From the course: Sell Your Novel to a Major Publisher

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Option clauses

Option clauses

From the course: Sell Your Novel to a Major Publisher

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Option clauses

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- [Narrator] The last section of your contract that I'm going to cover, because I believe it is important to take note of at this stage of your career is the option clause. An option clause is the clause of your contract that gives your publisher the first right of refusal on your next book. And most book contracts will have this clause which is why I think it's essential that we talk about them. Here's what the option clause really means. If you sell your publisher one book, there's a good chance they're going to want to buy more of your work especially if your book sells well. The option clause is designed to keep you from selling one book to one publisher and then turning around and selling another book to another publisher the next day. This would essentially create a conflict of interest especially if the two books are similar in genre and or scheduled to release around the same time. A publisher doesn't want an author to be promoting two similar books for two different…

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