I wonder if anyone has any advice on contracts and what is standard - or if there is anything standard - for first-time writers. Also is it normal for a deal to be for more than one book and is this desirable or should you renegotiate each time?

All I know is that you should check your contract with the Society of Authors. They're experts in that sort of thing. See: http://www.societyofauthors.net
Congratulations if you've just been offered a contract!
AliasGrace

Rosy,

If you have been offered a contract with a proper publisher (i.e. not a POD/subsidy/online one), and you don't have an agent, the best thing to do is join the Society of Authors. They are experts on publishing contracts, and will look at yours before you sign it. To join costs about £80 but that's a lot cheaper than hiring a specialist solicitor.

Alternatively, you shouldn't have any trouble finding an agent if you've been offered a contract, especially if, by the sound of it, it's for more than one book. An agent will negotiate a better deal for you, and will discuss with you issues such as two-book deals. These sound good but aren't always in the author's best interests, in that they bring with them a lot of pressure for some people. Usually, an author's first book will have taken them several years to produce, but with a two-book contract, they're going to have to come up with the second one much faster. Some freeze under this pressure, or go into all kinds of diversionary activities to avoid writing it. Which brings even more pressures, of course. Also, the two-book deal is often the publisher's way of saying, We'll give you these two chances then, if you don't deliver, you're out.

Terry

If you send the Soc of A a membership form and a cheque and the contract they'll turn it round in a couple of days, and give you clause-by-clause advice on what's good, what's bad and what's ugly, for the price most solicitors charge to stick on a stamp. You've then got their advice on the end of the phone for a whole year. I think they have a reduced fee for under-35s, too - don't know if that's you.

Terry's quite right, two-book contracts have pluses and minuses. As well as the things he's mentioned, the pluses are that you get a bit more money up front, for signing the contract on the second one even if delivery is years away, and biggest plus of all, that the publisher's making a bigger commitment to you: they'll put more into promoting number one, knowing it'll pay off for number two as well. On the other hand, if you know number two will be a completely different animal from number one, they may not like it: they'll be expecting to sell it into the same market and start building you as a 'name' if not a 'brand'. And if number one does less well than expected you'll want them to push number two more, and they'll want to push less, which can be a really messy argument. You really do want an agent to make this kind of call for you, I'd say.

But many congratulations on being offered a contract. Don't let the worry detract from that!

Emma

Emma raises a key point, to do with branding. This possibly applies more to genre writers, and I'd include children's as a genre in this respect. Publishers want your books in identifiable covers, with similar themes running through the stories, and, ideally, the same characters. I know a lot of children's writers who have been steered up this path of what are usually diminishing returns, both financially and creatively. One, for example, wrote a nice little story about a unicorn (it wasn't a unicorn, but I don't want to make this story recognisable). She wanted to do something different for her second, contracted, book but the publisher insisted she died a follow-up book about the same unicorn. For her third (non-contracted) book, she presented a completely different story. Her publisher said, We don't want to do anything else by you, sorry. At this point, she was in a difficult position. She could try again with a new publiser, but that would be tough: yes, she's been published, but she's also been rejected by her publisher. In the end, she wrote a third book about the unicorn.

Terry

It's true. I think the more towards 'literary' you get, the less it applies, but if I'd said my second book was going to be a short, sharp techno-thriller, rather than another multi-layered historical part-love-story, I don't know what Headline would have said. No thanks, quite possibly, I suppose. I was interested at the amount of fuss about Sarah Waters taking a slightly - but not very, let's face it - direction in The Night Watch. Mind you, that could have been publicist generated, of course.

On the pro-two-book deal side (I think) is the tale of a writer acquaintance with a fat historical-literary thriller who was offered a two-book deal by a big publisher. She got six figures for the book, but turned down the two-book deal because what she wanted to write next wasn't at all the same thing. Something - her publishers not pushing hard enough? Because it was only one book? - stopped her terrific book getting the attention it deserved, and when her agents tried to sell the next one, they couldn't. They still haven't. She's single and does have a 'proper' job, so she's not depending on the money and that six figures must have transformed her life financially anyway, but it must hurt.

That agent, I happen to know, tends to be anti-two-book-deals, on the grounds that if book one does well, then the author feels they didn't get enough for book two and sulks, and if book one does badly then the publisher feels they paid too much for book two and doesn't back it. I don't know if that influenced their advice to this particular author.

Emma

Thanks for all the congratulations but I'm afraid i have to disappoint in that I haven't been offered a contract. Yet (fingers crossed). I am just at the sending stuff about point. The reason I was interested in people's experiences was because I've been at the Edinburgh Book festival and there's been a lot of advice there, not all consistent, and therefore was wondering about people's experiences.

Sorry for misunderstanding. I will keep you posted if I do though.

Oh just to add - thank you for all those thoughts which were very interesting. I will go and digest...

You're welcome. It's all stuff worth thinking about, even if it's early days for you personally. And you never know who else is reading the thread, or searching for it later, and will benefit, so you're doing a public service by generating a thread like this too.

Good luck with the submissions.

Emma

Would anyone recommend that I join the society of authors to have them look at the contract forwarded to me by an agent?

Yes, certainly. They looked at mine and were very helpful.

Yes, very definitely. Even if there's nothing really bad in the contract - as I'm sure there isn't - they can explain the implications of non-standard things that you might not understand.

All right, I admit it, the secretary is a cousin of mine (on the Irish side of my family, I might add, Lola). But I'd still think it was a boon and a blessing to authors even without that.

Emma

Thanks,
It's all double dutch to me so having someone else look at it will be a bonus. However I've emailed them and while they can advise my contract obviously comes from a different jurisdiction so they have admitted the advice is just that and they would not be able to represent me in any overseas matters.

(Emma, I had an email from a secretary who may be your cousin!)

Mark LeFanu? That's my cousin, anyway. I'd forgotten your contract would be under Irish law. Still I'm sure they'd be able to say things worth listening to. But is there not an Irish equivalent of the society?

Emma

On the subject of contracts ...do Literary Agents represent the author, or each individual book? For instance, say you had a contract for a non-fiction book, and then you wrote a novel, would the Agent be obliged to represent the novel too?