Melody Herr, head of the Office of Scholarly Communications, has published an article in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication titled “The Rights Provisions of a Book Publishing Contract.” This article complements her book Writing and Publishing Your Book: A Guide for Experts in Every Field (2017).
“Since my book came out last year,” Herr says, “I’ve gotten many questions about publishing contracts.”
This article answers those questions: what rights an author owns, the tradeoffs of transferring specific rights to a publisher, what contract terms to look out for, how to negotiate a contract addendum and how to reclaim rights previously granted to a publisher.
Herr emphasizes, “It’s important to understand copyright law and the author-publisher partnership because the contract determines where and how your book will be available.”
Herr’s publications align with her mission at the U of A. The Office of Scholarly Communications represents a productive collaboration between the University Libraries and the Office of Research and Innovation.
Herr explains, “Together, these two units support faculty, staff, and students who do amazing research and scholarship. Now, Scholarly Communications helps them to get their work published and to make it more accessible, more visible.”
In addition to providing information about open access, copyright, and other topics related to academic publishing, the office manages the digital institutional repository, ScholarWorks@UARK, which makes U of A research available worldwide, free of charge. University of Arkansas faculty, staff and students are encouraged to submit theses, publications, and other work to the repository. The submission guidelines offer step-by-step instructions. For personal assistance, contact the Institutional Repository Coordinator, Cedar Claire Middleton, at scholar@uark.edu.
Herr offers personal consultations for faculty and graduate students as well as workshops and presentations for campus organizations. To ask a question or schedule an appointment, contact her at herr@uark.edu.