The Nuts & Bolts of Self-Publishing

This article outlines the main contractual differences between traditional and self-publishing.

Digital technology has allowed more authors than ever to self-publish their work in a number of formats: e-book, print on demand, and even audiobooks. Legally speaking, the main thing to remember if you’re contemplating self-publishing is that instead of contracting with an agent and publishing house (which I’ve discussed previously), you’ll be taking on the publishing role yourself and contracting with a distribution service, like Amazon, Audible, or BookBaby. This article outlines the main contractual differences between traditional and self-publishing.

E-Books

E-books are the most popular and well-established self-publishing format. The contracts you’ll enter into with e-book platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct (KDP), Kobo, Smashwords, or Draft2Digital are relatively stable now, and are largely inflexible. You take or leave the terms offered by clicking the “I agree” button.

These contracts contain terms about similar issues to those you would find in traditional publishing contracts: who bears legal liability in the case of a copyright or defamation claim (typically the author does); and who owns the copyright in the work (again, typically the author). As author, you also represent that nothing in the book infringes anyone else’s legal rights, and agree to indemnify the platform if they get sued over something you wrote.

The platform won’t likely take any intellectual property rights in your work. They usually only get the right to distribute it online, and of course they take royalties for doing so: For example, Amazon gives authors around 70% royalties and thus takes a much smaller percentage than a traditional publisher. Also, with self-publishing, you don’t have an agent taking a cut, either—so that’s more money in your pocket if the book is successful.

Creating an e-book is much simpler than physical books or audiobooks. You only have to format the text file for your digital platform and create a front cover image. You can do a lot of this work yourself or you might choose to enter into separate contracts with: an illustrator/photographer/designer for the cover; and/or, a freelance editor to help you polish up the text. If you do contract with outside experts, you should make sure those folks don’t take any copyright or other rights to your book, and that your contracts with them don’t restrict what you can do with their work. (For example, don’t limit your use of the cover image in terms of time or format.)

Print on Demand

If you want to make print versions of your self-published books, again there are plenty of platforms to use, like Amazon or Book Baby. (Createspace is now owned by Amazon.) Unlike an e-book, a printed version requires a full jacket design, including a back cover and spine. You may want to enter into a separate contract with a professional designer to help you with that, which will raise some of the issues above about ensuring you have the rights you need in work done by people you hire.

As with e-books, the print on demand service providers won’t give you a chance to negotiate contract terms, so you need to be aware of what you are paying for under the standard contract. Do you get the opportunity to examine page proofs and request changes? Are there any limitations on where physical books can be delivered? Is there a discount for bulk orders if you want to order a box of books to sell at your own author events? While you won’t get a chance to negotiate, you can compare the different services offered by different companies.

Audiobooks

Self-publishing an audiobook may sound daunting, but it is easier to do now than ever before. A number of companies offer production help, and distribution, for self-published audiobooks including Audible (owned by Amazon), Findaway Voices, ListenUP Audiobooks, and Author’s Republic. The Audible ACX webpage is a good resource with demonstration videos and explanations.

Audiobooks are more complex than other digital formats largely because you need to either hire a narrator or self-narrate, raising questions of sound quality and length of audio files (usually spelled out in the contract with the distribution platform). You also need to consider how a narrator will be paid, which can be a royalty share, a flat fee, or a combination of the two. In the United States, the narrator generally doesn’t take any intellectual property rights in the finished product, even if they share royalties. Your contract should make this clear. Additionally, your narration contract should include a provision that you get to hear samples of the audio files and the narrator agrees to a certain amount of re-recording to fix any problems prior to release.

A separate contract with the distribution platform will set out things like the price points at which your audiobook may be sold and the amount of time you’re committing to allowing the service to distribute the book. Audible currently takes a seven-year minimum distribution right, unlike Amazon’s KDP program for e-books, which allows books to be removed by the author with five days’ notice. Audible also sets the prices for self-published audiobooks, rather than leave it to the author. Audible offers different royalty deals: higher royalties (currently 40%) for giving it exclusive distribution of the book, and lower rates (currently 25%) if you distribute on other platforms.

The Bottom Line

Self-publishing takes a lot of work, but also gives an author greater control over the creative and production process. The laws around it are fairly straightforward, but generally not particularly negotiable, so be sure you know what you’re getting into before you click on “I agree.”