When you are offered a writing contract for the first time, one’s inclination might be to jump for joy, happily sign it and move on as you tell the whole world.

Jumping for joy has to be imposed. LOL

But once that has calmed down a bit, and I understand that might take a while, it is necessary to print out your contract and go line by line. There will be areas that are foreign to you. That is where you can start to search online. You can ask people who have done this before.

Before signing your books and yourself into something you can’t get out of for a certain period, your books deserve you to take a step back.

There are things in there you might not like. There are things you need to know about the direction of your book and where the publisher plans on taking it.

With the hard work that you have done in creating this book, editing and revising it, stopping short at this point does your book no favors.

It may be the best contract you have ever had. It still needs to be read. For one that is signed, that is it. The oh oh, what did I do, can I go back and more will all have the same answer, no.

You will feel better, trust me. You really will feel better if you take the time to do this properly.

After, you can go back to jumping for joy.