About The Author: Mark L. Levine

mark_levine_bookcontractsMark L. Levine, a New York lawyer, is a recognized authority on book publishing contracts.

A 1969 graduate of the New York University School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review, Levine has spent virtually his entire legal career negotiating and drafting a broad variety of contracts. In addition to representing authors, agents, book packagers and publishers, he has also negotiated and drafted contracts for Fortune 500 corporations and major United States and foreign financial institutions. He is a former partner in the New York office of Sullivan & Worcester LLP, a Boston-based law firm.

Levine’s articles about publishing have appeared in, among other places, the New York Law Journal, Writer’s Digest, Small Press and the Authors Guild Bulletin.

He has also lectured about book publishing contracts and conducted seminars for authors, editors, lawyers and agents for groups such as the Association of Authors’ Representatives (a series of three in-person interactive lectures on major contract provisions, including electronic rights), NYU Summer Publishing Institute, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Folio Magazine Publishing Conferences and the Boston Globe Book Festival.

He is the author of three books, with total sales of more than 200,000 copies. Negotiating a Book Contract: A Guide for Authors, Agents and Lawyers is Levine’s third book. He is co-editor of The Tales of Hoffman (Bantam Books 1970), a documentary of courtroom confrontations from the “Chicago 7” conspiracy trial (four printings), and The Complete Book of Bible Quotations (Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster 1986) (eight printings). The first edition of Negotiating a Book Contract was published in 1988.

Levine is a former vice president and member of the Board of Directors of the American Book Producers Association. He has also successfully published Picture Stories from the Bible … in Full-Color Comic-Strip Form (over 100,000 copies sold), hardcover reprints of paperback books that were originally published in the 1940s by M.C. Gaines, one of the founders of DC Comics and the father of William M. Gaines, founder of Mad Magazine.

Levine graduated from Columbia College in 1966 and fromĀ  the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was the recipient of the Louis and Pauline Cowan Award for Excellence in Media Management, in 1979.

Levine is also an experienced voter protection attorney who has worked for progressive political candidates in New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, Maryland, Missouri, Wisconsin, South Carolina, West Virginia, Florida, Indiana, Georgia and Mississippi.

He has taught Business Law to graduate students at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business and a course on Contract Drafting at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

In 2020, Simon & Schuster published The Trial of the Chicago 7: The Official Transcript, the 50th anniversary edition of The Tales of Hoffman, to coincide with the release of Aaron Sorkin’s award-winning Netflix movie on the trial.

A native of Bath, Maine, Levine lives in a suburb of New York City.