I’ve been on the fence on the Google Print and Google Library services, but I’m leaning toward Google’s side these days.
To summarize my understanding: Google Print is an electronic delivery system wherein Google is working hand in hand with publishers to secure rights for books that can generate advertising revenue for copyright holders, while Google Library is meant to be a searchable index of millions of books held in a few University libraries, with search “hits” limited to the book title and author and a few lines of text before and after the indexed passage. (Client and library science pro, Shirl Kennedy pointed me to this detailed legal overview written by Copyright lawyer Jonathan Band (it’s a pdf and it’s pro Google but worth reading).
And for more information, Tim O’Reilly wrote a compelling op-ed piece about the Author’s Guild suit for the NY Times this week, and he’s helpfully posted it to his site. Keep in mind that Tim’s position is in the minority among most publishers I’ve spoken to.
I don’t think that the dissenting publishers or authors are being knee jerk about this at all, and I totally understand their position about Google’s “opt-out” message (which displays a certain arrogance) but I think that in the long term the biggest challenge authors will face is being found and Google Library may be a boon for long OOP (out of print) books and information, becoming the sort of knowledge base the like of which we haven’t seen since the Alexandria Library.
The most salient concerns I’ve seen from the Guild and the APA are –
1) Google’s “opt out or else position” is the start of a slippery slope in copyright law. Once one company indexes all books what’s to stop others from doing the same, and the more of these we see the more likely it will be that someone will flout any pretense of fair use entirely, and
2) How safe is the data? How will Google protect these files from piracy? And what if a disaffected Google employee leaves the company with 200,000 book files (anonymous exec quoted in PW this week). How can Google protect publisher and author rights? I think this is a very relevant concern, and honestly, I don’t know if I would feel the same if Microsoft was indexing all of these books. I guess the question is how far can Google’s stated “Do No Evil” credo go?
There’s no doubt that the internet is changing everything, but frankly I am as concerned about how effectively Google and publishers track the advertising micropayments due their Google Print authors, as I am about whether indexing obscure or long OOP books at Google Library will negatively impact author’s rights and opportunities.
As an aside, a rep from Penn State University pubbed an opinion piece in Publishing Weekly this week that suggests that Google provide copies of their digital files of OOP books to publishers as one of the perks to the affected University publishers, without realizing perhaps that the vast majority of OOP books are owned by the authors, not the publishers. It seems that copyright arrogance cuts both ways.
I welcome any comments on this. I’m probably an oddball on this as an agent in taking a position different from the Author’s Guild, so please feel free to fire away.
I’ve been reading two anonymous literary agent blogs with great pleasure.
Today, the wonderfully snarky Miss Snark points to a helpful post on Firing Your Agent.
And Agent 007 weighs in on the Acknowledgements section.
These two can, and will, say anything they like without concern of alienating their clients or publishers. Both make for great reading and offer plenty of technical insight, especially for first time authors looking to catch an agent’s eye.
Want to exert your first amendment rights?
Read a banned book this week. I’d suggest Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye or the Harry Potter series.
From the titles on this list, it appears that the book banners are most afraid of Judy Blume, sex, homosexuality, and witchcraft, with racial politics close behind.
Ideally, you’re moving quickly from book to book and you have very little downtime between projects, but sometimes professional writers will find themselves with a few weeks off. I strongly encourage my clients to do something with this downtime and I thought I’d share a few ideas.
Work on your wish list
Maintain a sort of “Bible” of ideas you’d like to tackle in the future, and be sure to share this with your editors and agent.
Market yourself as a technical editor
Let your editors know that you’re open to tech editing. The pay isn’t great but it’s a good way to understand the tech edit process, make more contacts within a publishing house, and you might even find a gig helping another author finish his or her book. I sometimes help to find tech edit gigs for my clients, so be sure to tell your agent if you’re up for this.
Work on your website
Blog, update your site, add an Amazon store, add a FAQ for readers, update your bio, or write bonus material and errata for your books. If you spend too much time head-down in your book projects, you may not be spending enough time marketing yourself and your site.
