Contract Explained

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The following pages provide an informal explanation of the terms of the contract. That text is not a representation and is not a part of this contract. What the contract actually says is what matters; you can trust or not trust our explanation here as you wish.

EXPLANATION OF CONTRACT

An informal explanation of the terms of the Caltrop Press Publishing Contract. We want you to know what you’re getting into!

Having said that, whenever you take terms that have a legal meaning and put them into normal language, things aren’t quite as precise.  So we should tell you that these explanations are not Representations (they are not offered as specific commitments you can rely on in deciding whether to sign the contract), they are not legally binding, and (since our terms are somewhat flexible within each deal) this explanation may not be accurate for your contract.

DESCRIPTION

Don’t worry if this isn’t completely accurate. It’s just to make sure we both know these books are about ninja kittens, not Renaissance artists

1.GRANT OF RIGHTS:

  1. Basically, this gives the publisher the print, electronic and audio rights for every edition imaginable, and to sell those rights to, for example, book clubs, large print houses, and mass market paperback reprint houses. You may not offer the item for sale yourself unless we agree otherwise.  You still get 50% of the net on anything sold; see royalties.
  2. You keep movie rights, if you want
  3. You keep any other rights (like merchandising) not mentioned here

2.WARRANTIES

This is to make sure that you own the work, that it’s original, and that you haven’t libeled any ninja kittens(or anyone else) or scraped someone’s work off a website. If you have, the publisher won’t be held legally responsible. Hopefully.

3.DELIVERY

The due date is whenever we both feel the book has reached an acceptable final version. Depending on your writing style and our assessment of the market, it might take multiple edits or rewrites to get to that point. Remember, we took this on because we liked the idea of your book. If, however, after all our efforts, we should for some reason find the manuscript unacceptable (not likely) or you should just get tired of working on it, and we aren’t interested in doing a major rewrite ourselves under terms you find reasonable, then the contract will be dissolved without any further ado. We can’t hold you hostage until you write good material we like.

4. PUBLICATION

  • We’ll bring the book out in e-book and standard-size paperback within six months of receiving a final version. Final means final, as in Item 3. We can generally do it in 6 weeks, but for various reasons we might decide that’s not a good idea– some months are dead for book sales, sometimes the best copy-editors are not available, and sometimes we might want to wait for a quote or review. This timeline can be negotiated.
  • We will not be able to set the retail price until after the book is formatted, but generally the print price for a full length Caltrop Press trade paperback will be between 9.95 and 19.95 depending on the market. The e-book price will usually be between 4.99 and 6.99, with occasional sales and special offers.
  • So far there’s been no proof of the usefulness of ISBNs for digital books; most retailers don’t ask for them and some distributors, such as Amazon, don’t recognize them anyway. Obviously, all print editions will have a separate ISBN.
  • The book(s) will be in print until the contract is dissolved.

5. COPYRIGHT

In the US, by law you have copyright on anything you produce, and we’ll always ensure that the front matter of your book includes “Copyright {your name}, [year]”.  There is usually no good reason to spend time and money registering it with the government.  If you wish to do so, we can handle that for you at cost.

