Long Tale Press

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(This is the "plain English" version of our contract. Switch to the official version. )

PUBLISHING AGREEMENT

This is the contract you get to sign if we offer to publish your book. It spells out what your rights are, what our rights are, what your responsibilities are, what our responsibilities are, and so forth, and protects us against liability.

WHEREAS:

You are who you are, and we are who we are, and you've submitted a piece of fiction to us for publication, and it's really yours and you wrote it and you have the legal right to sell it, and it's not our fault if it turns out you're lying to us, and the community gave your piece enough points that we're willing to publish it,

THEREFORE,

1. You're selling us the rights to your book. All of them: print an electronic, at home and abroad, licensing, et cetera. I mean, if we're going to spend our time and money producing, promoting, and selling your work, we want dibs on whatever greatness might come along (be it bestseller status, movie deals, whatever).

2. We're promising to publish your book in at least e-book format. If the book does well, we'll also publish it in audio and print format. In exchange for the right to do this, you get a 50/50 split on the proceeds of any subsequent revenue we take in from your book, whether that is from sales of your book in any format, mass market paperback optioning, licensing a movie deal, et cetera. Plus you also get some free copies of the print edition, the right to buy as many copies as you want at a discount (Woo hoo! Birthday presents for everyone you know!), and the right to audit our books to make sure you're really getting all the royalties you're owed.

3. We'll pay you your royalties by wire-transfer to a bank account of your choice. But honestly, if for some reason that just doesn't work for you then we can arrange to send you a check.

4. Some of the costs of producing your book will get charged against your royalties, especially any copyright charges due to use of other works. For instance, if you need, for some reason that is absolutely critical to the core of your story, to include the full lyrics to the Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever, it's going to cost some money to license that and we'll charge that against your royalties. This is pretty standard industry practice. If you want to pitch in on other items like professional-looking cover art or whatever in order to reduce those costs, we're absolutely delighted to have your help.

5. We'll make sure the copyright for your book is appropriately registered with the government.
   
   The next several sections (6-14) cover the minutia of who is responsible for doing what and how long everybody has to do it in the process of turning your raw manuscript into an edited, saleable item. It's pretty boring, but if you actually do get published you'll have to know and follow this process.

6. Boring process stuff.

7. Boring process stuff.
8. Boring process stuff.
9. Boring process stuff.
10. Boring process stuff.
11. Boring process stuff.
12. Boring process stuff.
13. Boring process stuff.

14. Boring process stuff.

15. We'll do our best to actually sell many, many copies of your book. Because duh, we all want it to be a success.

16. The notion of "out of print" is kind of pointless in a digital system, so we don't really take anything "out of print". Nevertheless, if, after first publication, three years go by and you don't think we've lived up to our promise to try hard to sell your book, you can come argue it with us.

17. If Long Tale Press collapses, you get your rights to the book back and can pursue other publication opportunities unencumbered by us.

18. This contract is it, the whole deal, the alpha and the omega, the full agreement between you and us. There are no tricky other documents you'll have to sign or addendums or codicils or other weird legal terms. This is it.

19. Unless both you and us agree in writing to change it.

20. God forbid, if either of us ever sues the other party and a judge strikes down one or more provisions of this contract, that doesn't invalidate the rest of it. The rest of it will still apply to both of us.

21. But if anybody does sue anybody, it'll be under Washington State law.

22. But come on, we won't let it get to that without making a serious and good faith effort to settle things like reasonable adults first, right?

23. If either of us feel like we have to threaten the other because we feel that the other isn't living up to their end of the deal, then do it in writing.

And that's all the legal mumbo-jumbo. Here's the part where we both sign it and you get your book published.