To celebrate publication of the 12th edition of Clark’s Publishing Agreements, RightsZone Director (and contributor to the book*) Clare Hodder, interviewed the book’s General Editor, Lynette Owen.
Find out more about its origins, the process involved in developing a new edition and what’s new this time around.
Clark’s Publishing Agreements: A Book of Precedents
Is there a publisher in the UK who doesn’t have a copy of Clark’s Publishing Agreements on their shelf? There can’t be many. The better question perhaps is, what colour Clark’s do they have on their shelf? Each new edition comes smartly bound in a different colour cloth, chosen by Lynette to be distinctive from the previous edition. This latest edition (12th) is a deep red/burgundy colour that comes in at almost 1000 pages.
A short history
The original demi octavo, jacketed hardback was published by Allen and Unwin in 1980 and came in at very modest 176 pages. In 1980, the book was simply called Publishing Agreements, and was created by Charles Clark, a barrister who was also a publisher (having held senior positions at both Penguin and Hutchinson) and by then, a legal advisor to the Publishers Association. Clark was known for his strongly-held belief that publishing agreements should fairly balance the interests of authors and publishers and this was borne out in the contract precedents he provided in Publishing Agreements.
Clark’s became a contributed volume from the 2nd edition onwards, and this was the point where the current General Editor, Lynette Owen, joined the team, becoming the sole general editor from the 6th edition onwards. After Charles Clark passed away, in 2006, it was decided to rename the book, already colloquially known as “Clark’s” to Clark’s Publishing Agreements.
The journey to the 2026 12th Edition
Clark’s is on a 4 year revision cycle and this time around took around a year to deliver from contacting Bloomsbury Professional to kick off the new edition at the end of 2024 to delivering the revised manuscript to Bloomsbury at the end of November 2025 (actually a few days earlier than the deadline!).
The speed with which Lynette was able to deliver the new edition is in no small part down to the huge amount of time she personally invests in the book and her enormous dedication to the task. A new edition begins with Lynette contacting the existing team to check if everyone is happy to stay on as contributors for the new edition. The majority generally do but there are inevitable changes due to retirements or changes of role. The contributors receive a copy of their previous contribution(s) for editing and updating, and to consult with other contributors, as necessary, where there is overlap. Lynette reviews everything to ensure consistency of approach. Given the significant changes since the last edition (more on that below) this time around almost every precedent and appendix has been revised.
One challenge is wrestling all of the contributions back from the contributors in time for Lynette to review prior to the delivery deadline. For some contributions, the situation is so fast moving that it is necessary for delivery to come down to the wire so as to make sure everything is as up to date as it can at the time of publication. Bloomsbury work very quickly to get the proofs back to Lynette swiftly. Then comes the not insignificant task of proof-reading almost 1000 pages! This is made all the harder given the particular layout of Clark’s, where you have accompanying notes, requiring you to go back and forth between notes and clauses to ensure everything reads correctly. The task was made even more complex for this edition with the addition of a new Appendix A. This meant all of the subsequent appendices had to be re-labelled and the many cross-references to them throughout the text updated!
Lynette commends the excellent team at Bloomsbury Professional: Jane Bradford in production, Andy Hill, Head of Practitioner Publishing, and Ellie Coull, Senior Commissioning Editor. Their experience with previous editions has meant that the new edition progressed very smoothly.
Post-publication Lynette’s attention turns to spreading the word that the new edition is out. This involves organising people to review the book in the trade press and relevant journals, distributing flyers and liaising with trade associations and others who will share news of the new edition with their networks.
Updates and changes to note
The impact of AI and LLMs
The last edition of Clark’s (the green one!) published in Spring 2022 and much has changed since then. The most significant development being the launch of Chat GPT at the end of 2022 and the rise of LLMs and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) models.
It is inevitable that in the 12th edition many of the precedents and appendices have required updating to incorporate the impact of AI. Indeed, Lynette reports that this is something that readers of Clark’s have been very keen to get new sample wording for. This hasn’t been a straightforward process.
The impact of AI on the publishing industry is obviously fast moving and there are a multitude of views and approaches which make it difficult to make general assertions about what should be reflected in contracts. For this edition, it was decided to create a special appendix: ‘Artificial Intelligence: Making sense of publishing contracts clauses’ (now appendix A), co-authored by Kevin Stewart (author of Precedent One: General Book Author-Publisher Agreement and Appendix D: Audio Publishing Rights) and Duncan Calow (author of the Legal Developments Introduction, as well as several of the electronic precedents and the moral rights appendix).
Appendix A addresses how the industry has so far tried to tackle AI and points to moral, legal and policy questions that publishers might consider when dealing with AI in their contracts. The authors draw out the contrast between the approaches of different industry sectors, notably between trade and academic publishers.
In addition to this very useful new appendix, many of the precedents and appendices contain additional wording and discussion around the impact of AI. The contributors collaborated to ensure some consistency of approach in how they tackled this as an issue.
It’s perhaps worth noting here that Clark’s does not contain a precedent for authorising AI companies to license published works as training data, although Appendix A does make reference to what the key conditions might be when entering such licence agreements. Some of the provisions of the text and data mining precedent may also be helpful to those dealing with such licenses. These kinds of licence are still in the very early stages of development, many are negotiated under NDAs and there are significant differences between them, which makes it hard, at this stage, to provide more detail.
E-book and print editions available across the world
Clark’s is now available as an ebook, and as before the precedents are available to download and use under a licence, making it a completely indispensable to anyone in the industry whose role touches contracts.
Whilst Clark’s originates in the UK and there are references to UK law, many of the precedents and appendices will be of use to those outside of the UK and can be easily adapted, as needed. Indeed Clark’s is regularly used by US publishers and on US courses and also regularly sells into Australia and New Zealand.
Clark’s = A team effort and a wonderful achievement
Lynette always points out that Clark’s is a team effort, but it is a team that is extremely well captained by Lynette, who leads by example in authoring several precedents and appendices herself, on top of the enormous amount of work she puts in as General Editor and all-round champion of the book.
Even though her social life pays the price when she is working on a new edition, Lynette says that it is all worth it when she sees the finished product and people tell her how useful they have found it. She is rightly proud of the impact it has had and continues to have on the publishing industry.
Clark’s is regularly referred to a as a “bible” by small and large publishers alike, and for rights professionals, in particular, it is an absolutely essential purchase (along with Lynette’s other book Selling Rights).
Our industry certainly owes Lynette an incredible debt of gratitude for all her work on this and previous edition of Clark’s – thank you Lynette! Thanks are also due to all of the contributors who donate their time to ensure that Clark’s Publishing Agreements remains an up to date and indispensable resource for us all.
I’ll close this post by simply asking, what colour Clark’s is on your shelf?
If you have the green, gold (aka “baby poo” thanks to one of the contributors!), purple or even black one, then it is time for an upgrade!
For less than the price of an hour with a lawyer, Clark’s is already excellent value, but you can use the code: CLARK-PUB20 to get a 20% discount, when you purchase it direct from Bloomsbury here:
If you are an IPG member, you can access a 50% discount code, via the member section of the IPG website.
In addition, all of the royalties arising from sales of Clark’s are donated to BTBS The BookTrade Charity, another good reason to invest your training budget in a new edition.
And, if you do buy a copy, do let Lynette or the contributors know what you think. Feedback is always welcome and will be kept in mind for future editions.
*Appendix E: Licensing permission rights