Aspects of Publishing, Part III: Interminable Rights

Staying in the dark can have dire consequences at the agent level as well. Lee Goldberg linked to another PW article about what happens when agents demand “interminable” rights for a book, regardless of whether it’s in print or not:

A contract clause that grants literary agencies the right to exclusively represent a work for the life of its copyright is attracting new attention in publishing circles, as some authors and organizations worry that it could become an industry standard. The contract provision, known as an “interminable rights clause,” means that even if the original publishing agreement has ended, the book has gone out of print or the author’s agent leaves the agency, the agency continues to be the agent of record for the work. The practice contrasts with that of some other agencies, which give up their claim on a work once the publishing agreement the agent negotiated ends.

“That was a deal buster for me. There was no way I was going to sign away all of those future rights,” said romance and suspense author Tina Wainscott, who recently left her agent, Mel Berger at the William Morris Agency, who had represented her on four books over the course of four years. Organizations including the Authors Guild, the Romance Writers Association and Novelists Inc. are calling for agencies to stop using interminable rights clauses and are warning their members to be aware of what they may be giving up if they sign such clauses.

As it happens, agents are split on the matter:

Wayne Tabak, co-chief operating officer of the New York office of William Morris, said there is nothing new or unusual about the provision. “It’s very, very, very customary in the business for the agency clauses to work that way,” he said. But a number of leading literary agents said they never use interminable rights clauses. “We represent the books and we sell them for the life of the license or as long as the book is in print and then, if an author decides to go to another agency, they can take the unsold rights with them if they choose to,” said Robert Gottlieb, chairman of Trident Media.

While I would like to know more about the rationale behind such a clause, it seems to me that the bottom line of representation is that the agent works on behalf of the author. So anything that is not in the author’s best interest is not something that should be pushed forward by an agent. Should authors be penalized by not having access to prior work if they decide to switch agents for whatever reason (like the fact that perhaps the agent wasn’t really acting in their best interests in the first place?) It just doesn’t seem like a good way to do–and maintain–a proper relationship between agent and client.