Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Why Dragonlance's Margaret Weis Left TSR: A Slaying the Dragon Excerpt
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="JLowder" data-source="post: 8703844" data-attributes="member: 28003"><p>How the omnibuses of a work-for-hire series or trilogy are handled would be dictated by the individual contracts. New contracts for authors whose work the IP owner is likely to release in omnibus (Margaret and Tracy, Bob Salvatore, etc) will contain specific terms for omnibus editions, if the person negotiating the contract is doing their job.</p><p></p><p>If the original work-for-hire contracts did not include terms or clauses that would cover the omnibus publication, the publisher or IP owner might go back to the author or their agent with an offer--we'll pay $X for an advance against Y% of cover price for print royalties and Z% of net for audiobooks and ebooks and translations. That's if the IP owner wants to be collaborative. If all three books in the trilogy paid the same royalty originally and the IP owner or the publisher just wanted to move ahead without negotiating, they might apply that rate to the omnibus and maybe offer a new advance, maybe not. It all depends upon how hardline and confrontational they wanted to be. </p><p></p><p>If the IP owner is being openly hostile, they may try to jam the omnibus into the lowest-paying clause in the contract and dare the authors to challenge them. Or they might try to claim the contract did not specify any author payment for an omnibus, so the author gets nothing for that. They just get paid for the individual books.</p><p></p><p>With work-for-hire--which is the type of contract used for all the TSR shared-world novels--the IP owner holds all the rights, so they have a lot of power. The author only gets payments for the things specified in the agreement.</p><p></p><p>For accounting, the omnibus likely would be treated as a separate item from the individual books, with the omnibus sales accruing to that line item, not the individual books. From a practical publishing perspective, the publisher needs to keep track of the omnibus sales to see if releasing it was worth the cost and effort. (Ebooks and audiobooks of a single work are tracked as separate line items, as well, though they might be tallied against the original advance for the book, which also covered individual print.)</p><p></p><p>These are issues with work-for-hire contracts, when the publisher holds all the rights to the work and the author only gets what the publisher agrees to get them. Many work-for-hire fiction projects pay flat fee advances and do not pay royalties or a cut of translations or a cut of audiobooks. The TSR/WotC novels are, overall, okay deals that way.</p><p></p><p>With a creator-owned novel trilogy, the omnibus question will require a lot less thought. If an omnibus edition was not covered in the original contract, most legit publishers will have to go back to the author or their agent with an offer. That's because the baseline rights for the work belong to the author (not another IP owner) and the contract probably includes some variation of of the line "all rights not specifically covered in this agreement remain with the author."</p><p></p><p>In other words, if the deal does not include an omnibus and spell out what the author is paid for one, the publisher can't do an omnibus without securing the author's explicit permission.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JLowder, post: 8703844, member: 28003"] How the omnibuses of a work-for-hire series or trilogy are handled would be dictated by the individual contracts. New contracts for authors whose work the IP owner is likely to release in omnibus (Margaret and Tracy, Bob Salvatore, etc) will contain specific terms for omnibus editions, if the person negotiating the contract is doing their job. If the original work-for-hire contracts did not include terms or clauses that would cover the omnibus publication, the publisher or IP owner might go back to the author or their agent with an offer--we'll pay $X for an advance against Y% of cover price for print royalties and Z% of net for audiobooks and ebooks and translations. That's if the IP owner wants to be collaborative. If all three books in the trilogy paid the same royalty originally and the IP owner or the publisher just wanted to move ahead without negotiating, they might apply that rate to the omnibus and maybe offer a new advance, maybe not. It all depends upon how hardline and confrontational they wanted to be. If the IP owner is being openly hostile, they may try to jam the omnibus into the lowest-paying clause in the contract and dare the authors to challenge them. Or they might try to claim the contract did not specify any author payment for an omnibus, so the author gets nothing for that. They just get paid for the individual books. With work-for-hire--which is the type of contract used for all the TSR shared-world novels--the IP owner holds all the rights, so they have a lot of power. The author only gets payments for the things specified in the agreement. For accounting, the omnibus likely would be treated as a separate item from the individual books, with the omnibus sales accruing to that line item, not the individual books. From a practical publishing perspective, the publisher needs to keep track of the omnibus sales to see if releasing it was worth the cost and effort. (Ebooks and audiobooks of a single work are tracked as separate line items, as well, though they might be tallied against the original advance for the book, which also covered individual print.) These are issues with work-for-hire contracts, when the publisher holds all the rights to the work and the author only gets what the publisher agrees to get them. Many work-for-hire fiction projects pay flat fee advances and do not pay royalties or a cut of translations or a cut of audiobooks. The TSR/WotC novels are, overall, okay deals that way. With a creator-owned novel trilogy, the omnibus question will require a lot less thought. If an omnibus edition was not covered in the original contract, most legit publishers will have to go back to the author or their agent with an offer. That's because the baseline rights for the work belong to the author (not another IP owner) and the contract probably includes some variation of of the line "all rights not specifically covered in this agreement remain with the author." In other words, if the deal does not include an omnibus and spell out what the author is paid for one, the publisher can't do an omnibus without securing the author's explicit permission. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Why Dragonlance's Margaret Weis Left TSR: A Slaying the Dragon Excerpt
Top