Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

Re: Royalty Payments to a Magazine

It's hard to measure your negotiating leverage without knowing anything about you, your book or your experience with General Media. It may be that this is their customary arrangement. From what you've presented, a 10% royalty seems reasonable inasmuch as the articles comprise nearly half of your book. The fact that they will get the royalty after $7,500 is not too bad either. The fact is, you can possibly negotiate a better deal if you want to make the effort. It would help to have an attorney but only if you thought you were going to make serious money with sales. If you took their deal you wouldn't be getting hosed. Areas in which you can attempt a better deal would be a lower royalty, higher threshhold before the royalty begins, prominent credit in lieu of a royalty, no royalty unless and until you got a conventional publisher, definition of what the royalty is based upon, etc. If you would like help please feel free to contact me. I represent authors and have just published a POD book myself.