouping their money (and more) through sales of a popular book. The traditional publisher model has stayed fairly consistent over the years.

Self publishers on the other hand, have changed and evolved with the times. Initially, self-publishing consisted of subsidy and vanity publishers who pretty much published any book for a fee, no matter the quality of the manuscript. If an author was self-published, their work was not viewed with any credibility. Off-shoots of this idea developed such as co-publishing and shared publishing, where self-publishing companies took an active role in helping the author and were more discerning about what manuscripts they published.

These concepts eventually morphed into POD or print on demand companies who may or may not work with the author, but who only printed a copy of a book when the book was bought. Finally, publishing has evolved most recently into e-books; books that are read on a computer and not physically printed. This e-book niche exploded beyond computers with the advent of e-readers such as the Kindle, Nook or iPad and people can even read books on their smart phones. Nowadays, the opportunities for an author to get their work published seem endless!

Book publishing is difficult no matter how a book is published. And like all industries, there are good players and bad players which can give the different types of publishing a bad reputation. But each method of publishing has its benefits and detriments and you probably can not say that one is better than another. They are just different.

While traditional publishers initially looked down on self-publishing and convinced the literary world that self-published authors were not as good as traditionally published authors, these same traditional publishers have had to scramble to change their business models as their profits eroded to the various different self-publishing models. But the bottom line is that the publishing world has opened up opportunities everywhere for authors to find some method to get their books printed. Authors are no longer limited to just one method of seeing their work. And that is a good thing for writers.

Authors have to find the right modality to fit their work. Books that look great in print may not be e-book material. At the same time, the e-book method may be the only way that some authors can make any money. Authors may only want a few books for just their friends and family, while others may see their book as being number one on the New York Times best-seller list. What all these options do, depending on what an author needs, is to give every author a chance to become published and that was not the case in the past.

With the new and different publishing opportunities come new and different responsibilities for authors. Authors need to be aware of these prior to choosing any one specific method to publish their book. In the other articles in this series, I will discuss the different methods of publishing, their pros and cons. With this information, potential or repeat authors will be able to examine the opportunities now open to them and make better choices on how they want their book published.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books ( http://www.ourlittlebooks.com ) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report/. Enjoy!

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Publishing Choices For Writers - Traditional Publishing, Part One

In another article in this series, I discussed the evolution of publishing and how the opportunities have exploded for authors to have their works published. In this article, I will discuss the original form of publishing, commonly called traditional publishing, what it is, and why an author may or may not want to go the traditional publishing route to get their work published.

It used to be the choices for authors were easy. The only way you could get your book published was to have a publishing company offer you a contract. With this traditional method, in return for providing editing, proofing, design and printing as well as guidance and experience at no cost to the author, an author gives away any rights and control of their book to the publisher. The publisher makes their own decisions as to editing and cover choices, often times effecting changes that the author may not agree with. While an author may have some input, the final decision is up to the publisher which often causes friction between publisher and author.

An example of such a conflict, and one that has played out over the past several years with many different authors, has involved cover choices. In each situation, the author's story involved a person of color. However, the cover the publisher chose showed a person of Caucasian decent.

While the author argued that it was necessary to be true to the story, the publisher looked to the bottom line, believing that Caucasians would not buy a book with a person of color on its cover. Because the author gave up their rights to the book, the publisher had the final say. [But the times may be changing. Just this past year, a publisher received enough backlash from the general public about their misrepresented character on the cover, that they withdrew the book and re-published it with a new, correctly characterized cover].

In exchange for giving up all rights to their book, the publishing company pays an author an advance against future royalties that may or may not be earned back by the sale of the book. This advance can be anywhere from a few hundred to millions of dollars if you are already a best selling author. While smaller presses are more likely to give new writers a chance, that chance would be reflected in a smaller advance offered to an author. But no matter how large or small the advance, this advance is not "free" money to the author, as the publishing company deducts future royalties out of the advance until the publisher has recouped its investment.

With traditional publishers, the publishing company is betting the book will sell, at a minimum, enough copies to cover the advance, so the size of the advance is based upon the number of books the publisher thinks it can sell to cover its costs. If a book does not sell, the publisher would be out the advance they paid the author and they will not get their costs covered. If the book does sell, the publisher's costs are covered, their advance is paid off and future sales bring in money not only for the publisher but for the author as they begin to get ongoing royalties. However, these royalties are only a very small percentage from the sale of each book, usually on average of around seven percent. Therefore, for an author to actually make money from their book, there has to be a large number of book sales.

In the second part of this article on traditional publishing, I will discuss the games publishers play and the pros and cons of choosing to go with a traditional publisher.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books ( http://www.ourlittlebooks.com ) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report/. Enjoy!

