: Copyright - Can I go to any other publisher? I have a question. I have self-published a book through Partridge publishing. This is what my contract says - "1.4. You will retain all rights

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With those terms, you can publish it with another publisher SIMULTANEOUSLY. You just can't take Partridge's formatted version, after they've done the work of formatting your text, and let someone else publish the exact same thing. The .txt or .doc (or whatever) file that YOU made, that you originally brought to Partridge, is YOURS, and you can take THAT to another publisher. IANAL but that is pretty clear. OTOH, the editorial changes, if you paid for those, are less clear. It sounds like you would have paid separately for those, as part of a "copy editing service." In other words, you paid them to do a job for you (copy editing). You didn't offer them co-authorship.

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IANAL, and you should ask a lawyer (and in the future, please, never ever again sign a contract you do not understand), but for me it reads like this:

You will retain all rights to the content of the Work. We do not own rights to your Work ...

You haven't sold any rights. You still hold every right of your work. Which includes publishing it elsewhere.

... not utilise the formatted Work, International Standard Book Number (ISBN), and cover with any other publisher

They didn't buy your rights, but you didn't buy their rights either. If they provided the cover, then they hold the copyright on the cover and you are not allowed to use it.

If they formatted your work for printing (making it readable in a paper book), then it's their book design (interior design). If this is distinguishable from other designs, you are not allowed to use it. No big deal, because a new publisher will use his own interior design.

You must not reuse the ISBN anyway. An ISBN is bound to the publisher. If you hire a new publisher then he must use a new ISBN (and will; no legitimate publisher will reuse an existing ISBN).

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The 1st part basically says that Partridge are not responsible for your book, they're literally just providing a publication service. It's completely yours, and you can do with it what you like in-terms of the actual content/words/ideas of the book.

The 2nd part is a standard exclusivity clause.
You can only publish this work with them and nobody else. There is no note on period of time, just that you can only publish this work with them and no other publisher.

This clause is fairly standard between publishers. I Googled the terminology of the line and you can see Partridge, Swift, AuthorHouse, WestBow, Legacy Isle and many more. Seems to be quite standard even in terms of the legalese.

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