Author Agreement Collaboration Clause...

Do any of you agented authors have a Collaboration Clause of sorts in your author agreement or contract (with your agent)?

I'm just trying to figure out what to do here because mine does not have one (I have not signed yet, just reviewed it this week) and I am actually working on a collaborated project (which has until now been separate from my agent - it just recently happened and I've just informed him of it now that it seems like it may actually have a shot). So since I actually have something in the works, it seems like it definitely needs to be addressed.

However my one agented friend that does have a collaboration clause in her agreement, the clause states that the agent gets 15% of the entire deal, not 15% of her part of the deal...which makes sense, but in my case I'm sure my collaborator (who has most of the contacts and relationships and has thus far done that part of the hard work) would not be okay with that deal and it could easily end up sticking me with paying 30% of my half of the deal to cover the full 15%...which is...A LOT.

Any thoughts?

Of course I've asked my agent directly about this and I'm sure he'll get back to me on it shortly, but I just wondered what you guys thought or if you had any experience with it?

Well, (and I apologize in advance for confusion and lack of clarity) the other friend (who has a literary agent agreement for a specific work and all other full length print works) is not the friend I'm collaborating with.

The friend I'm collaborating with is an artist (it's a graphic novel project) and he does not have an agent and so far prefers to keep it that way.

It's possible that he would agree to have my agent try to pitch and negotiate this project for us, and certainly if we did that he'd have to be willing to give the agent the necessary fee, but if he's able to get the deal on his own, he's not going to want to give up 7.5% of his deal for my agent, just because I'm agented...you know? And depending on how it's addressed in my agreement (it's currently not addressed at all) I could end up paying 30% of my half to make up the full commission.

Like I said, I did ask my agent and am just waiting for his response. It's possible that he won't even want anything to do with the potential project because he reps YA/Childrens and this is Adult.

Just thought I'd put feelers out and see if anyone had any experience with collaboration clauses or similar situations.

@Ryan_Sullivan: Yeah, that's my instinct as well. Thanks for your thoughts.

@Scope: You're WAY misunderstanding (which is understandable as the question - and all the circumstances are rather confusing).

The gist is this. I have a YA (prose) novel. I have been working exclusively with an agent on revisions for that book for nearly a year. We recently locked the revisions and are preparing to go out on submission. As we are prepping for sub, we are also in the process of signing the author agreement which he recently sent to me. In that agreement I noticed there was no "collaboration clause" of any kind.

In the last week (but before I was sent the author agreement), a good friend of mine and published comic book writer/artist was lamenting that he had no comic books or graphic novels to pitch to his editors that he was going to see in San Diego at the Comic Con. I reminded him of a project we had discussed working together on a ways back. He said "okay, let's do it". He does not have an agent (and in the past has been a bit resistant to it).

Because he is already published and has an editor at a comics publisher he is/was going to pitch the project himself which will include my "pitch", synopsis, first issue (more if they want it) along with some of his character designs for the project.

In comics, unlike in children's book illustration work (etc.), it is common and in fact most often necessary to go into the project/pitch with either an artist attached or some art work already prepared. In his case, because he has worked with them and is well-known we're hoping we do not need penciled pages and that character designs will be enough (we'll see).

So I was just looking to see if anyone had any experiences that related to this kind of strange complicated situation I find myself in. The questions, if I broke them down would probably be:

1. Does anyone have any experience with this situation - i.e. with working with an agent or agents on a collaboration?

2. How does your collaboration clause look if you have one?

3. Is it possible that an agent, not unlike foreign rights sometimes do, would up the fee (to maybe 20%) so that there's room for two agents to share? Or does it not allow for that and require that we would each give up 15% to each agent?

4. Can my agent just represent us both and if so is it just 15% for the project rather than 15% for each author?

5. Can I just have an exception written into the agreement for this one project if my agent isn't interested in representing it, etc.?

Again, I've openly talked to my agent about all this (via email) and asked all the necessary questions (I think) but I just thought I'd throw it out there to see if anyone was all "been there, done that, here's what we did..."

Also...is there a prize for most complicated and horrible AW question? Because if so...I may be a contender!

Just to update you guys (or you Ryan) my agent got back to me and let me know that there were a few different ways we could work it out and he was willing to be flexible and we'd just take it as it comes. Which is kind of all I wanted to hear beyond making him aware of the new/potential project.

So all is well. We will either sign the agreement as is with no collaboration clause (most likely as I don't want to slow down the submission of my book and I get the feeling the agreement will end up in legal for who knows how long if we make changes) or we will possibly add an exception to this one project and then address it separately if it actually takes off.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone - sorry it was so confusing!

@Jamesaritchie: Thanks. Looks like I'm not going to have one either. But I'm not too concerned with it at this point.