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Publishing Choices For Writers - Traditional Publishing, Part Two

In Part One of the discussion on traditional publishing, I discussed the give and take of traditional publishing. The publisher gives the author an advance and takes from the author the rights to basically do what they want with the book. The game then for the publisher is to chose a quality book that it believes is marketable, will be popular and sell many copies. This is why a traditional publisher is so choosy in what manuscripts they accept (usually from one to three percent of all submitted manuscripts) and why it is a good idea for an author to have an agent who knows the publishing ropes, and who can work on an author's behalf.

Generally, to have a chance at being picked up by a traditional publisher, an author needs an agent. Publishers receive numerous unsolicited manuscripts all the time. Many unsolicited manuscripts are not ready for publishing or are not marketable in their current state so they are not considered at all. While generally editors will look at all these manuscripts and actually read a few, the chances of being "discovered" among all the unsolicited manuscripts are slim to none. However, an agent has the experience to know what can be a successful manuscript and will personally submit a work to any number of publishers in hopes of receiving an initial positive response.

In order to obtain an agent and subsequently a publisher, an author will have to put together an all-embracing book proposal. This can be very time consuming and expensive if the author hires someone else to do it for them, and not necessarily successful if an writer decides to do it themselves. Then, assuming the author hires an agent, and the agent gets a publishing company to go forward with the manuscript, the agent negotiates a publishing contract. Chances are, most authors will not get a huge advance on their first book as the publishing company wants to see how successful a new writer can be. There are always exceptions, but for the average author, it is best not to plan on making a living on their first book! However, an author with a publishing contract will not have to come up with any money to get their book published.

If an author is published by a traditional publishing company, they will automatically have credibility as an expert with the prestige that goes along with that. The publisher will help with marketing and distribution of the book, providing some publicity support. They will get the book into stores. Sometimes the company will even set up opportunities for the author for speaking engagements and book signings. However, unless the author is very well known, this media exposure may only last for a couple of months. Even with a traditional publisher, for an author to prove their worth by sales (which will translate to bigger advances for a second book), they must be willing to put in time, effort and money to promote their own book in addition to any efforts by the publisher.

In the other articles in this publishing choices for writers series, I will discuss the more recent choices of publishing, including all the available options under the self-publishing umbrella, that an author now has to get their book published.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books ( http://www.ourlittlebooks.com ) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report/. Enjoy!

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Publishing Choices For Writers - Self-Publishing - Part Two

In Part One of the Self-Publishing review, I discussed the background of self-publishing and brought up many retained prejudices which authors must consider prior to self-publishing. In True self-publishing, where an author does everything and actually forms their own publishing company, one of the largest negatives is that an author invests all their own capital to publish their work.

However, and this is the huge benefit of being their own self-publisher, in return for their investment, the author owns all the rights to their book and has all the freedom they want when dealing with content, editing and cover. They have the final say in what their book looks and sounds like. They have control over all the production and how their book gets out into the world. True freedom!

Also, having full control of their work means the author has full control over all the profits from the sale of the book. There is no share of cost to an agent or publisher because the author is the publisher. The author can choose what to sell the book for and how much in discounts they are willing to give. Generally, the goal of the self-publisher is to make money on their books and they will make money on every book that they sell.

The author also has control over the timing of their book. With traditional publishers, it sometimes can take up to two to three years to get a book out. Depending on how persistent an author is, it can take just a couple months to see their book if they are self-publishing. This timing aspect can be very beneficial to the author if, for example, they want to use their book in their business immediately such as in back of the room sales.

Unfortunately, for marketing purposes, it is very difficult to get self-published books into regular brick and mortar stores as those stores buy through wholesalers who rarely carry self-published books. Also, and although this is slowly changing, it is difficult to get a self-published book reviewed by well known reviewers. Despite that, a true self-publisher is willing to put the time, effort and money into their book. In return they get to keep control over their creativity and style. They do not have to conform to the standards of others. For some authors, that is well worth their time and money and marketing limitations. It is a choice they make, not because they could not get published elsewhere, but because they want to keep control of their own success.

For some people, self-publishing is the only viable option. Despite the negative bias against self-publishing, authors who choose to take the responsibility and risk of publishing their own book under their own publishing company, can realize their dream the way they want it to be. As the publishing world evolves, there may come a day, that self-publishers will be looked at for their quality of work and not dismissed just because they self-published.

Although there are semantic arguments over names, there are several other types of self-publishing included under the self-publishing umbrella where an author does not have to do everything completely on their own. In other articles in this series, I will discuss these different types of self-publishing, such as the various forms of vanity publishing, POD (print on demand) and e-books.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books (http://www.ourlittlebooks.com) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report. Enjoy!

