Square Pegs

Despite many (many!) years of working with contracts relating to the calculation and payment of royalties (or non-payment, depending), there is one thing we would never do: sign an agreement without the benefit of an attorney’s review of the language. The fact that so many people do is terrifying. Even if your contract is the fairest, simplest, most clearly written document in the universe, if you don’t understand each and every sentence, then you deserve what you get. A good rule of thumb is that the contract is almost always written in favor of the party drafting it. That is […]

If you’ve never had the privilege of contacting an elected representative (and we have to wonder who you are), opposing the renewal of Section 215 of the Patriot Act represents a perfect opportunity to see bureaucracy in action. You can enjoy the wonder of House and Senate member websites, you can try to contact specific committees, you can puzzle over how someone who is making law for the entire nation can state, with a straight face (or font), that they will only respond to their local constituents. Most of all, you can sleep better at night knowing that if your

No, not from us. Far too lazy to come up with something creative (we were informed that we may devote our remaining hours today to “goofing off”. . .then we were quizzed on royalty calculations; at no point, can the concept of net revenues be considered lighthearted conversation). Our friend Karen Palmer, guest-blogging at The Elegant Variation (and with a bunch o’great posts today), explores her relationship with first person. We say relationship because her interactions with the I have not always been comfortable, yet there is a bond there, as evidenced by the appearance of I in Karen’s new

We received the following request from Colleen Mondor and are happy to pass it on: As you may have read in the Bookslut blog last week, (I am a regular contributor over there), I am working with a group in Baton Rouge who are helping children sheltered with their families at Southern University. We have put together a couple of wish lists of books and games that the folks at Parkview Baptist Church will happily deliver to the SU kids and other area shelter kids, all of whom would love to have a diversion right now. We are also trying

We are cheap and we are easy. Not necessarily in that order. Thus we derived more pleasure than normal from Ian McEwan’s short essay on the travails of giving away free books. Yes, yes, we know, who wouldn’t want a free book? Men, as it turns out: The guys were a different proposition. They frowned in suspicion, or distaste. When they were assured they would not have to part with their money, they still could not be persuaded. “Nah, nah. Not for me. Thanks mate, but no.” Only one sensitive male soul was tempted. McEwan touches on the notion that

We like to think that someone at the Author’s Guild agonized over their decision to sue Google for copyright infringement. And while many will disagree with us, we believe this is a shortsighted reaction, if only because Google is doing something libraries can’t do — creating a modern, digital version of the card catalog. While an elegant solution in its day, the card catalog, even as it migrated to electronic versions, was lacking. Little things like searching by keyword and assessing relevancy are hard to accomplish. Google’s solution may not be the perfect answer either, but at least it’s providing

If you hang around fiction circles long enough, you hear an amusing little fact: romance novels are nothing but female porn. This is, of course, a response to the some of these books have sex in them. Or so we thought. A couple of, uh, brilliant, analytical thinkers have used a dictionary (Webster’s, which we do no have handy) to explain the sordid truth: Yet female pornography has for decades been an accepted pastime, sliding under the radar of the religious right and instead being promoted as an acceptable distraction from the worries of life. But what exactly is female

Our friend Kate Rothwell has done the unthinkable: she’s gone and taken a look at book promotion, examining what works and doesn’t work. We agree with one of her readers, Paperback Writer, who notes that tchotchkes aren’t the best use of your publicity dollar. Kate talks specifically about promotion for the romance market, but with some creative name changes (like, oh, probably you don’t want to promote straight science fiction in Romantic Times), the advice is portable. Often we encounter authors who blink in confusion at the notion that publicity isn’t part of the publishing package. Oh sure, there are

In these times of tight budgets, we can appreciate the need for creative fundraising approaches. Thus we point you to a new calendar. Yes, kids, just in time for your early holiday shopping comes “Desperate Librarians”. Twelve months of librarians and books doing things that, apparently, librarians and books do. “It’s probably going to be a collector’s item,” [Craig] Lahm said of the calendar. “I’m going to be eBaying it in 20 years.” All we can say is that we hope the mother and her friends don’t get any wild ideas the next time they get together for a little

If we were to be put in charge of the government (and let us assure that nobody would be that brave), two of our initial acts would be to modernize the Patent Office and revisit copyright laws. Probably in that order, but we can be capricious. Google’s plans to digitize the world continue at a breathtaking (from a whole of human history perspective) pace. At some point, Google’s ambitious goals are going to slam up against a bunch of “well, we never thought about that” bureaucracy. It will not be pretty. The arguments are laid out like this: The outcome