WINTER 2018—SPRING 2019 16 11 Over 70 25 Why We Oppose Morals Clauses 44 Writers on the Brink Articles THE AUTHORS GUILD OFFICERS BULLETIN 08 President Q&A: D.T. Max Executive Director Douglas Preston 13 Titles and Trademarks Mary Rasenberger Vice President General Counsel Monique Truong 16 11 Over 70: Writers Who Persevere Cheryl L. Davis Secretary 22 Editor Rachel Vail Hybrid Publishing: What You Need to Know Martha Fay Treasurer 25 Why We Oppose Morals Clauses in Digital Content Director Peter Petre Jennifer Simms Members of the Council Book Contracts Copy Editors Deirdre Bair Heather Rodino Rich Benjamin 28 Harper Lee and Estate Planning for Authors Hallie Einhorn Amy Bloom 34 Art Direction Alexander Chee The Owner of the Los Angeles Times Wants Studio Elana Schlenker Pat Cummings Sylvia Day Rights to Books Written by Staff Cover Art + Illustration W. Ralph Eubanks 44 Writers on The Brink Antoine Cossé Peter Gethers All non-staff contributors Annette Gordon-Reed to the Bulletin retain Lauren Groff copyright to the articles Tayari Jones that appear in these pages. Brendan Kiely Guild members seeking Min Jin Lee Departments information on contributors’ Nicholas Lemann other publications are Steven Levy 02 Short Takes invited to contact the John R. MacArthur Guild office. Published by D.T. Max 04 A Farewell Message from James Gleick The Authors Guild, Inc. Daniel Okrent Michelle Richmond 06 From the Home Office The Authors Guild, Julia Sanches the oldest and largest James Shapiro 26 Agent’s Corner association of published Hampton Sides authors in the United T.J. Stiles 36 Legal Watch States, works to protect Jonathan Taplin and promote the Nicholas Weinstock 38 Advocacy News professional interests Ex-Officio & of its members. The Guild’s Honorary Members 50 Books by Members forerunner, The Authors of the Council League of America, was Roger Angell 56 Members Make News founded in 1912. The Bulletin Roy Blount Jr. was first published Barbara Taylor Bradford 58 In Memoriam in 1912 as The Authors Robert A. Caro League Newsletter. Susan Cheever The Authors Guild Anne Edwards 31 East 32nd Street, 7th Floor James Gleick New York, NY 10016 Erica Jong t: (212) 563-5904 Stephen Manes f: (212) 564-5363 Robert K. Massie e: [email protected] Victor S. Navasky authorsguild.org Sidney Offit Mary Pope Osborne 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 ” “Advertising dollars that used to go to the Times, that used to go to the Atlantic, that used to go to the sources that are actually producing the articles that we read?... those advertising dollars have left those sources and they’ve gone directly to Facebook and Google.” Richard Russo, Who Owns the Word, Part I: Journalism, November 15, 2018 (see p. 49) BOOKSELLER My 500 Extraordinary Days in At Slate, Mike Pesca cautioned the Trump White House by former against assigning blame to “fake news” EXTRAORDINAIRE: staffer Cliff Sim. The first-time or missteps by individual journalists, QUELLE ANNÉE! author’s career got a generous which tend to get disproportionate boost from Trump, whose negative attention. Like Lee, he pointed to the “The publishing world made Tweet about Sims pushed the Facebook-Google “duopoly,” citing headlines in 2018,” the Washington book from number 12 on Amazon’s a Pivotal report that found these Post reported in December, bestseller list to number 6 within two companies “control almost three- “and not always by design.” a matter of hours. quarters of digital ad dollars.” Or, as Variety phrased it: Many communities will be “President Donald Trump may not JOURNALISM’S affected by the Gannett cuts, with be much of a reader, but he’s been a SHRINKING NUMBERS layoffs at the Dallas Morning News, gift to book publishers.” The market Indianapolis Star, Knoxville News research company NPD Group Sentinel, The Tennessean, and New found that sales of political books Newspapers and media companies have been steadily contracting Jersey’s The Record, among others. were up by 25 percent by September, And since local reporting informs the same month that Business in recent years, with mergers, budget cuts, and layoffs becoming the national discussion, the loss will Insider counted fifteen books increasingly familiar features surely be felt more widely. about the Trump administration of the industry. January, however, Columbia Journalism that were published in 2018. was a particularly painful month: Review highlighted, in particular, There were also, of course, The Huffington Post, Yahoo, the layoffs of veteran Dallas books by James Comey, Anita Hill, and AOL—all owned by Verizon— Morning News reporters who Michelle Obama, and Bill Clinton, as well as BuzzFeed and Gannett, cover immigration, energy and who co-authored The President owner of USA Today, and many the environment, and Hispanic is Missing with James Patterson. local