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Publishing Choices For Writers - Self-Publishing Vanity Presses (Part Two)

In Part One of Vanity Presses, I discussed the nature of vanity publishing and the negative atmosphere surrounding this type of publishing. The truth is that because a vanity press is not selective in the work that it publishes, books published under a true vanity press are not seen as prestigious or as credible as those published elsewhere. This is unfortunate because this automatically lumps both good and bad books together by reputation only.

Why would an author choose to go with a vanity publisher? It could be that an author has a book for a very small business niche, or a collection of poetry, a memoir, a genealogy or family cookbook that they want published. They are more interested in making a name for themselves within their niche or giving away their book to friends and family than in profiting from the sale of their book. If they hire their own editors, cover designers and layout artists to create a great product, then publishing with a vanity publisher may be the most cost effective way of pulling everything together.

An author may want or need their book quickly. A traditional publishing house can take up to three years to get out a physical copy of a book. An author has little to no control over when the book will be out in print. Vanity publishing can get books out much quicker, in weeks rather than years, since there is no review process.

Other authors may see their first work published by a vanity press as a way to get into a traditional publishing house for a second work. Generally, traditional publishers rarely will even review an author who has not been previously published. If an author can publish a good product through a vanity press, do enough self promoting such that there are a reasonable number of sales, then those successful results may provide the foot-in-the-door needed to obtain a traditional publisher's attention for a second book.

Finally, some authors just do not want to give away control of their book. They know what they want and they do not want anyone to change how they present their book. They have their cover in mind, they have their content done. By publishing with a vanity house, control is kept by the author and they can publish whatever they want. However, an author has to balance keeping control against the stigma of going with a vanity publisher. But to some authors, control is more important than what people think.

A vanity press can be a legitimate publishing option. The assumption that a work published by a vanity press is one that could not be published elsewhere nor be a commercial success is no longer automatically correct, despite the fact that traditional publishers may want everyone to continue to believe that.

Authors need to be aware of the historically bad reputation that is attached to a vanity press when making their decision to go with such a publishing house. But by taking advantage of the extra services offered, an author may get a great book through a vanity publisher with the advantages of self-publishing and the look of traditional publishing.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books (http://www.ourlittlebooks.com) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report/. Enjoy!

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Publishing Choices For Writers - Self Publishing, Part One

As discussed in other articles in this series, the act of publishing comes in two basic forms- traditional and self-publishing. While traditional publishing is pretty straight forward in that the author exchanges their rights and control over their work for money, over the years and with the advent of new technology, a myriad of different ways to self-publish have evolved such that now, traditional publishers are having to change their business models to reflect these changes in order to stay in the publishing game. The publishing industry, including traditional publishers, have had to undergone a paradigm shift in order to keep up with the times and the advent of the many different types of self-publishing.

Self-publishing is really a generic word for any work not published by a traditional publisher. In the past, the term self-publishing was always looked at pejoratively. Traditional publishers, reviewers and critics looked down their noses at these self-publishers, primarily because there was no editorial screen of the work prior to publishing. Therefore, there was no control over the quality of the work published. As a result, a lot of work was published that was trash, both in style and content, bringing the bad reputation to self-publishing.

However, because of this paradigm shift in the publishing world, self-publishing has gained a modem of respectability while still retaining some of the same negativity. (Actually, there have been many famous authors who self-published at one time in their careers, e.g., Ulysses, by James Joyce; The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter; A Time to Kill, by John Grisham and of course Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson who were laughed at during their self-published lives and loved by all after their deaths). While there are some purists who will always believe that you have to be published by someone else, in truth, the publishing industry is evolving. Writers are choosing to self-publish great writing. People who might never have had the opportunity can now become a published author. And that is a good thing if you are a writer.

At the very basic level of self-publishing, which is commonly referred to as True Self-Publishing, an author is in charge of doing everything themselves including starting their own publishing company to publishing their book. The author is responsible for the content of the book, the editing, the content editing, the cover design, ISBN, copyrights and the printing. Once printed, the author is responsible for the storage, marketing, sales, distribution and any other aspect of publishing their book.

With this kind of self-publishing, an author will not get an advance against future royalties. In fact, the author will find they have to invest their own money, generally thousands of dollars for all the different services. Unless the author knows every aspect of the publishing business, they will have to hire editors, copy editors, designers, printers, and marketers for their book. And of course, the author takes on all the risks of not having a successful title.

