We are thrilled to announce that we reached our goal on Kickstarter late last week! Thanks to each and every one of our backers, “Know Before You Sign on the Dotted Line” was a smashing success. We met our goal of $12,500—with time to spare.

photo by Howard Wilks | CC0

And if you haven’t pledged yet, there’s still time! Encouraged by the overwhelming generosity and support of our backers, we’re going to reach just a little higher with a “stretch goal” of $14,000. If we meet this new target, we’ll use these extra funds to provide 50 (free!) copies of Understanding Book Publication Contracts to libraries, writers’ groups, and other organizations for their reference collections.

You can help us get there by pledging and spreading the word to your networks. Then, if the stretch goal is met by the time our Kickstarter ends on June 15, we’ll ask our backers to recommend recipients of these complimentary guides via a post-project survey. We’ll tally the responses, and the organizations with the most mentions will receive free copies.

We are working hard to prepare Understanding Book Publication Contracts for release by the end of this year, and it’s inspiring to know that we have the financial resources to realize our vision of a beautifully-designed, high-quality guidebook that will benefit authors.

We will continue to post updates as work on the Guide progresses through the summer and fall.

We are grateful to professor, consultant, and author Jacqui Lipton for contributing this timely guest post on morality clauses in book publishing contracts.

Recent developments in the entertainment industry, notably the #MeToo movement, have led the entire country to focus more on questions of ethics and morality in business, educational, and media settings. The publishing industry, too, has been rocked by story after story of inappropriate behavior by big-name authors, including —to the great disappointment of many—a number of children’s authors. The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators earlier this year released an anti-harassment policy to address these concerns.

Publishing houses and agents have also faced this conundrum. Enter the morality clause. Increasing numbers of publishing houses and agents are now including such clauses in publishing and agenting contracts, requiring their authors to comply with acceptable professional standards and providing for the possibility of termination of the contractual relationship if the author fails to conduct himself or herself appropriately.

There are several limitations to these clauses, other than as a device to draw parties’ attention to current challenges in the industry. For example, it’s incredibly difficult to draft meaningful contractual clauses that explain what conduct will be regarded as immoral or unacceptable other than in the vaguest possible terms: such as “standards reasonably accepted in the industry,” etc. These clauses by necessity will be vague and subjective and difficult to interpret should they ever be litigated in court.

Additionally, there’s the question of whether these clauses are necessary as a matter of law, whether they add anything meaningful to what’s already in the contract. It’s always been the case in the publishing world that agents can generally terminate a relationship with a client (or vice versa) at will, subject to ongoing financial arrangements with respect to projects already sold by the agent. Publishers, too, generally reserve the right to reject any manuscript that doesn’t meet their standards, and those standards, by nature, tend also to be very subjective.

Of course, many publication contracts may be silent on actual “conduct” of an author as opposed to “content” of the manuscript. However, it’s arguably not particularly difficult for a publisher to cancel a publication agreement by referring to the content of the manuscript even if the underlying concern may be more with the conduct of the author. A case in point is the current litigation between Milo Yiannopoulos and Simon & Schuster. Simon & Schuster cancelled Yiannopoulos’s book contract after he made controversial comments on pedophilia, but argued that the basis for their actions was that the manuscript itself was unacceptable (see Andrew Albanese, Can Milo Yiannopoulos Win His Lawsuit Against S&S?, July 14, 2017, Publisher’s Weekly, available here.) The case is proceeding in New York and may provide some guidance about how effectively existing contractual clauses can be used to address these types of situations, even in the absence of a “morality clause” in a particular contract.

So where does that leave morality clauses? Do we need them? Arguably no, as a matter of law, but possibly yes as a reminder to those signing contracts that publishing is an industry whose participants should adhere to moral and ethical standards of conduct. Should authors need such reminders in this day and age? Theoretically no, but in practice, in the current political and cultural climate, sadly it may be a good idea.

Jacqui Lipton, LL.B. (Hons), LL.M., M.F.A. (fiction), Ph.D. is a professor of law, consultant and author. She is the founder of Authography LLC, a company dedicated to assisting authors and artists with business and legal challenges. She is a regular columnist on legal, business, and associated ethical issues for a number of industry publications and blogs. She’s also the author of the forthcoming Law & Authors: A Legal Handbook for Writers (University of California Press). You can find her online at jdlipton.com.

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Speaking of publishing contracts…we’re on the homestretch of “Know Before You Sign on the Dotted Line,” a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the production of our upcoming Guide to Book Publication Contracts. As of today, we’re almost 90% of the way to our goal, so if you haven’t pledged yet, please do so before the campaign ends on June 15!

We at Authors Alliance are hard at work on a new guide to Understanding Book Publication Contracts, the fourth volume in our series of educational handbooks that will empower authors to make savvy decisions when negotiating their contracts.

Work on the guide is going smoothly, and it would not have been possible without two standout members of the Samuelson Law, Technology, & Public Policy Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law: Karen Hagen and Anna Kuksenkova. Karen and Anna were instrumental in gathering information from authors through surveys and interviews, and they contributed substantially to drafting sections of the guide. We recently turned the tables and interviewed them to learn more about their experience with the project and about their plans now that they are newly-minted JDs.

