Chapter 67: Backward-Reaching Clause
The new contract tried to own a first look at a room we had already locked.
At Wednesday's redline meeting, the phrase occupied three lines of North Quay's proposed paper contract.
“Existing worlds, associated brands and author goodwill” would enter its broad priority-negotiation scope without project limits.
Saltmere was new; that language was not.
Marian Crowe was a jointly controlled pen-name licence still frozen for future use.
Blackwater's six existing books remained governed by their own rights schedules, royalties and publishing licence.
The optional final volume had never achieved valid delivery and acceptance.
None could become hidden payment for wider distribution of my independent manuscript in Britain or Ireland.
My solicitor had marked the backward reach in red and linked every affected legacy schedule before I entered.
North Quay's contracts editor called it standard protection against competing continuations.
Standard wording could still be dangerously wrong for a divided rights history and jointly controlled name.
I asked which future proposal the publisher actually needed to see first.
The editor wanted an exclusive thirty days to consider my next commercially complete book proposal before outside submission.
That commercial answer required no old pen name, world, character, goodwill or unaccepted final volume.
I deleted “existing worlds”.
I deleted “associated brands”.
I deleted every reference to goodwill derived from Marian Crowe or Blackwater.
I added an express exclusion for the optional final volume, every old character and all shared legacy material.
The surviving term covered one wholly new, independently created and separately stored proposal after Saltmere.
North Quay would receive only that proposal first and have thirty calendar days to respond in writing.
Silence or rejection would release the proposal without extending the period.
The term granted no automatic licence, matching right, option or ownership before a separate written agreement.
It also barred the publisher from describing the proposal as Marian Crowe's next work.
I read the new clause aloud while the contract versions remained side by side.
The contracts editor accepted the old-world exclusions immediately and copied them into the clean revision.
She then asked for a two-book first-look obligation instead of a single next proposal.
That change sounded modest until the distribution schedule opened beside it.
The proposed UK-and-Ireland distribution reach was commercially tied to the two-book obligation in the package table.
If I accepted only one first look, the draft reverted to a narrower UK route.
The Irish capped interest and 420-copy regional amendment would then leave the committee package before authorisation.
The publisher was not taking my old assets.
It was pricing broader new distribution with more of my future independent attention and negotiating time.
I refused to decide that trade through spoken reassurance.
The editor inserted both alternatives into the versioned paper proposal while I watched the comparison log update.
OPTION A offered UK and Ireland with two independent thirty-day first looks.
OPTION B offered selected UK distribution with one independent thirty-day first look.
Both retained the legacy carve-outs word for word, including the final-volume exclusion.
Neither authorised printing, fixed an advance, bound a future proposal or opened the production line that day.
The later committee would test whether either offer survived the same public-MOU commercial thresholds.
I initialled the agreed carve-out language but did not sign or select either commercial option.
That made the exclusion part of the negotiating record without accepting the package.
My solicitor stored the original, my marked redline and North Quay's revised version separately with timestamps.
The publisher's archive kept the matching version chain and acknowledgement of every deletion.
The audit trail would show exactly which rights the standard clause had attempted to reach.
It would also show that the publisher withdrew the reach rather than merely promising restraint.
I had protected the locked room.
In return, the open door ahead had become narrower and more expensive.
At 16:41, the revised proposal entered the committee comparison folder.
Its next page compared Saltmere with Larkspur's audio-market strength.
The figures forced me to admit Oliver's strongest advantage belonged to work he had actually done.