Tuesday News: Authors United insult just about everyone, Robin Thicke’s deposition disaster, LEGO’s gender trouble, and portraits of Black Victorians
Letter to Amazon.com, Inc. board of directors – It was difficult to pick out the most offensive passage in this Authors United letter to the Amazon board of directors. From the Eurocentric insult to China and Chinese authors, to the misperception that books are not commercial products (does this mean commercial fiction is a nonexistent category?), to the confusion of publishing as a for-profit commercial industry with the creative work that goes into the commercial production of a book, there’s a lot of frustrating pretension here. I can’t imagine Amazon will need to do much by way of response, since AU undermines most of its strongest potential arguments without any outside assistance.
Amazon has every right to refuse to sell consumer goods in response to a pricing disagreement with a wholesaler. We all appreciate discounted razor blades and cheaper shoes. But books are not consumer goods. Books cannot be written more cheaply, nor can authors be outsourced to China. Books are not toasters or televisions. Each book is the unique, quirky creation of a lonely, intense, and often expensive struggle on the part of a single individual, a person whose living depends on his or her book finding readers. This is the process Amazon is obstructing.
. . . traditional publishing houses perform a vital role in our society. Publishers provide venture capital for ideas. They advance money to authors, giving them the time and freedom to write their books. This system is especially important for nonfiction writers, who often must travel for research. Thousands of times every year, publishers take a chance on unknown authors and advance them money solely on the basis of an idea. By assuming the risk, publishers expect—and receive—a financial return. What will Amazon replace this process with? How, in the Amazon model, will a young author get funding to pursue a promising idea? And what about the role of editors, copy editors, and other publishing staff who ensure that what ultimately ends up on the shelf is both worthy and accurate? –Authors United
Robin Thicke Admits Drug Abuse, Lying to Media in Wild “Blurred Lines” Deposition (Exclusive) – So there’s this concept in the law called “declaratory judgment,” and it’s basically a lawsuit someone files in order to head off potential legal action again them. So Robin Thick and Pharrell Williams, and Clifford “T.I.” Harris, Jr. filed suit against the estate of Marvin Gaye, claiming that their song, “Blurred Lines” was not infringing on Gaye’s 1977 song, “Got to Give it Up.” And yet, despite the fact that these gentlemen filed this suit proactively, their depositions should be filed under “What Not To Say Ever While Under Oath.” Thicke, for his part, is claiming that he was so high on drugs and alcohol that he has barely any idea what he said or did at any point during the creation and production of the song, let alone during interviews given afterward. Because this is what we need by way of legal precedent in a high profile copyright case.
The transcripts of the depositions don’t necessarily refute the plaintiffs’ contention in their own summary judgment motion that “Blurred Lines” and “Got to Give It Up” are not substantially similar for purposes of a copyright analysis, but on the road to a trial that is currently scheduled for February 10, 2015, the Gayes believe they have ammunition to destroy the plaintiffs’ credibility and honor.
“Thicke, for his part, now claims he made all of his statements while drunk or on drugs, none of them true, and he mentioned Marvin Gaye only to sell records,” states the counter-claimants’ court papers. “He also actually testified that he is not an honest person. This complete contempt for the judicial system, and their obligations to tell the truth, can best be summed up by Thicke’s ultimate admission, while under oath, that he ‘[does not] give a f—k’ about this litigation.” –Hollywood Reporter
LEGO’s Girl Problem Starts with Management – This is a really great piece about the gender problem with LEGO, and how its manifestation is, in part, a reflection of the lack of gender diversity within the company, especially in key leadership and creative roles. One of the saddest things is that LEGO, which used to be inherently gender-neutral, actually kept itself financially viable by carving out an overwhelmingly male customer base.
