available in any bookshop or really noticeable in any catalogue,
but remains formally ‘in print’ for ever. Be on the look-out also
for clauses in your contract that may commit you to offer your
next book to the same publisher for consideration, before it
goes to anyone else. Only if your monograph has been accepted
by a very prestigious and efficient publisher is it a good idea to
let such a clause stand. Otherwise you should just draw a line
through this bit and initial the deletion on the contract form,
asking your publisher to do the same.
Normally nothing much hangs on monograph contracts.
The author stands to make little or no money and the publisher
to sell pretty few copies. But once in every several hundred
titles something substantial may crop up. Perhaps you may not
deliver your manuscript on time, a potentially fatal mistake to
make in book publishing, and the publisher may disappoint
your expectations of elastic deadlines by wanting to pull out of
the deal altogether. Perhaps your book may suddenly sell a lot
of copies or go to paperback, in which unlikely case the con-
tract should ensure that you get a decent royalty. Perhaps some-
one may sue you and the publisher, which can be personally
catastrophic for you, so take the non-libel, non-defamatory,
and non-plagiarization clauses in contract documents seriously.
Perhaps your publisher may go bankrupt or default on their
obligation to publish your text, leaving you looking for some
leg to stand on in getting back control of it. Normally these are
remote contingencies, and with a friendly and reputable pub-
lisher not worth worrying about overmuch. But if in doubt,
ask a more experienced colleague to check over a prospective
publisher’s contract with you before signing up.
ConclusionsLike the rest of authoring, publishing takes a lot of time and
dedicated effort. It is never easy to do. It always requires per-
sistence and resilience in the face of rejection, criticisms or
demands for further changes to text that has already taken so
long to produce. You also need to look ahead, and try not to
publish material that within a few years you will not particu-
larly want to acknowledge. But publishing is the only way in
262 ◆AUTHORING A PHD