Key players in the American publishing community are unified in their call for a lift of the US book embargo of Cuba; a public petition is also up. Read More
2016: An International Coalition of Author Advocacy Challenges Publishing Contracts
The author contract battle goes global Dated today, 5th January, the Authors Guild’s open letter to the Association of American Publishers leads the loudest call yet for contract reform in publishing’s relations with authors. This is a coordinated campaign being mounted by the world’s key author-advocacy organisations. The letter’s signatories include the UK’s Society of Authors, the Authors Licensing… Read More
Calling For Updated Writer-Payment Practices: Authors Guild & Society of Authors
‘By Forcing The Issue In Book Contracts’ The US Authors Guild is making common cause this month with its counterparts across the Atlantic, the Society of Authors. These are lead advocacy bodies for the creative communities of the world’s two largest trade-publishing markets. And the Guild and the Society are speaking with unusual harmony, candor, and… Read More
Age, Surveys, And Income: The Authors Guild’s View
‘Only One Piece Of The Puzzle’ Subsequent to our report on the Authors Guild’s release of results from its 2015 Member Survey, I’ve invited the Guild to provide some interpretation of how it sees the release of its “The Wages of Writing” survey results. In response, I have this explanation of the survey exercise, and I want to… Read More
Your Survey Of Surveys
‘Perspective on the Book Business’ Is there any industry so feverishly bent on surveying itself as publishing? This week, my colleague Philip Jones at The Bookseller in Taking a measure of the FutureBook audience has launched the 2015 Digital Census, results of which will be released in relation to the Author Day / FutureBook week of activity in… Read More
Can authors compete with 'non-competes'?
‘An unacceptable restriction on authors’ livelihoods’ No publisher would agree, at an author’s request, to forgo publishing another author’s book on a particular subject. So why should an author assume a similar obligation? But it happens all the time. Of all the contract-reform issues being discussed today around publishing and its contracts with authors, the non-compete… Read More
Fair Contracts For Authors: Don’t Let Go Of Your Copyright
Novelists Inc. Plans Authors Guild Session There’s news this week from the roughly 900-member Novelists Inc. (NINC) organization that the Authors Guild will present a special session on rights reversion at NINC’s conference, 30th September to 4th October. Executive director Mary Rasenberger and staffer Ryan Fox will go to St. Pete Beach for talks with NINC members,… Read More
Is 'out of print' running out of time?
Never being ‘out of print’ is not good news You can’t self-publish. Because you can’t get your rights back. And your book is nowhere to be seen. Kill the entire outmoded concept of “out of print.” Instead, the contract should define when book rights are being “inadequately exploited” and therefore available for reversion to the… Read More
Will author contract reform succeed this time?
‘Can you hear me now?’ A not-so-funny television commercial a while back gave us that line with maddening repetition as we watched a hapless mobile phone customer wander through his world in search of a decent connection. The line might work today for authors, agents, and others who are becoming increasingly frustrated by the “silence of… Read More
A Digital Picket Line: The Authors Guild Would Like Your Attention
‘Authors Are More Vulnerable To Exploitation Than Ever’ London-based publisher Michael Bhaskar has called digitally empowered readers “the power brokers who matter most” in publishing today. While that kind of commentary refers to the industry’s efforts to strike a more direct-to-consumer stance with a curatorial audience, there are other ways in which readers soon may begin… Read More