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Mark L. Levine
Negotiating a Book Contract: A Guide for Authors, Agents and Lawyers
Reviewed by Paul Rosenzweig

This is a compact, informative guide, now in its second edition. The author, an attorney, obviously knows publishing, and the subterranean world of authors’ contracts. In about 100 pages, plus appendices, notes and the index, he guides the reader, presumably a fledgling author, through many of the arcane phrases and terminology of book authors’ contracts, across all genres.

Since this review is directed to textbook authors, the breadth of topics, or the lack of specificity to textbooks, leaves this reviewer unfulfilled. The timing of this revision seems to have left the author without concrete suggestions for dealing with electronic publishing, even though a five page chapter was added to this edition. Additionally, there are stylistic “problems” in layout that I found irritating.

Because the author attempts to cover so many niches in publishing, there is a great deal of material of little or no relationship to textbooks, such as royalties based on cover price, or negotiating for performance and merchandising rights. As a result, topics of concern to textbook authors, such as consideration of Canadian sales as “domestic” and paid the highest royalty rate, or sales by the publisher to affiliates (and the pricing thereof), or definitions for royalty calculations, of custom publishing, kits, superkits, and the like, are ignored.

In the chapter titled “Electronic Rights” there are no recommendations for royalty rates, rather two alternatives; one for a temporary rate (unspecified), the other for a clause that the rate is to be negotiated later. There are excellent cautions regarding electronic editions’ effect on the out-of-print clause that are scattered throughout the work. Recent emergence of electronic “platforms” controlled by a publishers consortium, affecting the contract definition of “publisher’s net receipts” are also not addressed.

There are indications of 38 footnotes throughout the text, but instead of showing them at the bottom of the pages, they are all grouped at the back of the book, after the appendices and before the index. There are also interruptions where the reader is directed to a later section for important references to the current topic.

This book might be an effective primer for a first-time author, before he/she meets with an agent or attorney who will conduct the actual negotiations, or a reference tool to be utilized (along with other material) by an experienced author reviewing the contract negotiated by his/her attorney.

About the Reviewer:

Paul Rosenzweig worked for The Psychological Corporation, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Academic Press, Inc., and Moseley Associates, Inc., before starting Royalty Review Service, Inc. in 1990, representing authors who wish to confirm the accuracy of their royalty statements. He continued as a consultant to successor firms from 1999 through 2007, and now practices in the same field as President of (ca) RRS, Inc. He was Chairman of the Publishing and Printing Accounting Committee of the NY State Society of CPAs from 1988 to 1990, and served on the Society's Litigation Support committee. He is a member of The Authors Guild, and recently retired as Treasurer of TAA, and as a member of the TAA Council.