AUTHORS GUILD Summer 2016 BULLETIN The Guild Storms the Hill in Behalf of Authors Tales of the DMCA: Pirates Still Ahoy News From D.C., BEA, AWP, and the UK Tips from Top Agents and Independent Bookstores Suzanne Collins Honored at Authors Guild Benefit ing on the fact that Tolstoy’s sister committed adultery, From the President had an illegitimate child and considered divorce and suicide. I search for recent biographies of Tolstoy and “Where Does All the find a new one on Google Books: Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett. I type in the word “divorce” Money Go?” and scan the text. Google gives me 14 occurrences, and By Roxana Robinson when I click on one of them, it gives the whole page, as well as the whole page in back and the whole page in front. In fact, the available pages go on and on, of- On June 13, Guild president fering far more material than I need. So I’m certainly Roxana Robinson delivered the not going to buy the book. I take notes on this passage keynote address at a confer- and click off. Rosamund Bartlett—despite having writ- ence sponsored by Publishing ten an excellent, well-received book, which may have Perspectives and held at New taken years to research and write—receives nothing York University’s Kimmel from this use of it. Center. The title of the confer- The Authors Guild did a survey of writers’ in- ence, Rights and Content in the Photo by David Ignaszewski comes since 2009. This showed a drop of 30 percent Digital Age, took aim at a sub- for writers with over 15 years’ experience, people who ject that affects “every writer on have made writing a career. This isn’t just because of the planet.” With Ms. Robinson’s permission, we reprint Google Books, of course. There are other ways for the a slightly edited and shortened version of her address here. customer to gain access to a book, without a penny go- The full text can be found on our website: authorsguild.org. ing to the writer. Let’s look at Amazon. s you all know, the Internet was started by the Suppose you decide to buy a copy of my most re- Agovernment, and the World Wide Web by a scien- cent novel, Sparta, which came out in 2013. Chances tist. Neither was a commercial concern, which in part are that you’ll buy it on Amazon. The company offers explains the strange hybrid world that we know today. a new paperback copy for $12.98. Also a new copy If the Internet had been started by the telephone com- for $4.33. You can buy a used paperback for $0.01. pany, we’d all be used to paying for it. But because it Probably you won’t choose to buy the more expensive was originally a free system, a general belief has arisen copy. Why would you? You’ll buy the cheaper one. to the effect that everything intangible on it should be But how can a new copy be sold for so little money? somehow free. “Information wants to be free” has be- That new copy is probably one that the publisher sold come a kind of mantra. off to make room in the warehouse. If a book’s sales Of course, the Internet is nothing like a free system. slow down and the publisher needs the space, it may It’s highly commercial, and the source of astronomi- sell copies at a deep discount to make room for other cally large sums of money—just not for the people books. Many contracts have clauses that will allow who provide the content. So where does all the money the publisher to pay no royalties under these circum- come from, and where does it go? stances. So the publisher gets paid, and the middle- Ten years ago the Authors Guild sued Google. man (in this case that kindly and book-loving site Google had taken 20 million books, both in and out of “Turnpike Liquidators”) will get paid. And, of course, copyright, and scanned them without the permission Amazon will get paid. Only the author will receive of the writers. Google then used them for its own com- nothing for this sale of the new book she wrote. mercial purposes, without compensation. (The lawsuit These cheap new books, which Amazon posts concluded in April, when the Supreme Court chose not on the same page as more expensive new ones, will to review an appeals court decision in Google’s favor.) of course cannibalize the sales of the expensive ones. Google argued that, though it has appropriated Publishers know this, but they do it because they want the whole text, it shouldn’t be charged with using it some money now, instead of no money now or maybe all, since it only shows limited parts to the public. But some money later. So those cheap books flood the mar- Google does use the entire text for its own commercial ket, and every time a customer chooses one of them purposes: to enrich its language database, for transla- instead of the more expensive one, the author loses tion purposes, and for its search engine. Google claims royalties. that it hasn’t damaged the authors whose work it’s ap- I asked the editor of a Big Five publishing house propriated since it puts “Buy” buttons near the texts. how he felt about this juxtaposition, and if he thought But suppose I’m a harried and impecunious graduate student writing a paper on Anna Karenina. I’m focus- Continued on page 6 AUTHORS GUILD BULLETIN 2 SUMMER 2016 SUMMER 2016 ARTICLES Advocacy: News from the Hill ............................................9 By Ryan Fox THE AUTHORS Tales of the DMCA GUILD BULLETIN DMCA Safe Harbors & the Notice-and-Takedown Regime: President Update and Member Perspectives ................................. 