Contracts & Payscales
Writing Contracts & Payscales Guidelines
Writing Contracts - Writer Payscales - Literary Agents - Other Resources
Writing Contracts
This page is an attempt to give writers an idea of how to approach contracts with an understanding of general payscales. There are variations between genres, markets and geographic regions. You may wish to check with a writing association near you for advice before you negotiate or sign a contract.
What is Involved in the Standard Contract according to the Editors Association of Canada.
http://www.editors.ca/hire/sfea/index.html
Contract Advice For Freelance Creators prepared by PWAC.
http://www.CanAuthors.org/links/freelance.html
Writer Payscales
What to Pay a Writer according to PWAC.
http://www.writers.ca/whattopay.htm
Stock Photo Price Calculator from the Photographer's Index will give you an idea of how much stock photos cost when used for advertising, corporate or editorial use. All prices are in U.S. dollars.
http://photographersindex.com/stockprice.htm
Adverting Photographers of America survey results (PDF - 101k). This 1999 survey will give you an idea of pricing and costs.
http://cf51dev3.i4a.com/files/public/apa_surveyreport_2.pdf
The NO!SPEC campaign discusses the issue of working for "spec" or for free. A useful site for writers considering giving their work away.
http://www.no-spec.com
Creative Commons is an alternative way to share intellectual property with a variety of licences in combination: Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works, and Share Alike.
http://creativecommons.org
Literary Agents
It is not always necessary for a writer to have a literary agent before getting published in Canada, but agents can assist in placing manuscripts.
Verify Literary Agents
Be sure to check out any literary agent carefully before committing. Reading the resources below should give you an idea what to look for and, more importantly, what to avoid when selecting an agent.
The Canadian Writer's Guide Thirteenth Edition contains information on literary agents in the Writer's Reference section.
http://www.CanAuthors.org/cwg.html
Nine Tips For Finding a Literary Agent (content from the excellent LiteraryAgents.org site, which is no longer available).
http://www.alanjacobson.com/nine_tips_for_finding_an_agent.htm
Caveat Scriptor: A Brief Guide to Researching Literary Agents.
http://www.nwu.org/nwu/index.php?cmd=showPage&page_id=1.5.1.7.7
On the Getting of Agents is a down-to-earth description of the process and prospects of getting an agent.
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004772.html
Finding an Agent.
http://writersservices.com/services/s_finding_an_agent.htm
Association of Authors' Representatives, Inc. (AAR), a not-for-profit organization of independent literary and dramatic agents.
http://www.aar-online.org
Preditors and Editors: Listings of Agents and other Representation contains information about contacting agents and how agents work.
http://www.invirtuo.cc/prededitors/pubagent.htm
Avoiding Unscrupulous Agents
The Web is full of horror stories where unscrupulous agents take advantage of a writer's desires in the same manner as a vanity press.
Writer Beware: Literary Agents portrays the characteristics of dishonest, amateur, marginal, and incompetent agents and discusses the practice of charging fees.
http://www.sfwa.org/beware/agents.html
Preditors and Editors: Some General Rules for Spotting a Scam Literary Agency is found below the section on spotting a scam publisher.
http://www.invirtuo.cc/prededitors/pubwarn.htm
The Scam, The Sting, and The Dirty Little Secret—An Insider’s View of the Book Publishing Industry provides some hard lessons for too-anxious writers.
http://www.razorsedgepublishing.com/publisherspick.htm
Other Resources
Writers Guild of Canada offers a script registration service to assist writers in establishing the identity and date of completion of a stage of their literary material. (Copyright is automatic in Canada. Check our Copyright and Electronic Rights: Laws and Agencies page for agencies.)
http://www.wgc.ca/service/index.html
Cataloguing in Publication (CIP) is a voluntary program enabling the cataloguing of books prior to publication. The Canadian CIP program is coordinated by the National Library of Canada.
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/6/15/index-e.html
Authors' Rights:
On Getting Paid In The Age Of Digital Reproduction by Anna Couey.
http://www.well.com/~couey/authorsrights.html
More Information on this Site
You might wish to look at the following pages on this site for additional information:
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www.canauthors.org/links/contracts.html
Updated: June 10, 2009