Family-owned LEGO toys used to be staunchly gender neutral – as self-professed Lego geek David Pickett exhaustively demonstrates. The early advertisements featured both boys and girls playing with identical toys. When minifigs were first introduced in the late 70s – the era of androngyny – gender was downplayed, and the 80s were a golden age for the company. But between the late ‘80s and early ‘00s, the company launched a stream of product lines aimed at girls, none particularly successful and most heavily anchored in pink. These weren’t toys that boys and girls could play with – the company was now making one set of toys for boys (which were often more interesting and challenging to build) and one set of pink, simplified products for girls, including a jewelry line and dollhouses. As Pickett points out, many of these pieces weren’t even compatible with the majority of Legos (i.e., the boy Legos) – and interchangeability is the whole value proposition of the Lego system. –Harvard Business Review Blog
The black Victorians: astonishing portraits unseen for 120 years – Although these are not, by far THE ONLY black Victorians, this London exhibit, Black Chronicles II, is surely eye opening for those who still believe that a) most 19th century black people were slaves or servants, and b) that American and British history is largely white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. You can view more of the images here, at the exhibition website.
Fittingly, the exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Stuart Hall, the influential left-wing cultural theorist who died this year, and whose writings underpin The Missing Chapter project. “They are here because you were there,” he wrote of the black British people whose experience he illuminated. “There is an umbilical connection. There is no understanding Englishness without understanding its imperial and colonial dimensions.” The excavated images in Black Chronicles II provide a crucial and, until now, overlooked way of further understanding that complex connection. –The Guardian
Ooh! I love that historical-Lego-blog post, with the advertising. When my children came of Lego age, I was astonished to find how poorly the toys had evolved. To my sons’ displeasure, I did not open my wallet often for the violent, heavily licensed line they’re peddling lately. (Except for the purple Harry potter night bus, complete with Hedwig. Love.)
My opinion only began to change about two months ago, when one of my kids began learning how to use the lego robotics league products at a day camp. You can’t buy these components for your home. (Well, you could, but it would set you back at least $400.) The robotic components are completely gender neutral and they’re REAL. He learned programming, inputs, outputs and algorithms. (He’s nine.) Now that’s in the spirit of the original Lego innovation, and I was happy to see it.
Obviously, the strategy is to show that both Thicke and Williams are crazy.
“He’s an Aries, I respect him.”
My girls have Harry Potter Legos, some LOTR Legos, and one or two Star Wars sets that had Leia or Amidala in them. They scoff at the girl Legos AND at a lot of the overly gendered boy Legos. But they love Legos as much as I hate stepping on Legos! Why are there no…huge buckets of Legos with which you can make random shizz anymore? Granted, that’s what our kits all turned into, but still.
Oh, that letter. I can’t even. Well, I could, but it would take too long.
The China comment with all its implications is unbelievably offensive, and there are SO many other things, but like you, this part has me shaking my head:
“Publishers provide venture capital for ideas. They advance money to authors, giving them the time and freedom to write their books. This system is especially important for nonfiction writers, who often must travel for research…”
There’s a slightly different version of this letter posted on The Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/hachette-authors-united-write-to-amazon-board-2014-9, which I assume is the original version—and the one that was presumably in place when most of these authors signed it. Its wording went beyond this, and actually read: “…important for nonfiction writers, who must quit their jobs to travel, research and write. Without an advance, for example, many aspiring writers would never be able to leave their jobs to write their first books…”
And both versions, the original and the revised, end with this question: “How, in the Amazon model, will a young author get funding to pursue a promising idea?”
Now, I AM traditionally published, and have been for twenty years, and I get paid advances—but this whole assertion that a writer is a rare and special being, engaged in “a lonely, intense, and often expensive struggle” to produce some “unique, quirky creation”—that’s just a load of bollocks.
Writing is a craft, but so is carpentry. The work we do as storytellers doesn’t earn us any special status or provide a service greater to society than that of someone waiting tables in a local restaurant. Our “struggle” (and I might have to question, as I sit here in my yoga pants and drink my Starbucks coffee, whether it is truly such a struggle) is no lonelier or more intense than anybody else’s, so get over it already.
And to all young authors out there who have Promising Ideas and are wondering right now how they’ll get funding to pursue them, listen up. Here’s how it’s done:
You write the book.
You find a way. You do what 99% of us have done, and fund yourself. I wrote my own first book by working on it every night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. while holding down a day job, and when that became too much I quit that day job and I waitressed for the next five and a half years because waitressing allowed me flexibility to travel for my research, and to sleep in after writing late. You find a way.