11 Roxana Robinson On Copyright and Kewpie Dolls ................................... 12 Executive Director By Damon DiMarco Mary Rasenberger Copyright Matters .................................................... 13 Editor Martha Fay By Hillary Johnson Assistant Editor Book Business Blues: A Transatlantic View ............................ 15 Nicole Vazquez The Authors Guild 24th Annual Benefit ............................... 16 Staff Writer ............................... Ryan Fox Authors Guild Makes a Splash at AWP 18 Copy Editors Q&A with the Guild’s Newest Staffer ................................. 20 Hallie Einhorn Agents’ Roundtable: Tips for Making a Match. 21 All non-staff contributors to the By Ryan Fox Bulletin retain copyright to the articles that appear in these The Story Behind Kafka’s Son; or, Does Persistence Pay? ............. 25 pages. Guild members seeking By Curt Leviant information on contributors’ other publications are invited to BEA 2016: Four Days, Three Panels ..................................... 27 contact the Guild office. I’m Published! Now What? ............................................. 39 Published quarterly by: By Jeffrey Copeland The Authors Guild, Inc. 31 East 32nd Street Writers, Take Warning: Things You Should Know 7th Floor Before You Sign the Contract ........................................... 41 New York, NY 10016 By Jessica Friedman The Bulletin was first published .......................................................... in 1912 as The Authors League Annual Meeting 53 News letter. DEPARTMENTS From the President ..........................................................2 ................................................................... OVERHEARD Short Takes 4 From the Home Office ......................................................7 “ Where is human nature so Legal Watch ................................................................ 43 weak as in a bookstore?” Notable Deaths ............................................................ 46 — Henry Ward Beecher Members Make News .................................................... 47 Books by Members ........................................................ 48 ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST Kevin Sanchez Walsh is a freelance artist and longtime contributor to the Bulletin. He can be reached at [email protected]. Copyright © 2016 The Authors Guild, Inc. AUTHORS GUILD BULLETIN 3 SUMMER 2016 sales. At issue is the question: When with other forms of entertainment. SHORT TAKES a reader buys an e-book, is it pur- According to a recent Pew Research chased or licensed? Licensed uses Center survey, about one in four Book Sales in 2015 are paid at a much higher rate than adults hasn’t picked up a book in The numbers are out: Nielsen Books sales, with authors generally receiv- the past year. The program, in this & Consumers released its 2015 U.S. ing a 50 percent royalty, compared way, is reminiscent of Amazon’s Book Industry Year-End Review to only 25 percent for e-book “sales.” Kindle Singles series, a curated list in May, and the Association of The lawsuit states that e-books of short e-books. Kindle Singles, American Publishers and the pub- written by Sheldon Blau, MD, and which pays authors as much as 70 lishing consultancy Codex Group other authors were not actually percent of a book’s proceeds, has have also reported on last year’s “sold” to readers, but rather distrib- provided authors with a new mar- book sales. Capturing headlines uted under “licenses,” and so a 50 ketplace for novellas, long-form was Nielsen’s finding that coloring percent royalty should have been reporting, memoir and science writ- book sales have increased from one paid. By considering these transac- ing, among other categories. million in 2014 to an astonishing 12 tions “sales” instead of “licenses,” BookShots will launch in book- million in 2015, as adults have fully the suit alleges, S&S has been un- stores and in the usual audio and adopted the hobby. Audiobook sales derpaying its authors. digital formats, but the ultimate are also way up, 40 percent higher in Complicating the case, reports aim, Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch 2015 compared to 2014. Publishers Weekly, is the fact that a told the Times, is to get BookShots E-book sales are down 13 per- book named in the complaint, Blau’s into less-than-traditional retail out- cent, with e-books making up just How to Get Out of the Hospital Alive, lets.