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UK Author Legal Pack

The paperwork nobody tells you about

Six documents every UK self-publisher needs: copyright page, permission to quote, cover designer and ghostwriter contracts, ARC terms, legal deposit. Written to UK law, every claim sourced. £29.

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If you have published a book in the UK, you have already signed nothing, asserted nothing, and relied on a copyright page you copied off another book.

That is normal, and most of the time nothing goes wrong. The trouble arrives later — when you want to put your cover on a boxed set and discover the designer still owns it, when a ghostwriter mentions the book at a conference, or when somebody asks what permission you had for the lyric in chapter nine.

This pack is the paperwork for those moments, written to UK law, with the reasoning shown so you can tell when a clause does not fit you.

What is inside

1 · Copyright page. Four versions — fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and a minimum one — plus what each line actually does. The moral rights sentence is not decorative; we explain exactly what it achieves and, honestly, what it does not.

2 · Permission to quote. The letter to send a rights holder, and a grant for them to sign and return. Plus why a song is three separate rights, and why the “300 words is fine” rule you have read everywhere is publishing custom rather than law.

3 · Cover designer agreement. With a copyright assignment that works. Pay a designer and say nothing and they keep the copyright — this fixes that, and handles the trap most templates miss: your designer cannot assign you the stock images, because they do not own them either.

4 · Ghostwriter agreement. Assignment of copyright, and a separate waiver of moral rights. Those have to be separate, because UK law makes moral rights unassignable — which is why the “assigns all copyright and moral rights” wording copied from American templates does nothing about the one right that matters here.

5 · ARC reviewer terms. What to send with an advance copy so the reviews stand up, and so you stay the right side of the rules on incentivised reviews — which since April 2025 are a banned practice, with the person who arranged the review squarely in scope.

6 · Legal deposit. The only compulsory one. One copy to the British Library within a month of publication, and — contrary to most advice — not six copies. Five of the six libraries only get one if they ask.

Why this one and not a free template

Most author-facing legal content on the internet is American, or unsourced, or both. Fair use is not fair dealing. Work made for hire does not exist here for a freelancer. An assignment needs the other person’s signature to be worth anything.

Every statutory claim in this pack carries its section number and the wording it came from, so you can check us. There are fifteen of them. Where something is convention or platform policy rather than law, we say so rather than borrowing authority it does not have.

And we tell you plainly what it is not: nobody qualified has reviewed it. For a deal that matters, pay a solicitor — the pack will make that hour cheaper, because you will arrive with the right document and the right questions.

Get the pack

£29. Word and PDF, 18 documents. One person, unlimited books, no expiry.

Not what you expected? Email us within 14 days and we will refund you in full, downloaded or not.

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Six documents. £29. Yours to keep.

Word and PDF, editable, no expiry. Not what you expected? Full refund within 14 days.

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Questions

Is this legal advice?

No, and we say so on every page of it. These are templates with explanatory notes, written by publishing professionals working from the primary legislation — not by solicitors, and no solicitor has reviewed them. Buying the pack does not create a solicitor–client relationship and nobody here has looked at your situation. If a deal matters financially, have a solicitor read it before you sign. That is what we would do.

Why should I trust the law in it?

Because you can check it. Every statutory claim comes with the section number and the wording it was taken from, in a file called SOURCES.md — fifteen of them, from the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. Most author-facing legal content cites nothing. Where something is publishing convention or platform policy rather than law, we label it that way instead of dressing it up.

Will these work in Scotland or Northern Ireland?

The copyright and legal deposit material applies across the UK, because those statutes do. The two contracts are drafted for England and Wales and say so — they use English drafting conventions and name the English courts. If you are in Scotland or Northern Ireland, have them checked locally before relying on them. We would rather tell you that than pretend.

What format do I get?

Word (.docx), PDF and plain text. The Word files are the ones to fill in — everything you need to change is highlighted, and the guidance notes are visually separate from the contract so you can see what to delete before sending it to anyone.

Can I use it for more than one book?

Yes. One person, as many of your own books as you like, for as long as you like. No per-book fee and no expiry. The only things you cannot do are resell it or hand it to clients as part of a paid service — if you are a coach or an agency and want to do that, email us and we will sort out a licence.

What if it is not what I expected?

Email hello@publishing.co.uk within 14 days and we refund you in full, downloaded or not. Tell us briefly what was wrong — we will not argue about it, and it helps us fix the pack. Separately and with no time limit, if anything in the pack is actually wrong, the Consumer Rights Act gives you a repair or a refund and nothing in our terms restricts that.

Do I really need any of this?

Only one of the six is compulsory — the legal deposit one, because publishing in print in the UK obliges you to send a copy to the British Library within a month. The rest are the documents that turn out to matter later: when you want to use your own cover on something else, or when a ghostwriter's name comes up, or when a rights holder asks what permission you had.