Additional Guidelines for Co-Authorship
Additional Guidelines for Co-Authorship
Please Note: Due to a large backlog we are not accepting submissions for Fiction work until further notice.
Working with Co-Authors: Guidelines for Immanion Press Writers
Co-Authorship Contracts:
A co-written book is when two or more names appear on the cover and title page of a book, i.e. when two or more writers have collaborated equally in a work. In these instances, Immanion Press can draw up a contract for all parties and royalties will be shared by contributors, paid twice yearly.
Alternatively, the contract can be made with one controlling author, who distributes royalties and rights as they see fit. The controlling author will need to make separate contracts with co-authors.
Contributions to a Work from Other Writers:
Sometimes, you might want other writers to contribute to your book, such as by writing an introduction or an appendix, but they will not be classed a ‘co-authors’ because you have done the bulk of the work. The contract will be with you alone. It will be up to you to make agreements with your contributor(s), and you will also be solely responsible for distributing payments or royalties, if appropriate.
Unless you have enlisted a really big ‘name’ to do a contribution for you, most writers are content with an acknowledgement and a free copy for their efforts, or else a modest one off payment. Most writers are happy to ‘get their name about’ by doing work of this kind for free, if it’s only a short piece.
Anthology Editors' Responsibilities:
If you are editing an anthology, containing essays or short stories by yourself and other writers, you are responsible for ensuring all contributors are satisfied with the copy-edited version of their work. You should send a PDF of the finished book to all contributors before printing so that they can check their contributions. Once a book is uploaded to our printers we cannot make further changes without incurring a fee. Because ample opportunity is given for authors to check their work, if such a revision is demanded or needed, the editor is responsible for paying that fee. Once a contributor has given their written approval of the document, but later discovers a mistake they want amending, the revision fee must be covered by them.
You will be responsible for distributing complimentary copies to your contributors. Free copies of the book will be provided for you to do this.
Royalties:
Royalties to authors are 10% of the price at which the book is sold (full price or discounted). If there is more than one author (not counting anthologies) then the royalties are split evenly amongst the contributors. This means that working with a co-author will reduce your royalties to 5% and the co-author will get 5%.
We do not offer advances on sales and you should make this clear to anyone you intend to work with. If you opt to be the controller of the book and the Immanion Press contract is solely with yourself, you need to work out a contract with your co-author and agree their percentage.
Rights:
If you share co-authorship, and both names are listed in the copyright notice on the back of the title page, you automatically share all rights to that material. This can lead to problematic situations with re-printing the books and royalties, unless the other author consents to sign their rights over to you. You can make separate contracts with your coauthor as to who gets what portion of rights and what procedure to follow should a reprinting situation arise and one author cannot be contacted for whatever reason.
Royalty Payments:
These are made twice a year by Paypal. In the UK, we can offer payment direct to your bank by BACS. If you don't have a Paypal account and cannot make one, we can offer overseas authors cheques in British sterling. We strongly recommend opening a Paypal account if you can.
Public Lending Rights:
All UK resident authors are eligible to claim for Public Lending Rights, which means you get a small payment each time your book is borrowed from one of the public libraries that are annually chosen to take part in the scheme. Details about the PLR scheme and how to register can be found at http://www.plr.uk.com
You are responsible for registering your book with the scheme, and you should do this as soon as the book is published.
You are only eligible for PLR payments if your name appears on the title page of the book. If you share co-authorship, the PLR has to be split between you, but you are responsible only for registering your share. Co-authors have to register themselves.
Other Points to Note:
We cannot offer an individual both writer’s and editor’s payments, as a writer being cited as the editor of their own work might be potentially damaging to sales. Final editing has to be done by another person approved by Immanion Press.
Pseudonyms:
An author who specialises in a specific field might not be ‘taken seriously’ in a different field. If an author writes material for a book in a radically different field to the one for which they are known, it might be beneficial to use a different pen name. This means that the new name gets a ‘clean slate’ to work from. In some cases, it might be better for the author to use their accustomed name. This will always be discussed prior to publication.