: Re: How exactly does a book go from typewritten pages into an actual mass-produced unit ready for the consumer, and do authors have any control? I want to be clear that I'm asking about this both

@Kristi637

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The author's rights and responsibilities are spelled out in the contract they sign with the publisher, whether standard, vanity, or otherwise. These contracts also spell out who owns the rights to publication as well as copyright protection. For example, a publisher contracts with an author for a book that the publisher wants to distribute nationally as well as overseas. The contract would state that the publisher has foreign publishing rights. This means that the author cannot now sell their work to an overseas publisher since the first publisher owns those rights. Some contracts allow for the copyright or other rights to revert back to the author after a certain period of time, while others do not.
Also note that the author's manuscript, abbreviated "ms" in the publishing industry (not "script"), is almost never the final form of the book, as editing, typesetting and proofreading all have yet to take place. These activities are not seen by most as an infringement on the author's rights or creative expression, but necessary parts of the publishing process.

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