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Your Legal Rights and Making Your Contracts Work for You

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PART OF THE BUSINESS BOOTCAMPS FOR WRITERS SERIES

A publishing contract can determine an author’s income, rights, and liabilities, often for decades after it’s signed. This session, featuring legal experts, will arm authors with the knowledge they need to understand their rights and contracts. Attendees will come away with negotiating skills needed to get the most out of their contracts with or without an agent. Traditional and hybrid book contracts will be discussed, as well as ghostwriting and freelance agreements.


PANELISTS:

Umair Kazi is the Director of Policy & Advocacy at the Authors Guild. He studied law at the University of Iowa, and creative writing at Columbia University.

Adam Schear is a graduate of Tulane University and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA, formerly the AAR) as well as on the AALA contracts committee. He began his publishing career at the William Morris Agency and joined DeFiore and Company in 2009. His clients have won The Center for Fiction First Novel Award and the AWP Award for the Novel and have been finalists and longlisted for The Giller Prize, The New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and The Kobo Prize, among others.

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS AND PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

With support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Penguin Random House, and our donors, the Authors Guild Foundation is pleased to make Business Bootcamps for Writers free and open to the public.

Several writers’ organizations have partnered with the Authors Guild Foundation to help shape these programs. Our deepest appreciation to these organizations.

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