The first clause in virtually every publishing contract will cover the “grant of rights.” As the author of your book, you own the copyright to it; the copyright covers a broad range of specific rights that you can sell, or license, to a publisher, a film company, a merchandiser, and so on. Your contract with a publisher spells out which rights you're granting to the publisher and which rights you are reserving for yourself.

Copyright is an intellectual property right that you can lease, sell, and even pass on to your heirs. The U.S. copyright law extends copyright protection for works created on or after January 1, 1978, for the life of the author, plus seventy years. Copyright protection for works-for-hire lasts between ninety-five and 120 years, depending on the circumstances.

Publishers can vary so much in the types of rights they purchase that it's almost misleading to characterize any given publishing contract as “standard.” The one element that is truly standard is that, whatever specific rights you give the publisher, you will be giving those rights on an exclusive basis. For example, the contract may call for the publisher to have the exclusive right to publish and distribute your book anywhere in the world, but only in the English language; translations might not be covered by your contract. In this instance, you wouldn't be able to sell the English-language rights to another buyer until the current grant of rights expires, but you would be free to find another buyer for translations.

There are so many possible combinations of granted and reserved rights that it is impossible to cover them all here. However, most contracts these days will touch on three main categories of rights: print-related rights, electronic rights, and licensing and merchandising rights.

Print-Related Rights

Print-related rights cover everything from book club sales to reprints and revised editions. Your publisher might sell your book to a book club either “as is” or as a special reprint. Reprint rights cover the various formats for books — hardcover, trade paperback, and mass-market paperback. After a couple of years, the publisher may issue an updated edition of your book; you'll make some changes to the original, but not many. Revised editions require substantial changes — at least 30 percent new material — and are issued with new ISBNs and new marketing campaigns.

Royalty rates differ according to the type of rights covered. You might get a 50 percent royalty rate for book club rights, 60 percent for reprint rights, and 90 percent for first serial rights, for example. Publishers might expect 50 percent of film rights, on the grounds that its book sales help promote a film based on your book.

These rights almost always are included as a package with the overall grant of rights. Publishers want them because they increase the profit potential for a book. It also makes sense to keep these rights together from the author's standpoint, because your primary publisher is in the best position to exploit these rights, and that means higher royalty checks for you.

Other print-related rights include serial or excerpt rights, in which portions of your book are published verbatim in magazines or, more rarely, newspapers or newsletters. If you're selling first serial rights, the excerpt must be published before your book comes out; after your book is published, you can sell second serial rights. Syndicates sometimes pick up serial rights for book excerpts and provide the excerpts to several publications at once.

Electronic Rights

With the advent of the Internet and technology that allows “print-on-demand” publishing, electronic rights are becoming a core element of copyright grants, rather than the side issue they were a few years ago. Unfortunately, many “standard” electronic rights clauses in publishing contracts are still unsuitably vague, with no clear definition about what the clause covers. Electronic rights can include posting excerpts of your book on an Internet site, distributing an e-book from an Internet site, digitally storing your book for print-on-demand services, and even burning your text onto a CD-ROM.

An overly broad or vague grant of electronic rights can have important ramifications down the road, so make sure you know exactly what the clause in your contract covers.

Print-on-demand technology is changing the definition of “in print,” which in turn affects your rights to reclaim your copyright. Most contracts allow the copyright to revert to the author when the book is no longer considered in print. Your contract should include a specific definition of “in print,” whether by a threshold of annual sales or a clarification about digitally stored books.

Licensing and Merchandising

Licensing and merchandising rights, also known as commercial rights, can be more lucrative for the author than the initial publishing contract, especially if your book becomes a bestseller. The Harry Potter books, for instance, have spawned all kinds of merchandise spinoffs, from action figures and calendars to Christmas ornaments and Halloween costumes. Clothing, coffee mugs, games, toys, even bumper stickers — nearly any commodity can be converted into a derivative of your book, fiction or nonfiction. In most cases, it will be in your best interests to retain all commercial rights in your work.

Other Rights

Your copyright covers rights you may not even think of. Film rights, foreign rights, recordings for audio books, even rights to create large-type and Braille editions of your book are all under the umbrella of your copyright. A typical publishing contract includes a clause stating that you keep any rights you haven't specifically granted to the publisher. This kind of clause is more convenient for both you and the publisher. Dealing with every potential circumstance in legal language would make publishing contracts even more complex than they are now.

Thanks in part to technological advances and in part to the prevalence of litigation in our society, publishing contracts have gotten longer and more complex than ever. According to a report published by the Authors Guild, the standard contract for Random House was four pages long in 1974; by 1998, the standard contract was eleven pages long. Some contracts today are more than thirty pages long.