Contracts

A contract can be drawn up only after a proposed project has been approved by the New Publications Committee. The publisher proposes the project and it is discussed in the context of the company's wider publishing plans, its financial viability and allocation of resources. The publisher must have the backing of the company's marketing, sales and production staff before the investment required for the project can be approved. The contract will be between Longman Nigeria PLC and the author and acts as the final seal of approval for the proposal. It marks a commitment between the author and Longman Nigeria PLC to publish the project in accordance with the specification, brief and budget approved by the

Committee

The contract is a legal statement of the relationship between you, the author and Longman Nigeria PLC and sets out both the author's responsibility to the publishing house, and the publishing house's responsibility to the author.

• The contents of the contract relate to the following issues:
• Confirmation of copyright ownership.
• The agreed fee and/or royalty percentage.
• The date by which the author agrees to deliver the final manuscript and in what form (e.g. word file via email with hard copy, or hard disk with hard           copy for book products).
• The date in the year when royalties are paid and the sales period they relate to.
• Author entitlement on subsidiary rights. This would provide, for example, for the author's financial remuneration if the material is licensed to,                       translated or quoted by a third party.
• The number of complimentary copies to which the author is entitled.

Permissions fees. If an author needs to use copyright material, permission for inclusion of such material needs to be sought, and often a fee will be payable. Longman Nigeria will commit to expenditure for permissions up to an agreed sum on any project. Should an author request that permissions be sought above this sum, it is possible that he or she could be asked to contribute. This is, however, uncommon.

The author's responsibility to the material after final manuscript is completed, e.g. approving page layouts, proofreading and checking diagrams                and artwork.

The author's responsibility for supplying material for new editions.

Copyright

What is copyright and why do publishers ask for it to be assigned to them?

Copyright is literally the right to copy.

In writing your book you have created a copyright work and by law in order for us to publish the work you must grant us the rights to do so. It is our policy to acquire the entire copyright to your work throughout the world for the full term of copyright. We can then manage all aspects of the commercial exploitation of the work for you so that you do not need to spend time dealing with such things as the sale of the translation rights, permissions requests or instances of copyright infringement.