This is part of the entrepreneurial sensibility that you must have if you are going to be in business. Instead of seeing yourself as a book publisher, see yourself as an acquirer of intellectual property rights. There may be others depending upon the nature of the project. And in such event, not only do you run the risk of losing all the money you did make on the project but many more dollars in addition due to attorneys fees, court costs, damages, etc. By the wise expenditure of small dollars, you may avoid the unwise expenditure of large dollars since help me is almost always cheaper than fix me.
Preventive law is far less expensive than remedial law.
Thus, you should go over this check list of necessary agreements and rights questions both before making the decision to publish and during the negotiation process as it moves through the entire acquisition of rights issues. There are many, many other issues presented than this article lists since this article is intended merely as a summary in check list form. Some of the other issues are further explained in the appropriate article or articles on my site dealing with the same or similar topics. If you intend to pay a royalty, make certain that you can afford to do so since you probably have a royalty commitment to the author so add the royalties together to see what your total is. This may seem self-evident but it is often overlooked.