Author Morality

You are probably thinking I’m going to talk about being moral in your writing… but I’m not. Book publisher Harper has begun adding a little something in their book publishing deals with authors. Basically, if you act like a famous person, you are going to get your wallet whacked.

“Author’s conduct evidences a lack of due regard for public conventions and morals, or Author commits a crime or any other act that will tend to bring Author into serious contempt, and such behavior would materially damage the Work’s reputation or sales, Publisher may terminate this Agreement and, in addition to Publisher’s other legal remedies.” Source

Um, okay. But this is SO vague. What is considered public convention and moral here in cowboy country will differ from what is public convention in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Alaska, or New York City. Now of course, being ‘different’ isn’t a crime and they aren’t saying that. They are protecting their income. In other words, if you turn into an awful person, they don’t want to be left holding the financial bag. And I understand that.

Here’s the wallet kicker:

“Author will promptly repay the portion of the Advance previously paid to Author, or, if such breach occurred following publication of the Work, Author will promptly repay the portion of the Advance which has not yet been recouped by Publisher.” Source

The tricky part, I would imagine, would be determining whether the work’s sales have been affected. For example, if you are caught getting out of a limo sans underwear, sales might actually spike for a week or two. Darn public–so curious. However, after that initial spike, they may go into a natural downward sales slide–as do many published books after their release and first sales. So… how do you pin that on the author’s behaviour? Do you compare sales against projections? Against similar books?

What if that immoral behaviour set against public convention actually increases sales? Then what? Do you get a bonus for that? Because then authors might become a whole lot more interesting….