I'll be (most likely) publishing a book, more specifically a collection of short stories. I am the writer and my business partner has been working as a sales/marketing representative, so to speak. One publisher basically gave us a verbal agreement, and they will cover 50% of the cost. We've been planning to publish a book for some time, and I pretty much decided to go with this. After all, I'm a totally unknown writer (or aspiring writer), so I don't think it's realistic to expect the publisher to cover 100% of the cost. Presumably, this publisher will also cover the marketing cost, so I think it's all right. However, to be honest, I have no freaking idea how this works. I presume that I will keep the copyright but is this something I should ask explicitly? What if ... what if a different publisher wants to print my stories in the future? Then what? I honestly don't expect that this is going to sell tens of thousands of copies, but let's say that enough copies will be sold to make profit. How should we split the profit? What basics should we cover? I'd greatly appreciate your help.
You wrote the stories... You have the copyright. You don't need to ask for the copyright. But don't sign any agreement that you are giving away the copyright to the publisher. I don't have a great deal of knowledge about this but, I guess that you can work with other publishers if you haven't signed any deal to write only for the current publisher. You'll get royalty for your works sold. It should be in the agreement. Why not hire a lawyer ? Anyways... Hope this helped. Sumit.