Karen and Anna interview an author at the AWP conference in March 2018

Authors Alliance: There are lots of opportunities to take on a variety of projects in law school. Why did you decide to work on the Guide to Book Publication Contracts?

Anna Kuksenkova: I’ve always been a huge bookworm. I enjoy sci-fi and fantasy especially, and have even thought about writing my own novel someday. As a law student, my focus and interest is in intellectual property law, specifically copyright. This was such a neat opportunity to work across both these interests.

Karen Hagen: First of all, because I love to read. Hopefully, the Guide will make negotiating publication contracts for authors easier and less scary so that they have more time for writing great books that I, in turn, will read. Furthermore, I loved the challenge of writing for a non-legal audience for a change.

AuAll: What was your favorite part about working on the Guide?

KH: The interviews with the authors! They made our work on the guide meaningful and a lot of fun.

AK: Speaking to real authors! I got to interview some people I’d already heard of and admired, and others I’d never heard of that I was so excited to have a chance to meet. I’m really glad we were able to talk directly to the audience we were writing the book for and tailor our advice to what they wanted and needed in a guide like this. Plus I couldn’t believe some of their stories!

AuAll: Tell us about a key point and/or something surprising that you learned.

KH: A lot of authors believe they don’t have to know about contracts if they have an agent. Of course, having an agent can take a huge load of your shoulders, but how can you as an author discuss with our tell your agent what to negotiate for if you have no idea what publication contracts are all about?

AK: I think a lot of the authors we spoke to cared about their copyright in the book but didn’t have a good idea of what that means in practice. Sometimes, publishers will ask for all the rights to a work, but register the copyright in the author’s name and put the © on the first page next to the author’s name. But that’s not really retaining your copyright, because you’ve still signed away your exclusive rights: the right to copy, distribute, create adaptations, etc. That’s what copyright really is.

AuAll: If you had just one takeaway for authors based on your work, what would it be?

AK: Don’t be afraid to ask! For every time we’ve heard “you’ll never get X,” even from editors, we had another example of someone who HAD gotten X. I’ve never heard of anyone losing a book deal because they merely asked politely to change a term. If you’re sitting at that table, they already want you. It may not feel like you have a lot of power, but you have more than you think.

KH: A lot of the time, the people you’ll negotiate with as an author haven’t really gotten the ins and outs of publication contracts themselves. So simply being knowledgeable about contracts is a big advantage.

AuAll: Now that you’ve graduated, what are your future career plans?

KH: Before eventually moving back to Germany and working as an IP lawyer, I will intern at a Silicon Valley law firm working on technology transactions.

AK: I’m currently studying for the California bar exam and looking for a work opportunity, here or in D.C. I’m excited to see where I go next.

AuAll: Tell us a little something about yourself: What do you love to do when you’re not working on legal issues? Favorite things about Berkeley and the Bay Area? What’s the first thing you’re going to do after taking the bar exam?

AK: When I’m not working, I love quiet evenings in, cuddling with my cat, reading or watching movies. Sometimes I do collaborative writing with my friends back on the east coast, short stories and coda to comics and TV, things like that. I’ve also been showing my grandma, who I invited to come live with me for a little while, around the east bay. I love how much diversity there is here, not only people, but in access to different cultures, too. We’re Russian and she recently emigrated here, and I’ve found so many resources in this area for her, an adult ESL program and Russian community. I just think the culture here is great, even if the traffic and cost of housing are tough to swallow.

The second I’m done with the bar exam I’m heading south to the nearest warm, sunny beach. I think I’m just going to nap there for a week straight!

KH: I love to explore and travel. One of my favorite places in the Bay Area, particularly in the spring, is Point Reyes. Every time I went I saw amazing wildlife: otters, coyotes, barn owls, deer, elk, and whales. Other than that, I love to read. That’s why the first thing I’ll certainly do after taking the bar exam is dive into a page-turning novel. I already have one in mind that one of our interviewees recommended!

In case you haven’t heard, we have launched “Know Before You Sign on the Dotted Line,” a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the production of the Guide to Book Publication Contracts. As of today, we’re almost 75% of the way to our goal, so if you haven’t pledged yet, please do so before the campaign ends on June 15!

photo by Kyle Hinkson on unsplash | CC0

Up, up, and away!

Announcing the launch of “Know Before You Sign on the Dotted Line”—our first-ever Kickstarter campaign! We’ve created this crowdfunding project to support the production of our latest educational resource, a guide to Understanding Book Publication Contracts.

Signing a contract is a key step in an author’s career, but feedback from our members tells us that many authors are not well-served by their contract terms. To address this need, we’re creating a new guide that will empower authors to:

• Understand common clauses in their book contracts
• Identify which clauses to push for, and which to avoid
• Have productive conversations with agents, attorneys, and publishers
• Meet their creative and pragmatic goals through effective negotiation
• And more!

Check out our project video and Kickstarter page for more details about the guide and to learn how your support will help us reach the finish line. Please join our community today by making a pledge and helping us to spread the word!