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
A message to #FutureBook15 from #AuthorDay
To work together, not as antagonists The Bookseller’s Author Day conference opened this year’s FutureBook Week on Monday (30th November). It was the inaugural staging of a conference expressly meant to bring together publishing professionals, traditionally publishing authors, and self-publishing authors. Our term for the conference’s intent is “issues-driven,” by which we meat that it was not… Read More
Publishers And Authors: Inviting Them To The Same Party
Every Job In Publishing Depends On Authors How is book publishing divided today? Let’s not count the ways. Outsiders looking into this beleaguered industry, however, might be surprised at the reticence many authors and publishers can have about each other. Maybe about being around each other. Meeting each other. Talking more than friendly chitchat or… 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
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
Reaching for accord: Authors' Contracts and Controversies
Authors approaching accord Two venerable author advocate groups, the UK’s Society of Authors and the Authors Guild in the USA, have recently stepped into the limelight to announce that they are fighting for fairer contracts between publishers and authors. The impetus for these actions seems to come from reports that authors’ median incomes have dropped precipitously since 2009, while publishers have fared… 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
Are publishers getting the #authorsay message?
The real irony here, it turns out, is that it wasn’t the publishers calling the questions: 75 percent of responding authors said they have never been asked for feedback from their publisher 7 percent said that publishers pay writers well 32 percent said that the prestige of having a deal with a traditional publisher was important to them… Read More
#FutureChat: How can we pay authors what they deserve?
Each Friday, join us for a #FutureChat session, live on Twitter, at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, 8 a.m. Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Berlin, 3 p.m. GMT. As Philip Jones writes in his leader piece, Author yearnings, in The Bookseller today, “That authors are paid too little and that their situation has worsened is indisputable.” Note… Read More