PW: NWU, Kensington Pact Protects Carol Authors

The National Writers Union, Kensington Publishing and the bankruptcy court have entered into an agreement that will protect the unsecured rights of authors published by Carol Publishing, currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In April Kensington purchased the assets of the bankrupt publishing house (News, Apr. 3), including the rights to more than 1,500 backlist contracts and 130 unpublished manuscripts.

Jonathan Tasini, president of the National Writers Union, told PW that the agreement covers more than 1,000 authors, including Carol authors who are not NWU members. "This will set a precedent for protecting authors rights everywhere," said Tasini.

However, Steven Zacharius, president of Kensington, downplayed the accord, describing it as "an automatic part of bankruptcy proceedings."

Tasini told PW that the bankruptcy court has agreed that no book contract can be transferred to Kensington until the author is paid all overdue royalties and that authors can challenge the accuracy of the royalty statements that are reported. Tasini said the rights to titles that Kensington declines to acquire will revert to the authors, and that the authors can also challenge the purchase of their book contracts through the bankruptcy court.

Zacharius also disputed claims that Kensington had agreed to expand its sales force for the Carol titles. He said the house already had plans to add about seven reps to its sales staff.

National Writers Union attorney Lowell Peterson, of the firm Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, told PW that PNC Bank, Carol's largest secured creditor, also agreed to protections for the writers. "We persuaded the judge that these contracts were not typically fungible products, that books were different from widgets," he said.