Retaining Your Rights
A publishing agreement is a legal contract between the author and the publisher. It determines who the copyright owner is and what rights you retain over your work. A copyright transfer agreement will be included for you to review. At minimum, with a negotiation, you can transfer your copyright but still retain some rights or keep your copyright and limit the publisher's rights.
Considerations
There are several considerations you need to account for before signing a publishing agreement. Be sure to investigate publisher agreements for their copyright guidelines once you have decided on your needs as an author. Carefully read through and analyze the publishing agreement. You may be in agreement with their policy, or you may need to further negotiate your copyright requirements.
Do Your Research
Start with an initial search through the SHERPA/RoMEO database to begin your research on the publishing agreement. This free database contains the copyright and self-archiving policies of more than 22,000 journals and periodicals. Do note that policies are updated periodically and the database should not be the authority when ultimately determining publisher terms and conditions.
Verify the Publisher
Next, verify and research the publisher website for author rights. Discover as much as you can before entering into a contract. Sometimes journals publish this information on their websites, but it may be necessary to contact the journal's editors directly to request it.
Negotiation Tools
Voice Your Concerns
Be sure to discuss your dissemination needs with the publisher editorial contact at submission or acceptance. Document and confirm your negotiation in writing by asking for an amended copyright agreement, or submit an addendum to the copyright agreement for your desired rights.
Use An Author Addendum
Most often the negotiation is done through a contract or author addendum. You can use a free author addendum resource developed by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) in partnership with Creative Commons and Science Commons. This is a legal instrument that modifies the publisher’s agreement and allows you to keep rights to your work with non-open access journal publishers.