On the (Long) Timeline of Publishing Contracts

...and three things that might surprise you!

After hitting my year anniversary of agenting, I realized… there are things I haven’t prepared my authors for 100% in the realm of publishing contracts (and the lengthy timeline thereof), and I want to rectify that! I noticed this because, within the span of a couple weeks, I had multiple authors (three of them, I think?) whose books we’d sold reach out with literally the same question. It was an aha moment to say the least—like “oh, I should have told you this up front”—whoops (and sorry, dear authors!)

All I can say is, sometimes we’re so entrenched in an industry (*it me* *I am entrenched*) that we don’t “see” the things that might be surprising to someone coming in for the first time.

So! Let me shed some light on three things about publishing contracts and the timeline of getting them to signing that might surprise you.

1. There are two distinct phases of negotiation

I’ve spoken some about this here in Phases of a Publishing Offer, but in publishing, negotiations are broken down into:

• Offer memo/Deal memo phase

• Contract phase

Offer memo/Deal memo phase

The offer for a book is usually sent by the editor, either in the body of an email, or in a branded PDF, or in a Word doc, and it spells out the major deal points—the building blocks that will eventually make up the “big” points of the contract. Advance money, payout schedule of that advance money, grant of rights, royalty structure, and often things like option clause, etc. At Storm, we also try to address a few extra things such as approvals or at least meaningful consultation over title, cover, audiobook narrator, etc., and rights reversions terms (when we can take back unexploited rights such as audio, translation, film, if the publisher will be holding those and taking the ‘first stab’), because if you can nail these down up front, you don’t have to argue as much at the contract phase—not to mention, (and I’m not saying this is always the case, but—) the editor might be more eager to work with you and accommodate your requests than the contracts person later on.

This back and forth, I’ve found, usually takes around a week, though it can stretch to two depending on how speedy/slow everyone is with their responses.

Also, authors, you should 100% have full knowledge and approval over everything negotiated on your behalf. Your agent should never be doing this ‘behind your back’ so to speak. Please and thank you.

Okay! Once this phase is agreed to (some publishers will have the author sign this; most, I’ve found, don’t), everything agreed to is no longer negotiable at the contract stage.

I’ll also add one caveat—sometimes, for smaller publishers, they will skip the deal memo phase and jump straight to the contract phase and negotiate All the Things there. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—just a little different than how the larger houses do it.

Contract phase

The offer memo is then sent on to the publisher’s contracts department, who will generate the contract and send back to the agent. Most of the time, the correct deal points are incorporated—but you’d be surprised at how often there are errors, which is why it’s SO important that you agency compare the contract to the offer memo and make sure everything you fought for was transferred over. I’ve had to correct a myriad of things that we successfully obtained for the author, but was accidentally not included in the contract, from royalty rates to option clause language and beyond.

Some contracts, you might receive within a few weeks. With some publishers, it can take months. Yes. Months, plural.

2. It can take weeks for your agent to turn around the first round of redline and comments

…and even sometimes (gasp) a month…or more. I know.

So this will vary widely by agency. It will depend on things like—is your agent working alone? Does the agency have a contracts consultant? How many sets of eyes are on the contract before it goes back to the publisher? Also, what season is it? The December holiday season might have the pesky little interference of vacation days. And then January is 1099 season, so it the person handling that is also reviewing contracts, contracts might get pushed a little further down the list.

Again, this varies. I wouldn’t be surprised if some agents turn this around in days. Others, weeks. Some, a month. I’ve had contracts in each of these timeline buckets.

It also depends on the contract itself. Some are just more straightforward than others. Some are 10-15 pages. Many are 25-30. And some, regardless of length, are honestly just more gnarly.

The speed of turning this back around will also depend on whether your agency has a boilerplate with that publisher. In other words, have they already negotiated better terms in a previous book deal that will now carry over and form the starting point of this contract? Or is this the agency’s first deal with that publisher, in which case you’re starting from the ground up?

