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The Society of Academic Authors monitors trends in authoring contracts. Please let us know your negotiation experience so we may share useful information with other members. Your anonymity is assured. Contact: Editor
NONCOMPETE SECTION
The contract boilerplate that publishers present to authors to start negotiations often has a provision to bar the author from writing for another publisher. From an author's perspective, the worst of these provisions bind the author to one publisher forever. An example:
"The Author will not publish or participate in the publication of a Book to be marketed in competition with the Book in this contract."
Interpreted from the publisher's perspective, such a provision even precludes an author from writing a chapter for collection of works in the author's own discipline. A narrow interpretation would also bar an author from editing a work in the discipline with another publisher or from editing a series or writing a monograph.
Publishers recognize the one-sidedness in their boilerplate, and authors almost always are able to negotiate a change to protect them from the enslavement of the most restrictive language. Suggest an alternative provision that protects the publisher against the remote possibility that you would go with another publisher to compete against yourself, and at the same time doesn't preclude reasonable options for you in the future. An example:
"For three years after the publication of the Book in this contract, or of a later edition thereof, the Author will not publish or participate in the publication of a Textbook on Geography to be marketed at the introductory college level.
This alternative provision has several elements that protect the author without undue limitations on the publisher:
1. Duration. The example says three years. In most situations, this is plenty of time for a publisher to maximize the sales potential of a textbook's latest edition.
2. Textbook. The term textbook is important. An author, as an expert in the discipline, would not want to be barred from writing other kinds of scholarly works.
3. Discipline. Specifying the discipline is important, geography in the example. An author would not want to be bound to a publisher for a novel, memoirs or other unrelated works.
4. Level. Specifying the education level precludes an author from writing a directly competing work, a reasonable expectations of a publisher that is investing heavily in a book. This also gives the author the freedom to do other books in the discipline so long as they don't compete directly.
Not recommended:
Some model contracts take the view that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If an author is to prohibited from producing a competing text, there also should be a similar prohibition against the publisher. Or so goes this reasoning. These models take this form:
"The Publisher will not publish or participate in the publication of a book on Geography to be marketed at the introductory college level for which the Book in this contract is intended."
No major publisher with a large repertoire would consider such language. A publisher entering a new discipline may be entertain such language, but undoubtedly with some narrowing clause such as a time limitation. In general, an author pushing for this as an alternative provision will come across as naive. The issue could be a deal-breaker.
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