II. YOUR PUBLISHING CONTRACT

Your contract is an important document, which we regularly consult as your manuscript develops, and you should, too. It describes the project, your payment, your deadline, your rights, and much more.

Please resist the temptation to put your signed contract in a drawer and never look at it again!

THE CONTRACT RIDER

Pay special attention to the contract rider, the signed supplement at the end of your contract, which tells you exactly the items and topics we are expecting to see in your completed manuscript. In particular, please pay attention to

• Content parameters, including topics you should cover
• Number of chapters or entries required and number of words required
• Front and back matter, such as introductions, bibliographies, resource guides, glossaries, appendixes and the like.
• Manuscript deadline date (We suggest that you also post it on your computer, one of your children, or a pet, so that you do not forget!)
• Budgets for contributors (if yours is a contributed project)
• Photo or illustration requirements
• Indexing

If you have any questions at all, contact your acquisitions editor.

DEADLINES

Please take your contractual submission date seriously, as you would any other legal obligation. Please plan realistically for meeting this deadline and tell your editor immediately if you do not think you can meet it.

If you are an editor or author of one volume in a multi-volume set where all volumes must be published at the same time, please realize that your delay hurts not just your project but also the entire set. If you are late, the whole set will be late.

It doesn't matter if I don't meet my deadline and other myths

There still persists in some a happy belief that publishing is a slow-paced, genteel business where men in tweeds and women in pearls (or vice versa) enjoy leisurely days reviewing manuscripts and chatting about books. We're not sure if that model ever existed, but it is not the case with any publishing company of which we are aware.

We know that unexpected life events can sometimes work against meeting manuscript delivery deadlines, but please do not count on receiving deadline extensions. Keeping on schedule is essential to running an effective publishing program. Production, marketing, and financial schedules and budgets are all affected by delays.

Other actions that will cause problems with publishing your work:

• Turning in a much larger or much smaller manuscript than expected
• Not covering expected topics without discussing with your editor
• Copying material from the Internet or any source without attribution (and permission, if necessary)
• Not delivering expected elements such as bibliographies, glossaries, sidebars, appendixes, images, and other items that your contract rider lists
• Submitting late or poorly organized illustrations or requests for illustrations

If you anticipate or experience any difficulties in preparation of your manuscript by its deadline, please discuss this with your editor, earlier, rather than later. We are basing budgets and schedules on ms. arrival dates. Telling your editor the week before your ms. is due that a new job or raccoons in your attic* require your needing another six months at least, when in reality you have barely started your work, may not be met with openhearted understanding.

* Actual excuse used by one author.