Attend a conference or expo
Some writers are conference regulars, others hardly get out of the house. No matter what you’re doing over email, voice mail and on the web, it really helps to see editors face to face, and it’s also a great way to network with other writers. If you haven’t attended a conference in the last two years, you’re probably overdue. Microsoft has a regular Publishing Summit, and O’Reilly has a great series of open source and emerging technology related conferences. You can always hit MacWorld, C.E.S. or larger expos as well. Even a local writer’s conference can be a great way to get your creative juices flowing. But if you’re planning on attending, network ahead of time, find out who will be there and be sure to set up meetings.
Read your competition
Spend time in the bookstore and read various authors and series. Find out what they’re doing well and learn what you might do better. It amazes me the number of times I’ve asked a client about a notable competitor and find out they haven’t read the book. You might find that your agent has an opportunity for you in the “X” series, and if you’re already familiar with the series the entire process will be much easier. You might also find there are publishers which you’ve overlooked.
Pitch an article
Have an idea that might be a book but you’re not sure there’s a market for it? Pitch an article to a magazine or newsletter. At the least, write it up on your website, blog about it, or find some way to demonstrate that you’ve got a great idea and that people want to read about it.
Do a work-for-hire
“Work-for-hire” is rarely an agent’s favorite phrase, but if you can put yourself in a position to help an editor on a book that’s in trouble, you’ll have a great long-time ally.
Network and teach outside the industry
If you’ve been focused exclusively on books, do some research and try to find some related teaching gigs: online training, video training, or teach an extension class at your local community college. Even your Chamber of Commerce needs speakers. Anything you can do to become a better teacher and speaker will pay off that day when you find yourself on the dais at MacWorld, Photoshop World, or even YogaWorld, for that matter (made that one up).
Spy on the future
You don’t need to be Faith Popcorn to spy on the future. If you’ve been networking all along, take some time to talk to the product or marketing managers at your favorite software companies, find out what’s coming down the pike, and work to add yourself to future product betas whenever possible. It helps to be the first person out of the gate with a proposal on a new product, so do everything you can to be there first. One of my favorite memories this year was sitting with a Peachpit editor at MacWorld while her cell phone went crazy with calls from writers just back from the keynote: these writers were in the right place at the right time, and even better they had their editor’s cell phone number and knew when to use it.
Learn something new
Expand your interests, research a book on your favorite hobby, do something new. Enough said. Variety of interest and focus keeps your mind open.
Insert your ideas here
These are all pretty straightforward ideas. If you’ve got some good tips, please feel free to comment. Thanks.
Holtzbrinck (a company that includes such publishers as St. Martin’s, Henry Holt, and F.S.G.) has launched a promotional podcast featuring chapters from top authors. The feeds, for the most part, are excerpted from their own Audio Renaissance titles, but they offer at least one recent live reading from Michael Cunningham.
Jim Minatel of Wiley has a excellent post today about donating to the Red Cross via Amazon (at $10,000,000 so far), and how it might be improved. He also encourages his readers to ask for Katrina donations this Christmas in lieu of gifts. That’s a great idea.
I don’t think I mentioned Jim’s blog earlier, but I meant to. He has excellent, ongoing coverage of the Wrox imprint and goes deep into the nitty gritty details of publishing high-level technical titles. Anyone who wants to write for Wrox should subscribe to his feed.
This will be blogged to death but I’m posting it in case any of my authors miss it.
Seth Godin continues to push the boundaries with his eBooks, giving away his ideas to build his brand and to eventually sell more books, speeches and consulting. You can find his new eBook, Who’s There? Seth Godin’s Incomplete Guide to Blogs and the New Web, which is aimed squarely at all viral bloggers, here.
Check it out if you’re an author looking to blog to promote your books, your services or yourself. It’s a quick read filled with lots of great advice.
My favorite quote, “faking it online is much more difficult than doing it in the real world.” I figure that’s one of the reasons I blog. And my blog is in no way a great advertisement for blogging, I know, but so far, modest as it is, it’s a great tool that lets my clients know what I’m up to, and helps potential clients figure out if they’d like to work with me or not.
Congratulations to David Fugate, my longtime colleague at Waterside Productions, and one of my best friends.
David recently left Waterside to found LaunchBooks Literary Agency. David is a great agent and a wonderful person, and he’s sure to do well on his own.
For me, it will be nice to have company as an independent agent, and I look forward to working with him on select projects.