I think it’s important to note here that you (as the author who has sold a book) should be aware of what the agency steps are surrounding the contract. At Storm, this is one area where we are exceptionally thorough. We have three sets of eyes involved—our contracts consultant, the agency owner, and me—and of course everything then goes back to the author (so actually that’s 4 sets of eyes 😉). It does mean we take a little longer—maybe even a lot longer than some agents/agencies, if they’re particularly speedy—but I stand behind that, because these contracts can set up an author really well for the long term … or really poorly. This will determine what sub rights are kept, and if/when those sub rights revert (which may sound like small potatoes, but there are huge financial opportunities in sub rights!). It will determine via the non compete and option clause language if the author is allowed to sell other work to other publishers in the meantime (which can be a huge boon OR hindrance to their career as a writer!), or have to wait a certain amount of time after pub to even try. It will determine if the author can publish works under pseudonyms without going through the option clause, or take on IP contracts… or not. It determines how long the publisher gets to sit on their next book before deciding if they want to buy it. And of course it covers all the worst case scenarios such as bankruptcy and lawsuits that of course will never happen to you… until they happen, and suddenly that negotiated language is extremely relevant.

So! Don’t be alarmed if this phase takes a while. I encourage everyone during this phase to settle in for the Long Wait and let your agent do the job you signed them to do and go to bat for all the language that will best protect you and your career. There is no reason to rush this phase… unless you’re in need of $$!

So, DO speak up if you need the money. No one gets paid until this baby is signed, and I want to state what’s perhaps obvious—some authors don’t “need” the money to come in on any particular timeline—and some absolutely do. So please communicate with your agent if you are in that second bucket, so that they can do whatever possible on their end to expedite their part! (knowing that the publisher’s part, and how quickly they move is, sadly, out of their hands)

3. The book sold will continue down the publishing pipeline while negotiations play out

This, in case you’re curious, is the question my authors kept asking.

“I haven’t gotten edits yet from the editor…is it because I haven’t signed the contract yet?”

“Since we haven’t signed the contract yet…will my pub date get delayed?”

THIS IS A TOTALLY REASONABLE QUESTION!!! I just didn’t think to prepare them preemptively for it—but now I know better, so here’s how it works!

Contract negotiations (as you saw above) can take a long time. There are usually 3-4 rounds, though of course there could be less—or more. Some publishers take multiple months between rounds. And like I highlighted above, we don’t turn things around immediately at Storm, either! We go through our process, and every round has multiple sets of eyes on the contract, as well as written author approval.

I’ve even heard of contracts through the grapevine that have taken 14 months to negotiate. Whoa. And also, I get it.

Everyone in publishing knows (i.e. your editor and your agent and your publisher) that this phase can drag on. So basically (and with the caveat that I’m sure there are exceptions in this area) no one waits for the contract to be signed to move things forward. The book publishing process (edits, the book going up on retailer sites, cover design, jacket copy, preorder campaigns, etc etc) keeps chugging along while the contract negotiations unfold in the background.

Fun fact—on the author side, I had already gotten to Delivery & Acceptance (i.e. the manuscript was turned in, post developmental and line edits) before finally signing my contract with Mira. Yup. My editor and I just kept on keeping on with the book side of things while the contracts people (my agent and the Mira contracts person) battled it out in the background.

As someone entrenched in the publishing world, it took my authors asking this question repeatedly for me to be like “oh yeah…I guess this is counterintuitive!” In the rest of the world, things don’t tend to happen until the legal stuff is signed. But publishing doesn’t do it that way! It essentially operates on good faith (and the agreed-on offer memo/deal memo!), trusting that everyone will reach an agreement in the end, and the book will end up being published.

In Conclusion…

If you’re an author with a new book deal, buckle up. The contract part will likely not happen fast, but that should not affect your book’s timeline to pub. Speak up if you need the signing money to be expedited, but otherwise, settle in, grab your popcorn, and enjoy watching people battle it out in the comments section of the contract. You are, for a few months at least, at the center of a giant game of tug-of-war! (yay?) And may your agent prevail and get you the best possible terms!!!