Contract red flags
None of these are automatically disqualifying. Plenty of reputable publishers have one or two of them in a first draft, and remove them when asked. What matters is the answer you get when you ask.
The single most useful sentence
“I’d like two weeks to have this reviewed.” A real publisher expects that. Everything designed to separate you from your money depends on you not saying it.
Money
A reading fee, or any charge to consider your manuscript
Legitimate publishers and agents earn when your book sells, not when you submit it. A fee to be read inverts the entire business model, and it scales with submissions rather than with sales — which tells you where the revenue really comes from.
Ask them: What do you earn if my book sells nothing?
The quote moves after you say yes
The classic pattern: a modest headline price, then editorial add-ons, a cover upgrade, a marketing package, a hardback tier. Authors routinely describe starting at $2,000 and finishing north of $7,000.
Ask them: What is the total, in writing, including everything you will recommend later?
Paid “bestseller campaigns” or guaranteed reviews
Nobody can guarantee a bestseller list, and paid-for reviews breach most retailers' terms — including Amazon's. At best you are buying nothing; at worst you are buying a policy violation attached to your own book.
Ask them: Which list, and what happens if it doesn't chart?
Speed and flattery
Acceptance within days, effusive but with no editorial notes
Real acquisition means several people reading the whole manuscript and arguing about it. Enthusiasm plus speed, with nothing specific about the book itself, usually means no selection process exists.
Ask them: What did the reader think needed work?
They approached you after a competition, award listing, or self-published release
Entrant and customer lists get scraped and worked through. Being contacted is not the same as being selected, however the call is framed.
Ask them: How did you find my book, and what have you read of it?
Pressure to sign before a deadline that only they know about
Urgency exists to stop you taking the contract to an agent or a lawyer. A genuine offer survives two weeks of scrutiny.
Ask them: May I have two weeks to have this reviewed?
The contract itself
An option clause covering your “next work” in any genre
As drafted, this can tie up years of your career — including books you have not conceived. It is one of the most common clauses authors report having to fight.
Ask them: Can we narrow this to the same genre, with a fixed response window?
No rights reversion clause
You need a defined route to get your rights back when the book stops selling. Without one, and with print-on-demand meaning a title is never technically out of print, the grant can be effectively permanent.
Ask them: What sales threshold or date triggers reversion?
A grant of “all rights, in all media, in perpetuity, throughout the universe”
Film, audio, translation and merchandising are separately valuable and separately saleable. Handing them over as a block, for the price of a book deal, gives away things nobody has valued.
Ask them: Which of these rights will you actually exploit, and when do the rest revert?
Royalties defined on “net” without defining net
Net of what? Printing, distribution, marketing, returns, overheads? An undefined net can shrink to almost nothing entirely lawfully.
Ask them: Show me the calculation on a hypothetical 1,000 copies.
No audit right, or no stated schedule for statements
If you cannot check the numbers and cannot predict when they arrive, the royalty rate on the page is a statement of intent rather than an obligation.
Ask them: How often are statements issued, and may I audit them?
A non-disparagement clause
This is the clause that stops authors warning each other — including on sites like this one. In some jurisdictions such clauses are unenforceable against genuine consumer reviews, but you should know it is there before you sign it.
Ask them: Why do you need me to agree not to describe my experience?
Distribution and marketing
“Available in all major bookstores”
Orderable is not stocked. Almost any title with an ISBN is technically orderable. Physical shelf placement is a different, much harder thing, and it is what actually sells books.
Ask them: How many copies do you expect to place, and where?
A marketing plan that is a template plus a list you must work yourself
A press release you send and a spreadsheet of podcasts you pitch is not a publisher's marketing department. It may still be worth paying for — just know that is what you are buying.
Ask them: What will your staff do, as opposed to what will I do?
You are required to buy copies of your own book
A mandatory author purchase converts you from the supplier into the customer, and it lets the publisher recoup its costs regardless of whether a single stranger ever buys the book.
Ask them: Is any purchase by me required or expected?
This is general information for authors, not legal advice. A publishing contract is a long-term transfer of valuable rights. Have a literary agent, or a lawyer who works in publishing, read it before you sign — the fee is small next to the rights you are granting.