You can see some of Carolyn Jewel's books here (an Amazon.com link): http://tinyurl.com/79stl Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/2005/10/11/write-a-letter/ -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Politech] Write a letter to the editor of the International Herald Tribune on copyright? [ip] Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 07:51:21 -0700 (PDT) From: F. Parsons <faeparsons@private> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> They were, > essentially, to abolish 70 year copyright for > cultural works and replace > it with a 1 year usufruct right. Oh, for crying out loud. I am the author of (so far) 5 works of fiction, so I have some strong feelings about copyright (and Google Print). Typically, it takes YEARS to build a readership that will offer an author the ability to consider quitting the day job. Why? Because, absent some notoriety or sales phenom a la JK Rowling, authors need a backlist of titles in print and earning royalties so there's money coming in while he/she is writing the next book.This is most certainly not a trivial accomplishment. Most authors who earn a living from their fiction (and they are the exception) survive on royalties from their backlist. not the advance money for books not yet published. Many, if not all,publishers survive on profits from backlist titles. They aren't surviving because of sales of new books. This scheme would allow publishers to continue profiting from backlist titles while completely cutting out the author.In fact, this is nothing new. Back in the 1800's, authors had little choice but to sell the copyright outright for a one time fee (for today's equivalent of the mass market work of fiction, typically about five pounds, very roughly, about $500 US today.) If a book proved popular and/or continued selling for years, too bad for the author. He or she never saw another penny. The royalty arrangement in which copyright is retained by the author came about because this structure was inherently detrimental to the author. As an author, here's what I imagine if publishers didn't have to pay royalties to authors after one year.Teeny-tiny print runs with little or no publication and worse distribution. The author's sell-through sinks to career-killing levels. Twelve months later, put the book into distribution and voila. Pure profit for the publisher and an author with no hope of ever making a living and little incentive to write more books. There seems to be some notion that authors write a book and sit back and watch the money roll in. Sorry.The average advance on royalties is about $6,000 and dropping fast.Even if you're writing 2 books a year (pretty hard if you're working full time at a day job as most fiction authors do) can you live on $12,000 a year? The benefits of retaining copyright are what allows authors to maybe, someday, make a living doing what we love. Carolyn Jewel _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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