Rights and Contracts Jobs in Publishing

Larger publishing houses have Rights and Contracts departments concerned solely with the contractual side of publishing - the drawing up of the initial contracts between the publishers and the authors; and the handling of subsidiary rights such as translation rights, book club editions and serial rights.

Contracts are first needed between the publisher and the author - to determine and agree the conditions under which the manuscript is delivered, and the financial rewards once the product starts to sell.

Subsidiary rights could be seen as the "bread and butter" of the publishing industry - namely, the means by which a book title can be further exploited. For example, rights could be sold to TV companies, overseas publishers, magazines for serialisation, and book clubs. All of these activities bring in revenue and add to the profitability of individual book titles. The knowledge of how contracts are drawn up is essential in these roles and foreign languages can be advantageous when dealing with translation rights. Legal training can be a distinct advantage for working in Rights and Contracts.