Origami Unicorn

Writing About Strangers

The New York Times has an article about a perennial question: do writers have a right to tell stories about people radically different from themselves?

Luna de Miel

Honeymoon. A ballet dancer retires, marries a stockman and honeymoons in Spain. Dancing ensues.

Pseudologia Fantastica

Talking About Writer's Block

Publishers Weekly on what to do when you get writer's block. Step one, don't.

Simon & Schuster Opens Its Ebook Catalog to Libraries

Having dithered around for some time, Simon & Schuster has announced that everything in its ebook catalog will now be available to libraries. Publishers Weekly has the story. The Digital Reader has the news plus a slightly different take on it all.

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Amazon: Friend or Foe?

From The Digital Reader an argument that Amazon is going to be more a foe than a friend to independents and the self-published.

Over the past two months Amazon has been supporting their very public and very rough book contract negotiations with a subtle media campaign which has kept indies on the sideline.

and

As I have argued in the past, I see the 70% royalty option in KDP as one of Amazon’s carrots. Amazon offers the high royalty in order to encourage authors and small publishers to deal directly with Amazon. It also encourages authors to stay independent and to get their rights back and republish their backlist.

however, those goals achieved

[I]f Amazon manages to force publishers to accept a lower rate, it won’t need to offer such a high rate via KDP any more. Amazon can cut it, and I would expect them to do so once they think they have the advantage.

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Bezos: Past, Present, Future

The New York Review of Books review of The Everything Store is also a summary of Jeff Bezos life and times and makes sobering reading.

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Ebook Publishing Rights

In a case that may set precedents for cases where ebooks rights were not specificialy granted to the print publishers, Open Road has appealed the judgement against it. Publishers Weekly has details and speculation.

Open Road attorneys argued, noting that despite its win in court, Harper does not have the right to sell Julie of the Wolves e-books without the author's consent, "which it has never obtained" owing to "a fundamental disagreement as to a fair e-book royalty."

Which would mean that no on holds the rights, although the author tried to grant them to Open Road before her death.

At its heart, however, as Open Road's brief suggests, the case is more about e-book royalties. HarperCollins signed George’s Julie of the Wolves in 1971, for a $2000 advance and has since sold over 3.8 million copies in print. But according to court filings, Harper has refused to budge from a 25% net royalty on e-book sales, which George, before her death in May 2012, deemed fundamentally unfair. Open Road paid George a 50% e-book royalty.

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