How to Navigate a Book Contract Without an Agent

Firstly, I’d like to be clear that this blog does not constitute legal advice.

You need to do what’s right for you, and I am not a literary agent or a lawyer.

I WISH I had an agent to do this for me; however, I found myself in this situation and figured I’d share my experience with others who are in the same boat. All in all it turned out great, but if given the choice, I’d choose to pay an agent.

Side-note, during the vague period where I had notices of my offers out to those who still had my manuscript, I wish I would’ve reached out to agents saying that I have an offer in hand and am looking for representation. I didn’t do this, but if you find yourself in this situation, it’s worth considering.

Anyway, I found myself in the amazing predicament of having three offers from reputable indie presses. After weighing my options carefully, I entered into negotiations with one of them sans agent.

I did recruit a lawyer friend of mine to review the contract and walk me through what the legal jargon meant, which was very important!

If you don’t have a friendly neighborhood lawyer, there are tons for hire online at reasonable prices. If you’re a guild member of various author groups, you may even have free legal services at your disposal.

Let’s look at a few contract clauses that helped me decide which publisher to choose. Aka, my indie book contracting ✅ Green Flags! ✅:

• An advance. Although it is smaller than the big trad houses, an advance of any size signals that they are invested in my book’s publication and will put effort into marketing it.
• No AI language. The contract specifies that the publisher won’t use AI or feed work into generative-AI tools.
• Balanced protections. By and large, publishing contracts are meant to protect the publisher, not the author. However, contracts that do not include any language that protects the author, should the publisher not hold up their end of the deal, was a big no-no for me. Investigate what would happen should the publisher fail to publish your book and see if that’s tolerable for you. For example, you should have the right to hire an auditor to review their finances if you believe they are not paying you the correct royalty amount.
• Not a contract term per say, but I do want to mention that it was important for me that physical copies of my books would be distributed through a major distributor and not a print-on-demand or e-book only situation. This allows major booksellers (B&N, etc.) to stock my book more easily. This info should be found on the publisher’s website, or you can ask via email during the negotiation process.

These elements, along with royalty percentage, vibes (I don’t want to work with folks who were difficult or unresponsive!) led me to choose the contract I pursued.

We then entered into dreaded negotiations *cue internal screaming.* 

Obligatory reminder that I already had a lawyer read the contract and point out elements that I should consider changing. Again, just sharing what I did and that I’m happy with the end result.

Let’s chat on X if you have other ideas! You can find me at @eloisecorvo.

I started negotiating simply by asking questions. Anything I wasn’t crystal clear on, or knew I wanted changed, I asked about.

Looking back at the email, I asked six questions for clarity. This also included posing a couple of hypothetical scenarios and asking what would happen under the current contracting language.

I made sure I expressed my gratitude and enthusiasm during this email exchange. I’d hopefully be working with these folks for a while, and I didn’t want to sour the relationship right off the bat.

We went back and forth for a bit, and their responses led me to ask for three amendments to the contract language:

1. Stronger anti-AI clauses
2. Royalty structure clarification
3. Noncompete clause reduction

The contract already had anti-AI language included (green flag!). I asked for additional verbiage that created stronger lines that were not to be crossed by either party.

My lawyer buddy, and many Google searches, told me that it’s important to have total clarity around royalty percentages, and knowing what exactly gets siphoned out before my percentage is calculated. I asked to have their definition of net revenue included in the contract so there would not be confusion (and I’d be protected) should something happen in the future.

Lastly, they (like all of the contracts I received) included a non-compete clause. This wasn’t a deal breaker for me, and was the least restrictive of all of my offers, but I figured it’d be worth trying to get it reduced. This was a hard line for them, they did not budge.

However, they did say that should our agreement terminate, they were open to negotiations at that time. I will say, this was the least restrictive noncompete clause out of my three contracts already, so I was fine with this answer. Plus, it looks like the Federal Trade Commission recently banned noncompete clauses, although I am still unclear if author contracts count or not. This might all be moot anyways.

I didn’t argue for more money.

After doing tons of research, the royalty percentages they offered were within a normal range. Coupled with an advance of any size, which seems fairly rare in the indie world, I decided not to negotiate for more money.

I’m a debut author and understand the gamble the publisher is taking on me. My (hopeful) success under this contract will build a case for a larger advance/royalties for future contracts, as I’ll be less of a risk.

I hope you found this valuable! I’m really happy with where this series ended up, and can’t wait for Book One to debut in March 2025.

If you’re interested in picking up the book that this blog series is all about, you can sign up for my newsletter on EloiseCorvo.com to get notified when it’s available.