Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

The growing used book market in Japan has generated alot of complaints from organizations such s the Copyright Network for Comic Authors in the 21st Century. Readers of DA know that the only way an author makes money is off the sale of a new book. Used books, promotional copies, and the like don’t generate even a penny of royalty for an author.

In response to the complaints, Bookoff Corporation, Japan’s largest UBS chain, has offered to pay $1 Million US to the Copyright Network. Japan has a first-sale doctrine like the US so this sound like a goodwill offering rather than a legal obligation. Bookoff had revenues of $460 Million in the recent fiscal year.

Via animenewsnetwork.

If I was an author, I would probably want to get my hands on this arbitration decision1. Regnery was in litigation with author Richard Miniter. He had a two book contract with Regnery and delivered a book called Disinformation. Regnery believed that the book “did not live up to [Miniter's] two book contract”. Instead, Miniter took a book to Simon & Schuster that Regnery believed should have been its. (This sounded like shades of Dara Joy).

Miniter claims that he wanted to write a book about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for his second book but that Regnery refused to pay an advance. The book fell apart when al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006.

The claims of Minter sound like Dara Joy. She took Ritual of Proof to HarperCollins instead of giving it to Dorchester claiming the Ritual of Proof was a science fiction not a romance. I am pretty sure that Dorchester won that round. Regnery says that they had a two book deal and that he kept the money for the advance and failed to deliver. Regnery sued Miniter, took it to arbitration per the contract, and Regnery won, …

It used to be that you could go to Amazon and see how many books were left in stock. I always thought this was a ploy to get the consumer to buy right away instead of waiting but apparently its a bit of information that only writers used to evaluate sales. Amazon has recently stopped providing the information on the site. The “number of copies left in stock” information was actually only the number from the fulfillment center and not the entire warehouse so the data did not provide an accurate picture of total inventory.

Authors have very little knowledge about how many of their books are sold, particularly if the author is fortunate enough to be sold at non traditional retailers such as drugstores, grocers and Wal-Mart because those figures aren’t tracked by Bookscan who keeps track of point of sale data. Amazon provided an author with some idea about the number of books sold from a distributor or wholesaler.

In print, as well as in e publishing, the author’s understanding of number of reported copies sold depends in large part on the honesty of the publisher. …

Sometimes I’ll blog about information that seems to be directed straight at writers and I wonder if some readers think to themselves, but this isn’t for us. It doesn’t affect us. Aren’t you guys a readers’ blog? We are, but sometimes industry changes have a great affect on we, the readers.

Simon & Schuster’s announcement of its contractual changes is an example of that. Last week, it was discovered that Simon & Schuster intended to include language in its contracts that would essentially eliminate any reversion of rights. What does reversion of rights mean? A little copyright lesson. Stay with me. It’s not that boring, I promise.

When an artist creates a work of art, this art has a copyright. The copyright is a form of protection that is granted by the U.S. Congress. Essentially, the writer of a book has the right to

reproduce the work (make a copy)
prepare derivative works (i.e., a series of books like the Black Dagger Brotherhood series or Eve Dallas series)
distribute copies to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, by rental, lease or lending; …