Earlier in the week I talked about e-book royalties and what the Authors Guild had to say. Just yesterday they released a new part of their ongoing series, this one aptly titled "The E-Book Royalty Mess: An Interim Fix":
Negotiating a publishing contract is frequently contentious, but authors have long been able to take comfort in this: once the contract is signed, the interests of the author and the publisher are largely aligned. If the publisher works to maximize its revenues, it will necessarily work to maximize the author's royalties. This is the heart of the traditional bargain, whereby the author licenses the publisher long-term, exclusive book rights in the world's largest book market in exchange for an advance and the promise of diligently working to the joint benefit of author and publisher.Now, for the first time, publishers have strong incentives to work against the author's interests.
As we discussed in our last alert, authors and publishers have traditionally acted as equal partners, splitting the net proceeds from book sales. Most sublicenses, for example, provide for a fifty-fifty split of proceeds, and the standard hardcover trade book royalty -- 15% of the retail price -- represented half of the net proceeds from selling the book when the standard was established. But trade book publishers currently offer e-book royalties at precisely half what the terms of a traditional proceeds-sharing arrangement would dictate -- paying just 25% of net income on e-book sales. That's why the shift from hardcover to e-book sales is a win for publishers, a loss for authors.
The piece goes on. Definitely worth checking out.
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I love Twitter. I don't know why. If I had to choose between Twitter and Facebook, I would take Twitter in a heartbeat. There's just a simplicity to it that I really like. Also I really dig the fact that each tweet can be no more than 140 characters. And I'm not just saying that because I'm the "Hint Fiction guy." I believe it really can help writers work on their word-choice and self-editing. Of course, a few tweeters out there will run on and on, which sorta defeats the purpose. You know what else defeats the purpose? Services like TwitLonger.
On some level I've always known this service to exist but never bothered with it. Why would I, when the simple point of Twitter is to keep your posts nice and short. But recently a new upgrade with TweetDeck (which I use mostly for my desktop tweeting) has this service enabled. Before when I would tweet and go over the 140 character mark, the numbers would turn red and show a negative. Now, however, it just continues, as if encouraging you to keep typing away and not worry about the limit. This is sad and goes against everything Twitter stands for.
My point? That servies like TwitLonger really suck. And if you use them, shame on you. Shame!
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On a brighter note, the table of contents has been announced for the third edition of The Best of Every Day Fiction. It includes online friends Gay Degani, Aaron Polson, Ben Loory, and many, many more. It also include my story "Multiplicity." A big thanks to Jordan Lapp and Camille Gooderham Campbell and the rest of the EDF team for not only publishing my story in the first place, but for now reprinting it. When the book becomes available, I'll be sure to post about it here.
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Everyone have a nice and safe romantic weekend. Tune in Monday for an exciting announcement (at least, I hope it'll be exciting). In the meantime, American Grindhouse!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AndtsMdk2fc