Finally, a self-published author is not likely to be reviewed by the mainstream nor carried by distributors. This relates to the negative stigma attached to self-publishing, i.e., that it is only for those authors who can not get their work in print otherwise. Although now some reviewers are recognizing self-publishers as being great contributors to our world of literature, it is still rare that a self-published work is even given a chance to be reviewed.

These are basically the cons of self-publishing, although not everything is negative. In Part Two, I will discuss the positive aspects of an author publishing on their own and why it may be the right option for an author to take.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books ( http://www.ourlittlebooks.com ) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report/. Enjoy!

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Book Publishing Contracts For Writers: What Should I Look Out For?

Dave, I just got a contract for a book from a publisher that I haven't worked with before. These long, tedious legal documents just befuddle me, however! Would you mind spinning through this and seeing what you think about the terms and clauses herein?

Here are my thoughts on this contract. Note up front that I'm not a lawyer and haven't received any particular training in contract interpretation. I do have an MBA and have spent lots of time with lawyers reading and rewriting contracts, however, so I think my advice will be helpful. Also, as a note to my faithful readers, I cannot review contracts for you without charging for my time, and frankly you'd be much better off asking a lawyer to help you out anyway. :-)

Rather than reproduce the entire contract, I'm going to just excerpt the highlights and follow them with my comments or thoughts. I am deliberately not talking about royalty percentage, advances, and other specific numbers because those aren't really appropriate to publish in a public forum of this nature.

.. there shall be no royalty payment on copies of the Book sold at less than Publisher's cost...

Determined by? Audited by? Actual number? These vague and hard-to-enforce clauses always make me anxious because it's built on trust without any ability for you to audit the books (with most publishers, at least). What if the book has a retail price of $19.99 and the publisher decides that $10 is their cost? Then any book sold at any sort of discount are 'less than the publisher's cost' and you don't see a dime.

NET RECEIPTS - For purposes of this Agreement, the Publisher's "Net Receipts" from sales shall mean net profit received by the Publisher from sales of the Book, less credits, returns and funds required for reprints.

Funds required for reprints is a printing / publisher cost of business, assuming that I'm understanding what's being referenced, and that cost shouldn't affect the author. This clause is bogus and should be eliminated.

All monies received for direct sales will be held for a period of 12 months to allow for credits and returns.

That's ridiculous. All my MBA "future value of money" instincts cry out on this one. If there's a 'hold on reserves' that floats from payment to payment, then que sera, sera, but having a 12 month lag is exploiting the system without any benefit to the author. I'd reject this.

TAXES - All payments made under the terms of this Agreement will be subject to USA Federal income tax withholding, as required by the United States Internal Revenue Code.

No, these are royalty payments and I'm pretty darn sure that the

publisher doesn't have to worry about taxes, just report them as

royalty income for the author to the IRS. If you read the http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1099msc/ar02.html [http://

1099MISC filing

instructions on the IRS site, it explicitly says "include in this box gross

royalties (before reduction for fees, commissions, or expenses) paid by a publisher

directly to an author or literary agent or paid by a literary agent to an author."

The only instance where this 1099MISC might not be relevant is if the author is overseas, in which case the publisher needs to pay taxes on the amount that's being paid to the author. Not sure exactly how that'd be structured, but any halfway decent accountant should be able to shed some light on this topic.

ACCOUNT - All royalties and other income accruing to the Author under this Agreement shall be credited to an account maintained on the records of the Publisher (the "Royalty Account"), which Royalty Account will be charged for all amounts paid or payable to Author, including any advance payments, and for all amounts Author is charged, or obligated to pay, pursuant to this Agreement.

This smells of some sort of cross-accounting trick, somehow. I'd kick this out. Each book should have its own account or it should be explicitly stated that the account will not interweave credits and debits from different projects.

OVERPAYMENT - If any person comprising the Author has received an overpayment of money from the Publisher or has an outstanding monetary obligation to the Publisher, whether arising out of this Agreement or any other agreement with the Publisher, the Publisher may deduct the amount of such overpayment or outstanding obligation from the Royalty Account or any sums due to such person under this Agreement.

And there's the cross-accounting clause. Debt with one book should not affect credit (royalties) with another book. Absolutely reject this. Each book project should stand on its own two feet.

AUTHOR DISCOUNT - The Author shall also be entitled to purchase additional copies of the Book for the Author's personal use (self-promotion) at a discount of twenty-five percent (25%) off the suggested retail price of the Book, plus the cost of shipping and handling, while the Book remains in print.

That's ridiculous. The book should be available to the author at cost plus shipping, not at a discount rate that's less than the discount a typical bookstore sees! At least 45% off, if not 60% off the cover price. The publisher shouldn't try to exploit the author in this fashion. Theoretically, the author and publisher are partners on this publication, after all.

