Right of Refusal Clause

So, let's talk a little bit about contacts today, and more specifically, the clause of Right of Refusal.

This is a pretty standard clause. It is there to help out both the author and the publisher, although most writers tend to feel pretty tied down to this one. We'll talk through that piece in just a second.

The clause essentially says that if you contract with this first book, the publisher has the right of refusal on your next book. This is protects the publisher from someone selling their first book with company A, getting all of the marketing tools and publishing information, and then taking it and running off to self-publish with that info, or using it at another publisher. As for the author, it is automatically getting you a door in on the next book. Essentially, if you do everything right on the first book, play nice and so forth, the publisher will likely look at that second book and sign you (or at least that is the hope).

Now, here is the twist, and part of the reason you either need to really understand publishing contacts, or have someone who knows the contracts working with you (like an agent).

Publishers are willing to negotiate on this clause and it all comes down to the wording of it. For the most part, contracts are set up as standard boiler plate contracts. This means the standard template is there for everyone with the exception of a few tweaks. So, with a little careful wording, you should be able to keep that door open and protect other interests.

Let's say the clause says something such as:

AUTHOR agrees to give PUBLISHER the first right of refusal for the AUTHOR'S next fiction work...

Right now, this means they want to see your next piece of fiction writing - period. If you contracted a Regency romance and have a contemporary romance, they get to see it.

However, if you tweak this you can add something like, "the AUTHOR'S next REGENCY ROMANCE fiction work."  Doing so now leaves you open to submitting even a Victorian romance to someone else.

Look, you can't change everything, but you can tweak things, especially if you have other irons in the fire so to speak.