Re: Contract for a book

[Beth Agnew <beth -dot- agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca>]

It's not about how much you make, but how much you keep. Hang on to that 
intellectual property tightly! If they are giving you author credit, 
make sure there are very few strings on what you can do with that book 
later. Also try to work it so that if they need updates, they have to 
come to you. You may never do anything outside the company with the 
book, but you never know... books with a more commercial spin are great 
calling cards for very lucrative future work. Find out how much of that 
book you'll actually "own", if any of it, and what other ways they plan 
to use it. You will also have "moral rights" to the book if your name is 
on it. Maybe not a concern if it's highly technical but worth thinking 
about. Will this be simply a work for hire? That's okay, if you can 
liberally show the book afterward as your creation.

Apart from that -- which you may or may not be able to accomplish 
depending on subject matter and the purpose of the book -- I'd quote on 
a project basis. Ask them what their budget is, flat out. They'll 
probably tell you. Then figure out if you want to do it for that. (I 
think the money is probably unimportant anyway, you'd get more value 
from having done the book and leveraging it as a portfolio item.) 50 
pages -- just off the top of my head $2500.00. If that gives them a 
heart attack, then say, Well, most books like this cost that much to 
write, but since I already have much of the material together, I could 
probably do it for less. What did you have in mind?" Then you have a 
basis for negotiation.

Quoting on any job is a complex dance of what you'll do it for, what you 
need to keep the rent paid, what the market will bear, what you think 
you can squeeze out of them, and what would make both parties happy 
enough to do it again. Hence the analogy that writing is like 
prostitution. :-)

R. Armstrong wrote: