When a publisher makes an offer to buy your book, they send you what they call a boilerplate - a standard contract with their usual terms.Some common things you’ll need to look for are:

- your correct legal name

- your correct pen name, if you’re using one

- correct title and series name

- that you are granting the correct rights (usually publishers ask for an exclusive on everything, but you can sometimes negotiate so that you keep the audio rights or foreign language rights, for example…although unless you’re famous, I’m not sure why you’d do that…)

- if you ARE famous, you may want to avoid granting the publisher any sort of digital rights other than the right to make an ebook. If they do any interactive content, it could interfere with your chances of a film deal. Since a newbie author’s chances of a film deal are pretty close to zilch anyway, I wouldn’t restrict them in any marketing/formatting options they want to leverage.

- how long the publisher retains exclusive rights for. If this is a novel, try to negotiate it so that the rights will revert back to you after the book has been out of print for X number of years. For a novella or short story, the contract will likely already contain information about when you can sell the story elsewhere. Check to see if digital copies count as “in print” and if they do, specify how many copies must be sold in a specific time period before rights revert back to you.

- the contract may tell you what file format you need to deliver the manuscript in. Doc files (not .docx) is usually standard. Many publishers accept .rtf as well. It’s best if you own a licensed copy of an up-to-date version of Microsoft Word as it will make editing easier.

- when you get paid (usually 2-4 times per years, but I can think of at least one publisher who pays monthly)

- whether or not you are required to register your own copyright. This one is important. If someone rips off your book, you stand to earn a heck of a lot more money in court if your copyright is registered, rather than just being able to prove that you wrote it first. Most major publishers will register it on your behalf; many smaller and digital publishers do not. If this is not expressly stated, ask for clarification in the contract.

- how many copies you will receive of your own books, and what you are permitted to do with them (ie, can you run contests, should you be giving these to reviewers or will the publisher send out copies for you, etc)

These are just a few things you can expect to see on a boilerplate. You should be consulting with your agent or with a contract lawyer who is familiar with publishing before signing anything!