newspapers, announced immigrant communities. Their on- Politics and publishing intertwined significant layoffs. Altogether, the-ground reporting is irreplaceable. again when American Media, Inc., about 1,000 people lost their jobs. (See the Guild’s February 6 publisher of the National Enquirer, Journalists spoke up on statement on the layoffs, p. 7.) hit the news again and again with Twitter and elsewhere, announcing its “catch-and-kill” practice. job losses, promoting colleagues MAGAZINE The Post’s “not always in need of work, and analyzing INDUSTRY STILL by design” review of 2018 also the reasons for the layoffs. In an discussed the wave of writers and interview with NPR’s “All Things IN FLUX—FROM media figures who were drawn into Considered,” New York Times media TOP TO BOTTOM the spotlight following #MeToo- reporter Edmund Lee pointed inspired reports of misbehavior. to insufficient advertising income News of Quad Graphics’ purchase The year 2018 ended with the as a major factor. Even large media of LSC Communications may not news that Margaret Atwood was companies cannot compete with the have drawn the attention of most writing a sequel to The Handmaid’s behemoths Facebook and Google, writers, but journalist and business Tale, the book and TV series he explained: “The BuzzFeeds executive Tony Silber raised considered by many as a “defining and the Vices and the Vox Medias concerns about the union of the dystopian text for the current time,” of the world—their audiences two largest American magazine according to the Post. pale in comparison.” An advertising- printers. In a November 1 Forbes And as 2019 dawned, yet based business model is no longer column, Silber reeled off a list another selling title landed sustainable, he said, predicting of defunct magazine printers, in bookstores, Team of Vipers: “big mergers” in the near future. all of them shut down in the last 2 Authors Guild Bulletin fifteen years, and highlighted that journalists across the state Goats was viewed 5.6 million other indicators of the magazine are losing work because of this times in public library digital industry’s poor health. case. Reuters has stopped using catalogs around the world and had Wholesalers have evaporated, freelancers in California because 130,000 checkouts; its Amazon with 180 companies operating in of the ruling, and the president of the Kindle sales rank soared from 1995 and only two today. Newsstand Society of American Travel Writers below 200,000 to 7,833; more than magazine sales are dropping at tells me that his group’s California 13,000 Goodreads members alarming rates. Publishers continue to members—and he himself—will soon added the title to their bookshelves; consolidate, with two major mergers lose significant work because a and the book’s sales skyrocketed, in 2018: Meredith’s acquisition of New Jersey-based company is afraid by 818 percent for the e-book Time Inc. and Hearst’s purchase of of the effects of the Dynamex case.” and 201 percent for the print Rodale. Silber offered no solutions, The Authors Guild joined edition. Sales remained high after but he warned that new technology forces with Dotinga and other the campaign ended. companies are unlikely to save the journalists and organizations to Panorama Project will industry: “They view magazine media lobby the new California state continue monitoring sales to as among their potential verticals legislature to clarify the rules so that understand the long-term impact of rather than jumping in as fully legitimate freelance journalists can the campaign. In time, their reports committed providers.” continue to work as freelancers if they should provide a more refined “[T]he pain is being shared widely, choose. Legislation is being drafted understanding of how exactly the both downstream and upstream by the California State legislature nearly 15,000 participating libraries from the publisher,” Silber reported, to enact the decision into law, and made the campaign a success. and Quad Graphic’s purchase of LSC the Guild is working with the group The Guild is working with Communications should serve as a to draft an acceptable carve out. OverDrive on a potential portal reminder that the magazine industry for authors to see which libraries is still in transition. THE PANORAMA have licensed digital copies PROJECT (e-books or audiobooks) of their CALIFORNIA books and how many. WRITERS & The Panorama Project is a major JOURNALISTS research program studying the THE FUTURE impact of public libraries on book LIBRARY LOSING WORK sales, the first of its kind. Funded DUE TO NEW by the digital distributor OverDrive, Scottish artist Katie Paterson COURT RULING the Panorama Project is led by has founded the Future Library, a council of representatives from an artistic project that began Writers and journalists may be publishers, booksellers, and libraries.