6. ROYALTY AND STATEMENTS

  • Quite simply, you will receive 50% of the profit on the book(s) until you’ve sold enough that we have recovered our likely costs; after that we reduce our portion of the royalty to well below traditional publishing industry standards.
  • We won’t undertake any expense-generating activities that would impact your royalties without your agreement. Mostly, that means some kind of paid advertising.
  • The following are illustrative examples of how this works (the specifics won’t be known until your books are complete).
  • Your e-book sells for 4.99 on Amazon.com
    • Amazon pays Caltrop Press 3.49
      • You receive 1.74
      • We receive 1.74
    • Your e-book sells for 3.98 directly from Caltrop Press via our web site [we probably won’t offer this option until the book has generated some traction on general market platforms]. We e-mail them a MOBI or PDF file. You will make more per unit but it won’t count on any rankings as a sale.
      • You receive 1.99
      • Caltrop Press receives 1.99
  • Your print book sells for 16.95 on Amazon; the customer pays them directly for shipping.
    • Amazon pays Caltrop Press 7.00
      • You receive 3.50
      • We receive 3.50
    • Your print book sells for 17.00 in a book store
      • The book store pays Ingram Spark (or some distributor) whatever they have agreed to
      • Ingram Spark pays Caltrop Press their standard tiny royalty, maybe 10 percent: $1.70
        • You receive 0.85
        • Caltrop Press receives 0.85
        • By the way, those sales are subject to heavy return rates
    • Your print book sells for 16.95 on the Caltrop Press web site
      • POD charges Caltrop 2.50 for printing and (assuming it is part of a bigger order) another 2.50 to ship it to Caltrop.
      • Caltrop pays an additional 9.95 to ship one unit to the customer, or to you.
        • You receive 1.00 (this is why you don’t want us stocking books for you)
        • Caltrop Press receives 1.00

These illustrations show why we prefer to use the major distributors. It’s best for both of us.

  • It takes the online retailers 60 days to issue their first accounting statement, and we provide a statement to you at least quarterly. Payment for print books is collected at the time of the order (or, in the case of pre-orders, on shipping), but most platforms reserve the reporting until the returns period ends (usually 30 days). Keep in mind that certain sales will not be reported every month, though we try very hard to deal only with distributors who report in a timely fashion. After your first statement, you will receive statements (and checks, hopefully!) at least quarterly.
  • Obviously, we can’t pay you for what we don’t collect. 50% of zero is, well, zero.

7. MISCELLANEOUS

In addition to the 2 free copies, you will receive 2 bound proof copies (you may acquire more if needed) in trade paperback to send to reviewers or booksellers you know personally. In most cases, these proof copies will have the final cover art in place, all but the most obscure typos corrected, and the only difference between these and the final book will be the word “proof” or “not for resale” stamped on the cover. Some people find them more valuable as they are more rare than the final product.

You will also be able to order more copies after publication at our printing cost, plus shipping, plus we do collect our part of the royalty on those units.  Why? Because in most cases you’re ordering them to sell at speaking events or wherever, which could increase your revenue (we’re happy for you!) but cuts into the pool of people who might purchase through our agreement. However, we may choose to agree to cost-share with you in the early days while we are working to get reviews and early traction.

We can’t use any art in the book, including the author photo, that isn’t released and credited. If you need more release forms, just ask.

If you want to promote your books, it’s probably best to link to Amazon from your web site or emails, since that is a one-stop-shopping experience for most people

8. BANKRUPTCY AND TRANSFERABILITY

  • If bad things happen to us, rights revert to you
  • If good things happen, everything stays the same

9. GOVERNING LAW

All contracts have to be arbitrated in their state of origin

10. AUDIT

Hopefully, this will never be a problem. If it is, you may audit our books at any time, but we are only required to pay the auditor if a mistake is found over $500 in your favor. ANY amount that is found to be owed to you is required to be paid, of course, that’s a legal requirement and so it is not stated here.

11. ENTIRE CONTRACT

Legalese. The contract is the contract, nothing else (especially verbal discussions) is or can become the contract unless it is signed.  This explanation isn’t part of the contract either.

13. REVERSION OF RIGHTS

Naturally, we hope this will be profitable enough that we both will want to continue forever! But just in case… we have found it takes about 2 years for a book to start selling in appreciable numbers, and like to give a book at least one additional year to make a profit.

When you have a series, it’s usually the second book that kickstarts the first, so the clock doesn’t really start until Book 2 is published. So five years after book 2 is published, if both books have sold less than 1000 copies in the previous year in a total of all versions, you may request the rights back. This would make us sad. But we would not hold you back if you thought you could do better elsewhere.

14. SUCCEEDING WORKS

Similarly, we would like the chance to make an offer on Book 3 before Random House or Simon & Schuster does. You do not have to accept this offer, but it would be nice to make us feel like players. You would get a new contract with Book 3.