THE CAREER NOVELIST
dance with the original proposal and any matters or changes sub-
sequently agreed in writing." When rejection occurs for any reason
other than failing to meet those criteria the author keeps his
advance, including any unpaid balance.
One of the signatories to the Minimum Terms Agreement was
Penguin U.K. Authors published by its sister company, Penguin
USA, realized that their contract terms were not as favorable. Angry
over that, twenty-eight of them (including Joe McGinniss, Gloria
Naylor, Jessica Mitford, Ariel Dorfman, and Dave Marsh) sent a let-
ter of protest to Penguin USA. The response was frosty.
Fortunately, U.S. courts have ruled in favor of authors in cases
relating to rejection. Conservative senator Barry Goldwater sued
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich when it rejected his autobiography with-
out explanation. He won. The court stated that Harcourt had
"breached its contract (with Goldwater] by willfully failing to engage
in any rudimentary editorial work or effort."
A similar finding went in favor of a novelist, Julia Whedon, who sold
Dell a novel on the basis of a twelve-page outline. The first half of the
manuscript was approved, but the complete manuscript was rejected
for vague reasons. The court ruled that Dell's contract contained an
implied obligation "to offer Whedon the opportunity to revise the
manuscript with Dell's editorial assistance, to bring it up to publish-
able standards." Whedon kept Dell's advance and resold the novel.
For authors, this means that procedures and time frames for revi-
sion requests, acceptance or rejection, and rights to be returned to
the author on rejection should be clearly spelled out. These days,
publishers such as Bantam are even allowing authors to retain a
sum—albeit a small one—out of their advances when their work is
rejected. That is better than nothing.
Clearly we have a long way to go before book publishing con-
tracts will equally balance the interests of publisher and author.
Still, by focusing our attention on the hot spots we may yet make
some progress.
ROYALTIES, RESERVES, RIP-OFFS
For decades, authors and agents twice a year received incompre-
hensible accountings of sales and moneys due. Full of strange num-