The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

Random defends children's clause

29.08.08 Benedicte Page

Random House Children's Books has defended its decision to include a clause about acceptable author behaviour as standard in its contracts. The clause has been branded "paranoid and threatening" by children's writer Siân Pattenden, and has attracted criticism from agents.

The clause states that if the author acts "in a way which damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished", the publisher may delay publication, renegotiate an advance, or terminate the publishing agreement.

Philippa Milnes-Smith, president of the Association of Authors' Agents, said it was a "hammer to crack a nut". She said: "Publishers are so much less in need of protection than authors. Random is looking to remove all risk and liability from the publishing industry and move it to the author. There is no children's agent who wouldn't say children's writers should be responsible and conscious of what they owe to children, but this is counter-productive."

Hilary Delamere, from The Agency, said she had asked for the clause to be taken out of contracts for her authors: "When I've checked it with authors, they are just insulted. I think the notion of it is so totally wrong—what is considered unacceptable behaviour is subjective and can change from one week to another. Both sides take a risk and you have to deal with it. If an author does something you don't like, you don't publish them again."

However, Random House Children's Books m.d. Philippa Dickinson said the clause had been introduced into contracts since 2006 "to cover very extreme and unusual circumstances where people do things widely considered as very inappropriate with children". She said: "We did have one particular incident, where we suddenly realised that you have taken the book on in good faith but if the author does something which makes it hard to sell the book, you have no protection."

Dickinson added that the author behaviour clause had been "broadly accepted without difficulty", saying: "If anyone has queried it, once our contracts department has explained the unusual and extreme things we are talking about, the authors have then had no problem with it."

Children's publishing has been hit by occasional abuse scandals. In 1999, author Ian Strachan was convicted of distributing paedophilia on the internet, while William Mayne was jailed for child abuse in 2004.

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