You don’t wait for someone else to fund you so your “unique, quirky” brain can work in privileged solitude. For years, I wrote the book, then sold it, THEN got the advance. And I waitressed until that advance reached a level that let me support myself.
I’ll go out on a limb, here, and guess that if you asked the writers who signed their names under that letter how many of them were given first advances that enabled them “to leave their jobs to write their first books”, you wouldn’t see many hands raised. So I really don’t know what they’re on about.
Nobody owes us a thing. We’re just writers. We just tell the stories.
And whether you’re self or trad published, that’s something you need to remember.
@Susanna Kearsley: Brava.
@Susanna Kearsley: If bigamy were legal, I’d marry you.
@Susanna Kearsley: *gazes adoringly at your comment before sighing contentedly*
@@Susanna Kearsley: I didn’t know it was possible to adore you more than I already do. Clearly, I was wrong.
@Susanna Kearsley: well said. I have some sympathy for the Hatchette authors, but the way that letter is worded makes me worry about the state of Hachette publishing on a very different level – especially if the authors who put that together were that unaware of how poorly they make their points. Perhaps Amazon is doing us a favor (words I would not have considered ever saying before now, not as someone vested in the struggle of the independent, brick-and-mortar bookstores, rare breed that they are these days).
Thanks for your very well-written analysis!
@Susanna Kearsley: Oh yes. Thank you for saying it so perfectly.
@Susanna Kearsley: Thank you for helping to restore my faith, which was a little shaky looking at that list of names. You’re right; I’ve heard some of those very authors talk about how they started out, and it wasn’t with a contract and an advance for a book they hadn’t written yet. (Has anyone in Romancelandia NOT heard La Nora’s story? Sheesh.) I do feel a little sorry for authors who joined up to fight big bad Amazon and ended up with their names affiliated with what Courtney Milan rightly calls “upholding a culture of elitism with a side-serving of thinly-veiled racism.” But as a number of folks have commented on Twitter, read what you sign and beware what you join! I am disappointed that I have yet to see a single author on that list repudiate the letter.
I cannot believe many of the authors who signed that letter actually read it. Yikes!
@library addict: I keep thinking that it’s quite likely that many of the people who “signed” didn’t actually read what was written, but simply stated that they agreed with the author’s opinions. Or perhaps what they signed was a different, toned down version or a draft. Who knows, really.
MedievalPOC is a fantastic tumblr that is all about people of colour in Europe through history, although it focuses mostly on the medieval period. So, so, so many great pieces of art, and the commentary is both smart and funny. I have learned SO MUCH reading it, and it’s really doing a lot to push back against the whitewashing of history in Europe.
Probably also left out the original name of the association. It was Crazy Authors United.
@Susanna Kearsley: *gasps* you are having a Starbucks coffee? Don’t you know you could have bought a BOOK with the money you spent on that? /jk
The Authors United letter reminds me of a story [whether true or not] about the dancer Twyla Tharp who in the 1960s wrote “I write dance, not grants. Please send money” and received a large government grant. Those days, for better or worse, are over and anyone who thinks they are entitled to money to fund their quirky idea needs to remember the word does not exist to serve them. Like Susanna said, if you really want to write a book, you’ll make it happen.
@Kaetrin: Bwahahahaha!!!!!!
@Kaetrin: :-) I also shop in used bookstores and use the library, so I think I’m already pretty much a lost cause to The Cause.
@Susanna Kearsley: :D
Susanna Kearsley: I don’t normally read romance, but after reading your post I decided to buy The Spendour Falls even. From Amazon of course :)
The more days pass without an apology from the likes of Nora Roberts for the utterly demeaning and insulting content of the Authors United letter, the angrier I get.
I get these authors are afraid of amazon’s virtual monopoly, but if they stand by that letter as it was published, they’ll be losing more than amazon success could take from them.
They’re afraid of Amazon’s virtual monopoly even as they’re laughing all the way to the bank. I’m positive Nora Robert’s books are selling because I’ve bought them! I’m sure they’re all selling books; they just don’t have good numbers on Release Day, so maybe they won’t get on a bestseller list.
Highly improbable for Ms Roberts, I would think.