Tap, Tap, Click Empathy As Craft Our Cornered Culture
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The Authors Guild, Inc. SPRING-SUMMER 2018 31 East 32nd Street, 7th Floor PRST STD US POSTAGE PAID New York, NY 10016 PHILADELPHIA, PA PERMIT #164 11 Tap, Tap, Click 20 Empathy as Craft 41 Our Cornered Culture Articles THE AUTHORS GUILD OFFICERS TURNING PAGES BULLETIN 5 President Annual Benefit Executive Director James Gleick An exciting season of new 8 Audiobooks Ascending Mary Rasenberger Vice President programming and initiatives is General Counsel Richard Russo underway at the Guild—including 11 Cheryl L. Davis Monique Truong Tap, Tap, Click our Regional Chapters and Editor Treasurer 16 Q&A: Representative Hakeem Jeffries Martha Fay Peter Petre enhanced author websites— 18 Making the Copyright System Work Assistant Editor Secretary on top of the services we already Nicole Vazquez Daniel Okrent offer our members. But as for Creators Copy Editors Members of the Council Heather Rodino Deirdre Bair we all know, this takes funding. 20 Empathy as Craft Hallie Einhorn Rich Benjamin So, in our seasonal Bulletin, 23 Art Direction Amy Bloom we are going to start accepting Connecting Our Members: Studio Elana Schlenker Alexander Chee The Guild Launches Regional Chapters Pat Cummings paid advertising to offset our costs Cover Art + Illustration Sylvia Day and devote greater resources Ariel Davis Matt de la Peña 24 An Author’s Guide to the New Tax Code All non-staff contributors Peter Gethers to your membership benefits. 32 American Writers Museum Wants You to the Bulletin retain Annette Gordon-Reed But our new ad policy copyright to the articles Tayari Jones is not merely for the benefit of that appear in these pages. Nicholas Lemann 34 Authors Guild Annual Meeting Report Guild members seeking Steven Levy advertisers. If there’s enough 41 information on contributors’ John R. MacArthur interest from members, we plan Featured Panel: “Our Cornered Culture” other publications are D.T. Max invited to contact the Susan Orlean on launching a low-cost, small Guild office. Published by Douglas Preston advertising section. Need a The Authors Guild, Inc. Michelle Richmond researcher, assistant, agent, Departments James Shapiro The Authors Guild, Hampton Sides beta reader, etc.? This section T.J. Stiles 2 Short Takes the oldest and largest will give you the opportunity association of published Jonathan Taplin Rachel Vail to place classified ads for writing- 4 From the President authors in the United States, works to protect Nicholas Weinstock related services. Stay tuned 6 From the Home Office and promote the Ex-Officio & for more information. professional interests Honorary Members 28 Legal Watch of its members. The Guild’s of the Council Turn the page to see our forerunner, The Authors Roger Angell first ad. 30 Advocacy News League of America, was Roy Blount Jr. founded in 1912. The Bulletin Barbara Taylor Bradford 62 Books by Members was first published Robert A. Caro in 1912 as The Authors Susan Cheever 65 Members Make News League Newsletter. Anne Edwards The Authors Guild Erica Jong 67 In Memoriam 31 East 32nd Street, 7th Floor Stephen Manes New York, NY 10016 Robert K. Massie t: (212) 563-5904 Victor S. Navasky f: (212) 564-5363 Sidney Offit e: [email protected] Mary Pope Osborne authorsguild.org Letty Cottin Pogrebin Roxana Robinson Jean Strouse Nick Taylor Scott Turow Advisory Council Sherman Alexie Judy Blume Jennifer Egan Louise Erdrich CJ Lyons Frederic Martini Cathleen Schine Georges Ugeux Meg Wolitzer “ OVERHEARD ” “[W]ith art comes empathy. It allows us to look through someone else’s eyes and know their strivings and struggles. It expands the moral imagination and makes it impossible to accept the dehumanization of others. When we are without art, we are a diminished people—myopic, unlearned and cruel.” Dave Eggers, “A Cultural Vacuum in Trump’s White House” The New York Times, June 29, 2018 SMALL-TOWN The organization is warning of “Once everyone in the possible job losses at newspapers publishinghouse was paid, publishers’ PAPERS LOSE OUT and printers across the country. shareholders received up to three IN TRADE WAR The Department of Commerce times the amount paid to authors,” applied the new tariffs based on Solomon writes. “And authors still had While the Trump administration’s a complaint from a single American to pay their own expenses and agents.” trade war with China received newsprint mill, the Northern She clarified that the calculations used significant press coverage, lesser Pacific Paper Company (NORPAC), were her own—because publishers known new tariffs on imported which was acquired by a New York– do not separate out what authors earn Canadian paper products have rattled based hedge fund in 2016. NORPAC in their reports. the newspaper industry. In January, argued that lower-cost Canadian Society of Authors president the Department of Commerce newsprint (uncoated ground wood) Philip Pullman agrees, stating that increased the tariffs from 4.4 percent was harming the American paper it is “shockingly bad husbandry” to 9.9 