The Authors Guild has added four new recommended clauses to its model contract related to AI. The clauses require an author’s written consent “for their publisher to use AI-generated book translations, audiobook narration, or cover art.” Previously, they added a clause to prohibit the use of an author’s work for training AI without the author’s express permission. “The purpose of these demands is to prevent the use of AI to replace human creators,” writes the guild. “The Authors Guild strongly believes that human writing, narration, and translation are vastly superior to their AI mimics. Moreover, as an ethical matter, the […]
Authors
Wilbur Smith’s IP For Sale
The estate of global bestselling novelist Wilbur Smith, who wrote more than 50 books that sold 140 million copies worldwide, is selling all non-literary media rights (e.g. TV, film, theme parks, theatrical, gaming, and merchandise) to Smith’s IP. ACF Investment Bank, which handled the sale of rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, will broker the deal, and “they have already started contacting the logical international buyers and expect a strong response to this huge library of IP.”
Disruptions Leave A Number of Children’s Book Creators Looking for New Representation
Unrelated and varied circumstances at three different literary agencies last week left a number of children’s and young adult authors and illustrators looking for new representation, and became the focus of much discussion and concern on social media. The development with the biggest impact was at New Leaf Literary Agency, coming after the agency “parted ways amicably” with agent Jordan Hamessley, according to emails sent to clients. Update: After this story ran, Hamessley, who had not responded to our DMs, posted a lengthy statement on Twitter: “It was not my choice to leave, and I am heartbroken to learn that […]
Backman Leaves Forum, Salomonsson Agency
Author Fredrik Backman recently announced that he is switching literary agents and will leave the Salomonsson Agency. Backman told Svensk Bokhandel that he terminated his representation early in the year and will be free to change representation this summer when his notice period expires. “After that I will move to an American agency. There is no conflict, it is a completely personal decision,” Backman wrote to them in an email. He will be looking for a new publisher in Sweden as well, after publishing seven books with Forum. “It was undramatic and entirely because of me,” Backman wrote. “I still […]
NYPL Announces 2023 Cullman Center Fellows
The NYPL announced the 2023 Cullman Center fellows, including fiction writers Caoilinn Hughes, Amitava Kumar, and Catherine Lacey; nonfiction writers Jessica Bruder, Molly Crabapple, Lance Richardson, and Brenda Wineapple; poet Nicole Sealey; and translator Yasmine Seale. The NYPL selects “people whose work will benefit directly from access to the collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.” The fellows receive a stipend and an office at the midtown building, as well as access to the library’s research collections.
Visiting Sanderson In His Dragonsteel “Lair”
Brandon Sanderson’s TRESS OF THE EMERALD SEA, the first of the books he offered through his record-smashing $41 million Kickstarter campaign, publishes in its regular trade edition next Tuesday. As his employees pack March swag boxes for his over 38,000 of his backers (the Kickstarter had 185,000 backers overall), Esquire visits Sanderson in his “underground supervillain lair” in Utah. “To fulfill the Kickstarter, we had to double our staff,” Sanderson says, and his company Dragonsteel now employs 64 people. He tells the magazine, “The Kickstarter didn’t make us more money than just selling those books in New York would have,” […]