I joined the Authors Guild in 1978. It’s a terrific organization, one I’m always glad to pay annual dues to. Its Backinprint.com program has brought back four of my out-of-print hardcover books in print-on-demand paperbacks; I’ve got a really sweet deal on an author’s website through the Guild; and, before I became a lawyer myself, got great legal advice from their counsel. I urge everyone who’s published a book to join the Authors Guild.
Anyway, they also send out e-mail alerts from time to time. This one just showed up in my inbox:
Simon & Schuster has changed its standard contract language in an attempt to retain exclusive control of books even after they have gone out of print. Until now, Simon & Schuster, like all other major trade publishers, has followed the traditional practice in which rights to a work revert to the author if the book falls out of print or if its sales are low.
The publisher is signaling that it will no longer include minimum sales requirements for a work to be considered in print. Simon & Schuster is apparently seeking nothing less than an exclusive grant of rights in perpetuity. Effectively, the publisher would co-own your copyright.
The new contract would allow Simon & Schuster to consider a book in print, and under its exclusive control, so long as it’s available in any form, including through its own in-house database — even if no copies are available to be ordered by traditional bookstores.
Other major trade publishers are not seeking a similar perpetual grant of rights.
We urge you to consider your options carefully:
1. Remember that if you sign a contract with Simon & Schuster that includes this clause, they’ll say you’re wed to them. Your book will live and die with this particular conglomerate.
2. Ask your agent to explore other options. Other publishers are not seeking an irrevocable grant of rights.
3. If you have a manuscript that may be auctioned, consider asking your agent to exclude Simon & Schuster imprints unless they agree before the auction to use industry standard terms.
4. Let us know if other major publishers follow suit. Any coordination among publishers on this matter has serious legal implications.
Feel free to forward and post this message in its entirety.
The Authors Guild (www.authorsguild.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest organization of published book authors.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
I wonder if this is in anticipation of making on-demand printing and ebooks a viable means of producing books. If it becomes feasible to makes books printable on-demand in a bookstore or simply distribute them as ebooks (as opposed to current models in that direction), publishers may push harder for perpetual licenses on books. We might do well to push back by having our agents build sunset clauses into our contracts to counter this trend. After all, we’re rapidly approaching the day when “out of print” is an obsolete term. That’s not necessarily a good thing.
As I said, through the Authors Guild/iUniverse Backinprint.com program, I’ve been able, at no real cost, to “bring back” my first four hardcover OOP books. That happened only because the publishers’ rights to them ended when they went out of print. What Backinprint does is shoot the original pages (I had to supply them with two copies of the book to tear apart) and digitize them and slap paperback covers on them. You find out about the program at http://www.backinprint.com.
Of course my books were originally published before print-on-demand existed in any feasible way.