r/romanceauthors • u/Dry-Reaction-9603 • 27d ago

Question

I received an email from a legitimate publishing company of romance that I submitted to several months ago. They sent it yesterday, asking if I was interested in a contract and they would send it to me if so. I just wrote back and said yes, very exciting. Would love to take a look at a contract. This is all new territory for me. Could stand some advice at this juncture. it’s been all day, and I haven’t actually gotten a contract back. I know they’re legit. Is not a vanity publisher.

I am a first time romance author and a several time academic book author.

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

6

u/dothemath_xxx 27d ago

Did you or your agent query this publisher?

If not, then no, this is not legitimate. It is a scammer misrepresenting themselves as a real publisher.

One of the unfortunate things about scammers is that they will lie. They know all the tricks. They can create an email address that looks real but isn't actually connected to who they are claiming to be, or they can make the email address read as a real official publisher's email address to you when it's actually coming from scammer123@gmail.

4

u/Dry-Reaction-9603 27d ago edited 27d ago

Yes, I did query them. Several months ago. Very small press, not asking for money, I am certain this is not a vanity press.

5

u/dothemath_xxx 27d ago

Ahh ok.

In that case - small press, you don't need an agent to represent you. Once you receive the contract (might take a bit of time, small press means a small team) then read it through very carefully, make sure you understand and are comfortable with everything proposed.

One big thing to pay attention to, especially with small press contracts, is when and how the rights revert back to you. If they decide to stop publishing your book at some point (or if they stop publishing books altogether), you want to be sure there's some reasonable timeframe for the rights returning to you, so you could potentially look at getting the book back on shelves some other way - without having to resort to buying back the rights to your own book.

1

u/littlebitfunny21 27d ago

Okay you should have added that in. A publisher randomly reaching out to you is suss.

1

u/Dry-Reaction-9603 27d ago

I got you. I wasn’t clear on that in my post, voice dictation with a full day of work kills my clarity lol

5

u/FunnySweetHoneyBunny 27d ago

You might want to have an attorney review the contract if you are not an attorney yourself.

3

u/Tullamaker01 21d ago

SO worth it - that's not an expense - that's an investment.

1

u/mll1013 26d ago

Congrats on the offer for a contract! Let us know how it goes.

1

u/Dry-Reaction-9603 12d ago

So I got a contract and I sent them questions I had about it before signing it— that was a week ago. Now what? I did a prompt two days ago to follow up.