percent. This decision was industry. However, the American to have such high profits while author preliminary and awaits finalization Forest & Paper Association does earnings are smaller than ever. by the U.S. International Trade not support the tariffs, nor do several “I like every individual editor, designer, Commission; the final determination is concerned industry groups that have and marketing and publicity person scheduled to be issued on or around come together to form Stop Tariffs I deal with,” he said, “but I don’t like June 30. A second “Antidumping on Printers & Publishers (STOPP). what publishers, corporately, are doing Duty Determination” (also preliminary) The group includes the Printing to the ecology of the book world. was announced on March 13; a final Industries of America, the Book It’s damaging, and it should change.” determination may be issued on Manufacturers’ Institute, the Association The article has stimulated intense or around August 2, depending on of American Publishers, and the discussion in the London publishing how the department’s investigation News Media Alliance, among others, world. The Bookseller ran a response turns out. But in the meantime the all concerned that a single company from Andrew Franklin, cofounder of new taxes are in effect. has been empowered to speak for the successful independent publisher The Daily Jeffersonian, an the industry. They are busy lobbying Profile Books. Franklin emphasized the Ohio newspaper, predicts a 10 percent the International Trade Commission myriad and complex costs of running increase in overhead due to the and the Department of Commerce a publishing house, the ever-present tariffs. According to the paper’s April 3 to overturn the preliminary decision. risk, and the importance of making a editorial, its publisher, GateHouse profit simply to remain viable. Media Ohio, “spends millions of dollars SHOCKINGLY Publishing Perspectives a year on paper, and an increase of used the opportunity to take a deep almost 10 percent amounts to hundreds BAD HUSBANDRY dive into the issue, laying out the of thousands more in production costs.” (OF AUTHORS, case for authors and publishers, In Wisconsin, a major commercial NOT SHEEP) and adding the perspective of a literary printer reported that it was seeking agent, Andrew Lownie. Lownie $10 million in operational cuts to The Society of Authors in the UK is pointed out the negative effect of make up for the projected increase shining a light on writers’ plummeting discounts and sales on author royalties: in paper costs. incomes. In an essay for The Bookseller, “There’s nothing particularly new The News Media Alliance, which Chief Executive Nicola Solomon about special sales, except that represents more than 2,000 news asked why Simon & Schuster and increasingly nowadays they seem to organizations, confirmed in late March Penguin Random House are reporting be part of the initial marketing and that the new tariffs have resulted in 16 percent profit margins at the sales strategy, rather than just a useful major price increases on newsprint, same time that their authors are taking tool for reinvigorating interest in a in some cases up to 20 to 30 percent. home just 3 percent of the pie. book or disposing of surplus stock. 2 Authors Guild Bulletin The benefits to the publisher of P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall, and posts a lengthy history of the practice these deals...are of little to no benefit Resurgence of an American Gang, of banning books in America on to authors.” was banned in Illinois prisons. its website—a subject that Alexander Philip Jones, editor of Coauthored by Lance Williams, the discusses in The New Jim Crow. The Bookseller, put in his two cents book is a social history of a Chicago with a column that concluded, gang. It received high praise from BANKING ON “Solomon makes a compelling case, Kirkus and was called “a must-read for but it is not open and shut. In a anyone interested in the history BOOKS flat market, the more authors who of Chicago” by a local newspaper. The Wall Street Journal and Publishers are published, the less each will Just not the incarcerated. Weekly reported recently on an receive....[T]hough publishers Moore looked into how titles unexpected enterprise: a start-up have undoubtedly improved their get placed on the list and found that book company. Several prominent businesses, it is not always through decisions are typically made at the business executives have invested factors under their control: returns discretion of local officials. Objections in Lezen Acquisition LLC with and digital are not yet fixed entities, tend to revolve around concerns that the intention of buying up publishing while Amazon looms ever larger. a book’s content will promote drug companies. Their first purchase Last, agglomeration is not an absolute. use, lead to violence, or “challenge the was Arcadia Publishing Inc., a South It may work, but it is generally system,” although in fact, erotica seems Carolina–based company specializing resisted by authors and agents.” to be of equal concern.