Your rights as an author

Authors and their publishers are partners. But partners need clarity regarding their rights in a relationship. As an author working with a publisher, you have the right to review and approve:

• The book’s final title and subtitle.
• The suggested retail price for the physical book.
• The publication date.
• The cover art.
• All editorial suggestions by the publisher’s developmental editors.
• All editorial suggestions by the publisher’s copy editors.
• The interior page design.
• The final page layout.
• The index, if any.
• All marketing copy printed on the cover or dust jacket.
• All copy used to promote the book on web sites like Amazon or bookshop.org.
• The voice actors used to record the audiobook.
• The titles of the book in foreign translation editions.
• Placement of excerpts for promotional purposes.
• Licensing for dramatic or other subsidiary rights.

If your publishing contract does not include these elements, ask that they be included.

Even if your signed publishing agreement does not include these rights, request that the publisher honor them.

Please note that this doesn’t mean you get anything you want. You can’t publish libelous lies. You can’t ask for a publication date that the publisher can’t meet. You can’t miss the publisher’s deadlines. You can’t license your own book for foreign translations if the publisher holds those rights. But that doesn’t mean the publisher gets to do whatever they want.

I’ve seen publishers force titles, cover art, and even additional chapters on authors. This should not be an exploitive relationship. So protect yourself.

Know your rights in this asymmetrical relationship

The publisher has likely published hundreds or thousands of books. You’ve only written a few, or one.

So know what to ask for, and ask for it. As the author, you have those rights.

And don’t worry about being known as a “difficult” author. It’s your book. It deserves to be the way you want it to be.