The career novelist

Contracts and income

Amazingly, nothing has changed since then. Not a single publisher
has dropped or modified this clause in its contract. Agents are not
attacking it, either.
One remedy to consider is becoming designated in the contract
a "secured" creditor in the event of a bankruptcy proceeding. That
puts you in the same class of creditors as investors in the company,
and puts you closer to the head of the line for handouts of recov-
ered money. Unfortunately for us, there are few examples of authors
obtaining secured creditor status.
Huge multinational media conglomerates may not seem candi-
dates for bankruptcy, but who knows? If it can happen to airlines
and auto companies, it someday might happen to the media giants.
Manuscript approval. Check your last contract: you may notice that
whether or not your completed manuscript is acceptable is entirely
up to your publisher. If that seems reasonable, think again: when no
standards are given and no criteria are defined, it means that your
publisher can reject your manuscript without any explanation what-
soever. They can just say no.
That may not seem like a big problem now, but what if your edi-
tor departs or your imprint is shut down? Suppose your novel is
suddenly unwanted inventory on your publisher's list? For no good
reason it can be declined, and on top of that most contracts state
that you will then have to return your advance.
To be sure, publishers and agents disagree over the meaning of
advances. Publishers claim that they are loans against future royal-
ties. Agents, aware that authors must feed their families somehow
while they create products for publishers to exploit, tend to regard
advances as a form of payment or investment. Whatever the ratio-
nale, after perhaps a year of work it can devastate an author's life if
she suddenly has to cough up twelve month's worth of income. Can
one guard against this possibility?
This inequity in American publishing contracts was highlighted
in 1991 when many British publishers signed a so-called Minimum
Terms Agreement with two British authors' associations, the Society
of Authors and the Writers Guild. This agreement sets out rules for
rejection and the handling of advances. It states that a manuscript
must be "professionally competent, ready for press, and in accor-