editor as negotiator | contract information as negotiator

The Editor as Negotiator ~ Diplomacy

Editing contracts may or may not be part of your job as an editor at a publishing house. No doubt initially it will not be or in the very least you will be expected to know what a contract is and particularly subrights. That said, it’s good to know what a contact is, what will come of it should you work you way up the ladder at some point because you will be negotiating if you do become an editor or an editorial director.

There were several points of note in the reading that stood out: the first was style, the different ways in which editors will develop their own personal styles for negotiating a contract as they move through their career. Ideally, you do not want to come away from it by being an aggressive bulldog, though this is the approach some people do take. Your goal should be to get the best deal possible for your publishing house (this is your primary obligation as you know by know; whatever your job is, it’s always first and foremost to your publishing house, so we don’t need to say that again.). After this, your ethics are divided, once the contract is negotiated – your obligation is to stand by the promises you have made to your author and the promises made to your house. It’s a balance.

Be forward thinking – don’t just look at the “now”. Think four, ten, or more years into the future, especially with subrights. You never know what’s going to happen with your book. You don’t know if you are going to get offered a film deal four years down the road from the most ‘unexpected book’ or a translation offer, so your job would be to try to hold on to the highest percentage of translation rights as possible – all subrights, in fact. In short, as you go through your contract, you will be negotiating most of it – since this is graded – you will negotiate as much or as little of the contract as you want or see fit depending on how much of the contract you have come to understand. Some may negotiate more than others. It’s entirely up to you, but will be reflected – remember, in a real world situation, which this does mimic – this is not simply a futile exercise – you will be doing exactly what you are doing now with books you know little about based on proposals or worse, query letters – with authors you know very little about. The exercise you had was quite similar to a real-world experience of what you will be dealing with.

Look at Reversion Rights, Reprint Rights, Non-compete rights – works that compete with the existing work as we discussed. A book that the author wants to put out at the same time on the same topic. You must build in or have a clause that says something to the affect that they cannot do this within a reasonable amount of time so that you have time to sell your book. But REMEMBER, the entire contract is important and negotiable.

Treat your author or the agent you are negotiating with respect and take them seriously. This is a serious negotiating matter and you’ll want to factor that in – there can often be big money involved – if not to you what seems like a huge amount, imagine if you are an author living independently and this is your only source of income, ten-thousand dollars for one or two years work on a book is not a great deal of money when you think about it for the amount of work required. You’re not offering a lot for a lot of work. Conglomerates have changed this a great deal, I think, by paying bigger advances to certain authors and smaller houses paying smaller advances to lesser known authors, although don’t romanticize too much; first time authors have never been paid a great deal of money.

Almost all contracts are boilerplate within reason with small variations here and there, but they are standard with the standard clauses. Familiarize yourself with them. Even if you feel you will never have to use or negotiate a contract (you may have a legal department or a subrights department), as Editorial Director, I had to negotiate every contract that came for every book I bought and so far, every book that I have sold, I have negotiated directly, or my agent has, with the Editor him or herself.

Frankfurt Book Fair – You all know about this, but keep it in mind as a big money-maker for your company for the right kind of books. When you sign a book, think about how well it might do in another country in translation. When you prepare for Frankfurt, think about which books you are going to try to sell and to whom. Frankfurt is generally the first week in October and is the entire week long with almost no breaks from early morning until 7 or so at night. If you leave early or pack early on the last day, you are penalized a fee.

Your job will be to handle all of these things with diplomacy and skill and seeming ease. Confidence is key here. Whether or not you are actually feeling confident, as in the beginning you probably will not, you must learn to know your subject fully, but project a certain confidence so that others have confidence in you. At bookfairs you represent the entire house for which you work, so it is entirely up to you to be the public face of said house, whether you are the publicist or the editor or even the author, the onus is on you.

Contracts are important because you will need to negotiate (and remember that everyone should come away from a negotiation feeling good).