Who Actually Controls a Book's Film Rights

Who is allowed to sell a novel's motion-picture rights? The publishing contract, if it still grants them. The Authors Guild's model says it should not. A studio announcement is a later event, about a book whose rights were already in someone's hands. One such announcement, Lionsgate's March 18, 2026 deal for Virginia Evans's The Correspondent, is reported on its own here: what those trade stories leave out. This piece is the contract.

The rights the Authors Guild leaves off the chart

Section 6 of the Authors Guild's Model Trade Book Contract gives the publisher exclusive authority to license the rights listed in that section, and then prints a split of the net proceeds. The chart is:

Right	Publisher's share	Author's share
First serial	10%	90%
Second serial	50%	50%
Book club	50%	50%
Permissions	50%	50%
Trade or mass-market paperback	50%	50%
Other book publication	50%	50%
Foreign rights	20–25%	75–80%
Translation	20–25%	75–80%
Verbatim text ebook	50%	50%
Audio recording	50%	50%

Motion picture and television are not rows on that chart. The commentary under it says some contracts do include performance rights, "such as television and film and related rights, and commercial/merchandising rights." It then tells the author to keep them: "Authors should retain these rights by striking-out or deleting the language granting those rights." A later sentence is blunter. "Absent very special circumstances, you should never grant the motion picture (TV or film) or merchandising rights to the publisher—rarely is the publisher in the best position to exploit them."

That chart is a model, not a census of signed contracts. The form does not claim that any one publishing group uses these percentages in every agreement now in force. It tells an author to strike television and film out of the grant, and it defines the rows that remain.

What each row actually covers

First serial, in the model's own parenthesis, is use of serializations or excerpts in newspapers, magazines, or other periodicals before publication of the work. The publisher's share there is 10 percent. The author's is 90. Second serial is the same kind of use after publication, plus condensations, digests, and anthologies, and that row is 50/50.

"Other book publication" is not a vague extra. The model lists hardcover, large-type editions, mail order, premium and other special editions, and schoolbook and book-fair editions. That row is also 50/50, as are book club, permissions, trade or mass-market paperback, the verbatim text ebook, and audio recording.

Foreign rights and translation are the rows where the publisher's share drops to 20–25 percent and the author's rises to 75–80. The model says a foreign license may include rights granted elsewhere in the agreement, including first serial and audio, even when those rights were not granted to the publisher in the territory. The translation row says the same thing about rights that were not granted to the publisher in the English language.

The commentary under the chart says most publishers pay a minimum of 50 percent of their net receipts from licensing domestic print rights, and that on foreign and non-print rights they tend to pay the author a higher share, keeping the equivalent of a commission. It also says not to grant a right that is not on the chart unless you have a specific reason.

Who the money is owed by

Section 6's opening sentence gives the publisher exclusive authority to license the listed rights on the author's behalf. The split applies when a third party "assumes the role and functions of a publisher in creating, producing, marketing, and disseminating its own branded editions or excerpts of the Work." The model excludes a distributor, a selling agent, or a retailer of the publisher's own editions from that sentence. Those are not, in this clause, a subsidiary-rights license.

The author can require consent for a list of rights the parties write into the contract. Consent is "not to be unreasonably withheld." The publisher must give at least 15 business days' written notice of the terms, or five business days in an auction. Silence inside that window is deemed consent. If the author's share of a license is $500 or more, the publisher, on written request, provides a copy of the executed license. The author's share is paid or credited at the next regular accounting after the money arrives.

If the publisher exploits one of these rights itself, instead of licensing it, the model says the royalty is whatever section 5 already states, or, if section 5 is silent, a rate the parties agree.

Braille, and the rights a small press should not keep

The same section lets the publisher license transcription or publication in braille, or in another non-book format, without charge to the licensee, and only for use by visually impaired readers. The commentary points at section 121 of the Copyright Act, which allows certain organizations, including nonprofits and libraries, to make accessible copies without infringing. Many publishers, the Guild notes, already license those copies for free and write into the contract that no royalty goes to the author for that use.

On foreign print rights and on non-print rights, the commentary draws a size line. It says most authors can expect a publisher to exploit domestic print rights. It also says many small and medium-sized publishers do not have the resources or the intent to exploit both foreign print rights and non-print subsidiary rights. If you are at a press of that size and you have an agent, the Guild's recommendation in this section is to try to keep both. It adds that agents who place performance and merchandising rights will often work with writers who do not otherwise have an agent, which is why reserving those rights still matters if you are unagented.

The commission an agent charges for a performance deal, and the number of days a client check is supposed to sit in the agency account, are in What a Literary Agent Is Paid, and When You Are. They are not repeated here. Packaging fees and producer fees, on the canon the Association of American Literary Agents now labels archived, are quoted in the Lionsgate report linked above, because that is where a producer credit has to be distinguished from a fee.

What to look up in your contract

Search the grant for "motion picture," "television," "dramatic," and "merchandising." If those words are still in the grant, the publisher is the party who can license them, on the split your contract states rather than on the chart above. The Guild's instruction is to strike that language. If it is already struck, the seller is you. The signature on any license should be yours. The model says an author should not leave a subsidiary-rights agreement for someone else to sign.

Then check the notice clause. Fifteen business days, or five if someone is running an auction, is the model's window before silence counts as a yes. If your contract is shorter than that, or has no window at all, you are not on the form this article is describing.

Sources

• Authors Guild: Model Trade Book Contract, section 6, Subsidiary Rights
• The Publishing Times: What the Lionsgate Correspondent stories do not include
• The Publishing Times: What a literary agent is paid, and when you are