NFT Rights: The New Subsidiary Right Authors Need to Know About

In a previous post, 5 Rights You Might Be Signing Away in a Book Publishing Deal, I discussed the most common subsidiary rights that are up for negotiation in a typical book publishing contract, including foreign rights, e-book rights, audio book rights, tv/film/stage, and podcast rights. With the emergence of the metaverse, there’s another subsidiary right that will soon be a hot commodity: the NFT rights.

A typical book publishing contract contains language in the “electronic rights” section (for e-book version) that includes “any digital format… whether now known or hereafter developed.” This language would include the book in an NFT book format.

We are only in the infancy stages of NFT books, but the emerging trend is that NFT books, not to mention related crowdfunding and world-building, will come with a boatload of opportunities for authors. For example, an NFT book can be built into a secondary market where the author gets automatic royalties for the resale of the book. The blockchain technology through smart contracts allows for true ownership with trackable resales of ownership resulting in royalties to the author. This is simply impossible with physical or e-books. Gone will be the days of archaic accounting by publishing companies. (Watch for this same trend in music artists and publishing.)  

Like any of the subsidiary rights, if the publisher doesn’t exploit the right, then it can sit unused in a contract.

This was the case with audio rights for two of my books. I renegotiated with my publisher to get those rights and made my own audio books. I make 100% royalties (minus the cost of production and third-party seller fees), which is more than I make off the hard copy sales. Even if a publisher obtains such rights and exploits them, the contract provides for a smaller royalty percentage than the author would otherwise get on their own.  

Think of this in terms of NFT rights. If the publisher isn’t going to exploit it, it’s in the author’s best interest to claim that right in the negotiation stage. If the publisher plans to exploit it and the author agrees, then the royalty percentage should be strategically negotiated.

If you’re wondering what you would do with NFT rights to a book, see my article, Will NFTs Be the Next Disruptor in the Publishing Industry.

For book publishing contracts entered into before now, the standard language – whether now known or hereafter developed – has finally found applicability. For authors bound by such contract, they will need to renegotiate to reserve their NFT rights if they want to take advantage of this new technology now or in the future, or at least keep it in mind for the next book publishing contract. Of course, another option is to self-publish and add NFTs to your list of rights you can exploit and keep 100% of the royalties in return.