Now that I have written many books the most fun thing about being an author is trying to sell the books so that the stories can be adapted into a digital format. I have for the past three months understood and learned a lot about the sales process and people involved in selling the content, something I hardly paid attention to during my first stint In the city as an actor. I learned about IPR rights contracts and deal structure after selling the rights of my first book ‘ Yes sir I killed my Dad .” Ashish and I spend endless hours trying to derive a process and methodology of putting an uninterrupted movie project together, how to structure and finance the creative team, and the movie-making project.
One interesting processor contract that Ashish has been able to build is the Right to Sell contract. Here the author gives his consent to a prospective rights buyer to sell the adaptation rights of the book in the market to a digital platform exclusively. This way the production house which is generally the buyer agrees to sell a tiger book in the market for a stipulated period of time if till then they are not able to sell the story the author gets his rights back and can look for someone else. This contact also has a payment plan with the amount and stipulated time frame when the payment will be released.
The advantage of this for the author is that the market knows the single window they need to approach to buy the rights of the book. With a PR announcement that can be made clear to the public and the digital platform community at large.
The author doesn’t have to run around every production house in Mumbai with his book, he can relax and concentrate on what he knows best and that is to write new books and search for new stories.
The Production house that signs the right to sell agreement knows that Tehri is no multiple entities running around the market selling the rights of the same book. They have in a way locked up the author’s content for a stipulated period of time till the production and the movie go on the floor.
The lock-in period can vary from one year to 3 years depending on the scale and production value of the content that is being made on a tiger adapted book. The right to sell is a great way to professionalize and solemnize a partnership between the author and the rights buyer. Here you can look at bulk deals also where you pitch the buyers a package of two or three books bundled together and a fair price or at a discounted price. That way the books will move faster off the KDP select list.