ABSTRACT
The author-publisher contract sets out the scope of the publisher to license various kinds of rights to other firms: the licensing business model. These rights allow the licencees to exploit the book across diff erent dimensions – by media, territory and language. Rights sales can be important to a publisher since the income attracts little by way of direct costs and is often simply extra profit. To be compared directly to sales income, the revenue from rights sales should be multiplied by a factor of six to eight. In consumer book publishing, where the contract is frequently drawn up by the author’s agent, there may be a more limited grant of rights to the publisher – for example, agents may choose to retain fi lm and TV rights, serial rights and translation rights to handle themselves.
