A publishing contract is a legal contract between a publisher and a writer or author (or more than one), to publish original content by the writer(s) or author(s). This may involve a single written work, or a series of works. In the case of music publishing, the emphasis is not on printed or recorded works. It usually refers to the promotion of a musical composition, and/or its referral to a suitable recording artist. A music publisher who does produce (or contract to issue) sheet music is known as a music print publisher. It can be used by authors, journalist .etc Book publishing agreements Some of the most essential clauses of a standard (boilerplate) book publishing contract are: Grant of Rights, Subsidiary Rights, Delivery and Acceptance, Publication, Copyright, Advance (if there is any), Royalties, and Out of Print. All of them should be taken seriously by authors since trade publishing contracts are not covered in the United States by statutory requirements for fairness and may contain vague language, biased terms and hidden future pitfalls. In the U.K., the Contracts Act of 1999, the Digital Economy Act 2010, and the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act of 2013 opened the door to revisions of the established practices in the area of publishing contracts which are currently underway. Therefore, Types of music publishing agreements It is important for music authors, producers and publishers to understand the legal rights associated with publishing contracts. The common music publishing contracts are: (1) Single Song Agreement: A single song deal is an agreement between the writer and the music publisher in which the writer grants certain rights to a publisher for one or more songs. In single song deals, the writer is paid a one-time recoupable advance. (2) Exclusive Song Writer Agreement ("ESWA") / "Publishing Deal": Under the ESWA or "staff writer" contract, the songwriter generally grants all of the songwriter's share of the income to the music publisher. The writer's services are exclusive to the music publishers for a specified period of time. Thus, any compositions written within that period belong to the music publisher. These deals are usually offered to writers with some degree of success. Because the writer has a track record of writing hits, the publisher feels confident that it will recoup its investment. In return for signing away exclusive rights to some or all the writer's songs, the writer gets paid by the