AUTHOR'S CORRECTIONS - Author alteration costs in excess of ten percent (10%) of the cost of the original composition, and any expenses incurred by the Publisher in the making of Illustrations replacing those originally submitted with the Book, shall be charged to the Royalty Account.

I think it's important to specify that it depending on why these changes are required. If there's a new version of the program and the screenshots need to be replaced, or if there's a major corporate reorganization or change in the laws or economy, that's not a cost the author should incur. It's just part of the risk of trying to capture in print an element of our fluid, ever-changing world.

COPYRIGHT - The Author hereby expressly grants, transfers, and assigns to the Publisher full and exclusive rights to the Book, including, without limitation, the copyright in the Book, all revisions thereof, and the right to prepare translations and other derivative works based upon the Book in all forms and languages...

And what payment does the author see if the publisher prepares a translation or derivative work? Curiously that isn't specified in the contract as far as I can see...

The Publisher will register copyright in the Book in the name of the Publisher in compliance with the United States Copyright Law. If the Publisher supplies artwork (including artwork for the cover of the Book), it may register copyright separately therein in a manner satisfactory to the Publisher.

Note that there are publishers who let the author retain copyright of the material while the publisher copyrights the overall work. A much nicer approach, in my opinion, much more respectful of the author.

Tip to new publishers: the author can retain copyright without infringing on your rights of publication or compilation copyright.

The Author represents and warrants that, except as previously disclosed to the Publisher in writing, the Author has not aided in the preparation of and is not under any obligation to any other publisher or person to prepare any publication directly competitive with the Book, or which could interfere with his or her performance of this Agreement or interfere with or impair the sale of the Book.

And here's the first glimmer of the non-compete clause. This is a no-go. You need to have it either MUCH more specific (like "author is under no obligation and shall not produce any other work that is specifically addressed at the introductory Bash shell script programming audience, to be marketed online through Amazon marketplace and other ebook venues") or strike this entirely.

The publisher doesn't own you, the author, they're just buying your words.

NON-COMPETITION - The Author agrees that so long as the Book remains in print, the Author will not participate in the preparation or publication of, or allow his or her name to be used in connection with, any work which might compete with the Book or the exercise of any rights granted Publisher hereunder. The Author may, however, draw on and refer to material contained in the Book in preparing articles for publication in professional journals, for teaching purposes, and for delivery at professional meetings and symposia, provided appropriate credit is given to the Publisher and the Book.

Which, of course, is unacceptable. If I write a book for this publisher called, say, Fifty Ways to Hack your Shell (Hey! That's a good title!) I would be prohibited from ever writing about shell programming or, ostensibly, any Unix topic that included discussion of shells because it *might* compete with the book.

This needs to either be much, much more tightly defined or removed entirely.

Actually, I hate all these non-compete clauses because they're where you can really see how most publishers stack the deck against the author, even though it should be a fair, equitable and professionally respectful relationship.

OUT-OF-PRINT PROVISIONS - If at any time, the Publisher determines that the demand for the Book is insufficient to warrant its continued publication, the Publisher may declare the Book out of print. In such event, the Author shall have the right to purchase the Publisher's stock of the Book, if any, at one-quarter (1/4) of the Publisher's established list price, but not below cost.

That's just daft on the part of the publisher. If it's out of print, then they have a warehouse problem and they should just liquidate the remaining books to the author even at just shipping costs. It'd be cheaper than having to pay for them to be destroyed...

If the Publisher declares the Book out of print, then upon the Author's written demand, the rights granted by the Author under this Agreement will revert to the Author...

I'm not sure that's consistent with copyright law. This is really why it's better to have the author retain copyright because then once the book goes out of print the material naturally falls back to the author anyway, without remembering to notify the publisher in writing.

I hope that this review has been helpful and informative. What you're willing to accept in a publishing contract is directly affected by why you are writing the book in the first place, so think through your motivations, the big picture, and your career before you decide exactly what you'll accept and what you'll insist must be removed. For the record, I have rejected contracts and lost writing gigs because of unacceptable clauses. I think it's worth it, but you, in my position, may not think so.

Again, just to reiterate, this is not offered as legal advice and I disclaim any responsibility for your acting upon anything I've said herein! :-)

Dave Taylor is author of sixteen technical books including the award winning, best selling Wicked Cool Shell Scripts and the popular titles Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther and Creating Cool Web Sites. He also runs the popular and lively Ask Dave Taylor! Q&A Web site where he fields business and technical questions every day, including questions specifically about The Writing Business [http://www.askdavetaylor.com/%0D%0Acat_the_writing_business.html].

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