If you didn’t realize that Google was moving toward a paid content model with its various book initiatives, you haven’t been paying attention. Though the news has apparently just crossed the Atlantic Ocean, this goal was made clear at this year’s BEA (and, well, should have been obvious to everyone from the beginning). While publishers and authors continue to take the litigation route, Google is moving forward with plans to sell digitized content. This is great news for those publishers who are seeing increased interest in their products. This is also great news for consumers who can’t get access to […]

While we presume our dear readers are doing whatever it is that they do one day before Thanksgiving, we got a free pass on the cooking thing this year. Which is fine because this six-percent royalty for e-books issue is gnawing at our soul. Heck, 10% and maybe even 20% would gnaw. Book publishing, as we know it, is a highly inefficient business. After all the writing and editing is done, the physical production and movement of boxes of paper begins. Though publishers have handy computer algorithms and charts teeming with statistics, the truth of the matter is that they

We are fully aware that we rant a bit on the subject of royalties for electronic media. Ranting keeps us young. Plus we think it’s the most important topic facing artists today — and, as evidenced by Saturday’s dinner with a fine, upstanding member of the Director’s Guild of America, we remain concerned that too much faith is being placed in “someone else.” This particular DGA member professed a vague idea that in the coming year, her guild will be going to battle on her behalf. She felt certain that the DGA will take care of everything, yet wasn’t quite