Literature and the Web » corporations

The Author’s Guild on State of Publishing and My comment

MSW — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:05:27 +0000

http://blog.authorsguild.org/2012/01/31/publishings-ecosystem-on-the-brink-the-backstory/

To which I commented Monopolies are generally evil, and I hold no brief for Amazon.com– although why Amazon’s evil makes Barnes & Noble and Big Publishing into good guys is beyond me. B&N with their end-of-the-aisle bribe stacks and books with a shorter shelf life than yoghurt. Puh-leeze.

I personally have published with big publishers, small ones, university presses, and an independent co-operative press. While I am, at least for the moment, still a member of the Authors Guild, I do not find them representing my interests. AG works for Scott Turow and others who make a lot of money selling books. I’m glad Mr. Turow and his ilk have a guild to represent them, but don’t let the Authors Guild fool you into thinking it does anything for people who don’t sell a lot of books.

So we’re living in interesting times. Lean back and enjoy the ride.

Agency Becomes EBook Publisher: Random House P.O.’d

MSW — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:52:19 +0000

I received emails from the Author’s Guild today telling how the Wylie literary agency has set up its own publishing branch called Odyssey Editions and cut a deal with Amazon for twenty in-print, famous books like Lolita, Invisible Man, and Portnoy’s Complaint. Random house is up in arms (I assume they have print rights to these books). It turns out that these are books for which the authors kept electronic rights, which the publishing houses are trying to get. Read the whole story here and here.

Interesting stuff– I’m on the writers’ side of course, except that I want all information to be free, live long, and prosper.

A Real Male American…

MSW — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:50:13 +0000

In today’s NYTimes the obituary of Dr. Edward Roberts, inventor of the Altair 8800 microcomputer. He worked in the early years with Gates and Allen , who wrote something called “Microsoft Basic” for the little machine, and then it was off from microcomputers for hobbyists to personal computers for consumers and the world. So this guy Roberts sold his business for a tidy sum, went to medical school in the late 80′s and became a family practitioner! Still tinkering in his spare time, making stuff. Reminds me in his interests and approach to life (moving on) of my dad, my people, really. Tinkerers and jettisoners of the past. A real American of the male persuasion.

And what has this done to/for all of us in the arts? Changed everything of course. I could do without the barrage of ads on the internet, though.

Week-ends on the Web

MSW — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:54:59 +0000

Have you noticed how much less email there is on week-ends? I can’t tell about Facebook, but email, especially messages about setting up meetings for organizations – drops off spectacularly. I hope this means that people are all out cross country skiing, or maybe unplugged from the ‘net, at least metaphorically, while they write poems and stories.

But it does make me wonder how much social networking and organizing of political and social service events happens at work?

I love to think of that, too, that poems are being written and mass movements organized on corporate nickels.