1. Most publishers have one in their contracts
2. Most publishers will not remove it from their contracts

So end of story, right?  Well, not exactly.

Let’s start with the Publisher’s viewpoint.  Look, its tough out there – the competitive nature of the marketplace continues to increase, online content is eating away at opportunities for traditional publishing models, and with nearly 200,000 new books published each year we have enough competition to worry about without our authors pitching in.  We need the non-compete in place as a reasonable measure to protect our business interests, and the investments we make in our authors.

And from the Author’s perspective:  Look, its tough out there -  the advent of blogging, user-generated content and accessible tools makes it easier than ever for almost anyone to publish content.  Be it online, in journals, magazines, subscription-based websites or any number of other venues, Authors have many opportunities to write and generate income and can’t be hamstrung by a non-compete clause.  Besides, the non-compete is only one way – the publisher can still publish whatever they want so why can’t I?

There are valid arguments on both sides, and I certainly understand both viewpoints.  I also understand that Publishers need to continue to create new content models to replace the current ones to remain competitive or even valid in the post Web 2.0 landscape.  However, the non-compete clause in today’s publishing contracts is (or should be) considering books and books alone.

If your non-compete clause is so broad that it effectively prohibits you from doing anything around the subject of your book without getting your publisher’s approval, it’s probably too general.  The language of the clause may look something like:

The author shall not produce any work similar to the proposed Book that may in the Publisher’s judgment be competitive with or harm the sales of the Book.

Pretty restrictive, huh?

Here is my opinion,  and how tend to treat the non-compete in my contracts (my company does allow it’s editors some flexibility in this respect.)  I want you writing about the topic of your book. I want you blogging, writing articles for magazines, websites, and any other place you can.  I want you speaking at conferences, giving lectures and teaching.  Heck, I’ll even grant you the rights to use a portion of the materials from your book in most of these situations as long as you give it credit.  Ill supply you with cover images, flyer’s to hand out and in some cases Ill even have a poster or banner made for you for a big conference if it will help you sell your book.  I want you to tell the world about what you do, and about the great book you wrote all about it.

But, I don’t want you writing a book about it for someone else.   Not exactly like it anyway, and here is where the flexibility comes in.

When dealing with non-compete clauses, ask to work with your publisher to try and narrow the breadth of the clause in such a way that the publisher’s interests are still reasonably addressed, but allows you to continue to do what you do.  Discuss the fact that you are really talking about book-length works, not smaller articles.  Be sure to mention the work you do on your blog, or in the course of your normal business that you need to address.  I have language I can use in my contracts that addresses all of these things as necessary, and I generally rework the non-compete in such as way before I even present it to an author.

Authors should not want to compete with their own books – that’s not good for anyone involved in the partnership.  But if you do think you will write other books, or want to be open to other opportunities be sure to  discuss that with your editor.  For example if you are writing a beginning level book on JavaScript you might want to discuss limiting the non-compete to other beginning level JavaScript books.  Could you write an advanced JavaScript book, or perhaps an Ajax title?  Maybe, if you and your publisher agree to rework the non-compete a bit, but it has to be agreed upon by both parties.

A publishing agreement should be a partnership, and if an editor is doing his or her job it should be part of an ongoing relationship with the most valuable asset any publisher has – its authors.  If both parties are reasonable and understand the other’s viewpoint a compromise can often be made that works for everyone.

By the way, I worked with the new author I mentioned at the beginning of this post exactly as I described above.  We now have a non-compete clause that we are both comfortable with, a new book to work on, and a new partnership to grow.