This is reasonable if the publisher has spent resources to edit the work before putting it on the market, and will spend further resources to market it. If the publisher just puts it to the market as it is, you should not give away any exclusive rights unless you are ready to end the contract once the publisher's active marketing period is over. ISBN options ISBN is the international indexing system that gives your book a unique reference number, and it is the system that the majority of booksellers all over the world use to order and catalogue the titles in their stock. Acquiring this number costs a nominal fee, and your publisher should cover this cost along with the other ones. If the contract does not cover this specifically, you will have to cover it yourself - and you will have to purchase the minimum number of ten codes.
Book formats Currently a number of e-book formats are battling for domination of the market.
Since several of these formats demand either expensive software or fees paid for each title put on the market, most e-publishers will support only one to three formats. The three hottest, encryptable formats at the moment are PDF, OEB and the NuvoMedia Rocket E-book. Only OEB is an open standard. There are many strange contracts out there. Some of the more amateurish contracts can contain clauses that effectively rob the writer of any income, or force the writer to write off the manuscript for all practical purposes.