It was September of 2014 that author Douglas Preston showed the FT a letter being drafted by New American Foundation senior fellow Barry Lynn asking the Department of Justice to investigate Amazon for antitrust violations, and said Lynn was preparing a full report. That letter and position paper, finally ready for dispatch and being circulated to other authors to sign on, asks “that the Antitrust Division investigate Amazon’s power over the book market, and the ways in which that corporation exercises its power, bearing in mind the very special constitutional sensitivities that have historically been applied to any business that […]
Authors
Authors Guild Addresses “Inadequate e-Book Royalties”
As part of their series of Fair Contract Initiative communications, the Authors Guild has a long post on “today’s inadequate e-book royalties,” asserting that “half of net proceeds is the fair royalty rate for e-books.” The post acknowledges one of the big structural obstacles to change: “Major book publishers have agreed to include ‘most favored nation’ clauses in thousands of existing contracts. These clauses require automatic adjustment or renegotiation of e-book royalties if the publisher changes its standard royalty rate, giving publishers a strong incentive to maintain the status quo.” Despite that, the Guild notes there are modest variations: “Some bestselling […]
Watching the WATCHMAN Excerpts in Multiple Countries
Just after midnight EDT the opening chapter of Harper Lee’s GO SET A WATCHMAN was excerpted simultaneously in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the Sydney Morning Herald, accounting for the major English-language territories in which the book will be published July 14. Each outlet also included an audio transcript of Reese Witherspoon reading the opening chapter, which begins: “Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical. Over her breakfast coffee, she watched the last of Georgia’s hills recede and the red earth appear, and with it tin-roofed houses set in the middle […]
The Pay-Per-Page Era Begins
As of yesterday, Amazon officially moved subscription payments for self-published ebooks in the Kindle Unlimited program to their new system of paying by the number of pages read by subscribers. In an email to participating authors, the company said that in June subscribers read over 1.9 billion pages (as measured by their new standardized page count). From there, authors concluded that the per page payout for July — when Amazon has promised the pool will comprise at least $11 million — will be close to .0058 cents for every page read. But, per Amazon’s procedure of determining the final pool […]
People, Etc.
Kelly Bowen has joined Arcadia Publishing and the History Press as director of marketing and corporate communications. She was previously publicity director at Algonquin Books. Springer Nature (the newly combined Springer + Macmillan Science and Education) has created a new policy & external relations team led by evp Eric Merkel-Sobotta, and a combined communications under evp Joyce Lorigan. Both will report to ceo Derk Haank. Awards David Hackett Fischer won the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The $100,000 award will be presented at the Museum & Library’s annual gala on November 7.
People: A Harry Potter Play, and More
JK Rowling announced on Twitter that she has written a play — Harry Potter and Cursed Child — that will open in London’s West End next summer. She calls it “a collaboration” with writer Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany, along with singer-songwriter Imogen Heap. Tickets will go on sale this fall, and the production will be stated at the Palace Theatre. The theater’s website says the play “will explore the backstory leading up to Harry’s parents untimely death at the hands of Lord Voldemort.” Rowling writes, “I’ve had countless offers to extend Harry’s story over the years, but Jack, […]