HarperCollins, one of the huge publishing conglomerates that dominate the commercial book world, announced that libraries “purchasing” their e-books will be able to lend such a book only twenty-six times before the book expires. The Twitterverse exploded with accusations of corporate greed and the absolute entitlement of libraries and their patrons to not only cheap but probably free books from publishers, on the theory that libraries don’t have enough money to pay for books in the first place. This view was supported by some authors who want their words read, and hang the royalties.
I suspect part of brouhaha was sparked by the injudicious use of the word purchase. E-books are software. As such, they are licensed, not purchased. When you “buy” an e-book, you are licensing the right to read it. There is nothing physical that you own. When you buy a p-book, you own the physical object. One person can read it at a time. In the U.S., when a library purchases a p-book, the author collects the royalty on one sale, and that’s the end of the transaction. In many countries (the United Kingdom and Australia among them), authors receive payments based on how many times a library lends a book. Not so here.
Another confusion arises over copying. You cannot take an in-copyright p-book to a copy shop and ask that copies be made of it. Copy shops know that’s illegal copyright infringement. But copying a digital file is trivially simple, so some people think they should be allowed to make unlimited copies of e-books and they castigate publishers for trying to protect e-books with digital rights management (DRM) technology. Yet copying is still copying is still copyright infringement. The rationale of the infinitely entitled—that unlike a p-book, which costs the publisher money for ink and paper, an e-book has no production cost—exhibits a profound misunderstanding of what publishers do and how they spend their money.
The worldview of authors (principally academics) who are secure, salaried professionals and publish books for the purpose of sharing information is very different from the worldview of authors who seek income from writing. (Yes, I know there are some academics, authors of popular undergraduate textbooks, who make a nice supplemental income from royalties; but they’re the exceptions.) One group would like libraries to get all their books free and devote their limited budgets to promoting those books to readers. The other group would like to receive royalties every time a book is checked out. Neither group seems to see any role for publishers or to think that publishers have any costs to recoup.
My point in this discussion of the HarperCollins e-book gambit is not that twenty-six is the right number or that charging more for an e-book than for a p-book can be justified. My point is that there needs to be some calm discussion between groups with differing worldviews so that a rational pricing model can emerge. This is early days in the evolution of e-books, and I have no idea where we will end up.
What has irked me about the tenor of most of the comments I’ve seen is a sense of absolute entitlement on the part of librarians to pick the pockets of publishers and authors—the people who put dinner on the tables of editors and book designers, I should add, just so you know where my interests lie. Libraries cost money to run. They are a public benefit. We, the public, should pay their costs and be happy to do so. Publishers should be free to price their goods in whatever way maximizes their profits in a competitive marketplace, and libraries should be free to buy or not buy a given publisher’s books as a result. But libraries are not entitled to a free ride at publishers’ expense just because the public feels entitled to pay too little in taxes.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Is your passion for telling the story or for selling the story?
Do you have a story you must tell the world? Are there people out there whose lives you could save if only they knew what you went through and how you overcame it? Is it your burning desire help everyone who has ever faced what you faced?
Cool. Now what?
I applaud you for having the courage to write what’s in your heart. If the act of writing it all down—itself a deeply therapeutic endeavor—is sufficient to calm your soul and extinguish your fire, stop there. You’ve written it down. You’ve accomplished what you set out to do. You’re a success! Now go on to do other successful things in your life, and put your manuscript in a safe deposit box for your heirs to discover.
But if just writing it all down wasn’t enough and now you want to tell the world, that means you want to publish your story (literally, make it public).
You can accomplish that by putting it all on a blog or a dedicated website. Total cost: approximately $0. (You might have to pay a small hosting fee, or you might decide to use a free service.) You can do this without paying an editor, although the services of an editor may be helpful, depending on how clearly you write. You can do this without paying a designer. You don’t need a printer or distributor or retailer. No money goes out, and presumably no money comes in. But you can reach a worldwide audience with your story. And if you publicize it through social media and by optimizing your site for search engines (something you can learn how to do by reading about it), you will have accomplished your initial goal of reaching out to others with your story.
For most personal stories—personal memoirs of struggle and redemption, of surmounting oppression, of exposing the corruption of the medical or legal system—telling the world about it free on the Internet may be the best possible approach.
Only if you want to sell your story and have the commitment and energy to market it to a defined audience should you take the next step and publish it as a book. Because a book is a product. As the publisher you are taking on the responsibility to develop and market that product profitably. If you’re not going to follow through with the hard work of marketing, why do you want to invest in developing the product?
Of course, it’s less expensive to develop an e-book than a printed book. You still need an editor. You still need a cover designer. But in many cases you can get by without a designer for the interior of the book. And you can test market an e-book through Smashwords at no cost. A printed book costs more to develop, and then you have to pay the cost of printing it. So maybe you want that to be something you take on after you see how well the e-book sells.
I edit and design books. Why am I suggesting that a printed book should be your last choice? Isn’t that driving away potential business? I suppose it is. But I don’t take people’s money under false pretenses; I don’t suggest that all they need is a printed book and their next stop is a private island in the Caribbean, paid for with the profits. Publishing is a business, not a get-rich-quick scheme. I like to work with clients who understand that.
Figure out where your passion lies and then decide how far you want to go with your story.
Cool. Now what?
I applaud you for having the courage to write what’s in your heart. If the act of writing it all down—itself a deeply therapeutic endeavor—is sufficient to calm your soul and extinguish your fire, stop there. You’ve written it down. You’ve accomplished what you set out to do. You’re a success! Now go on to do other successful things in your life, and put your manuscript in a safe deposit box for your heirs to discover.
But if just writing it all down wasn’t enough and now you want to tell the world, that means you want to publish your story (literally, make it public).
You can accomplish that by putting it all on a blog or a dedicated website. Total cost: approximately $0. (You might have to pay a small hosting fee, or you might decide to use a free service.) You can do this without paying an editor, although the services of an editor may be helpful, depending on how clearly you write. You can do this without paying a designer. You don’t need a printer or distributor or retailer. No money goes out, and presumably no money comes in. But you can reach a worldwide audience with your story. And if you publicize it through social media and by optimizing your site for search engines (something you can learn how to do by reading about it), you will have accomplished your initial goal of reaching out to others with your story.
For most personal stories—personal memoirs of struggle and redemption, of surmounting oppression, of exposing the corruption of the medical or legal system—telling the world about it free on the Internet may be the best possible approach.
Only if you want to sell your story and have the commitment and energy to market it to a defined audience should you take the next step and publish it as a book. Because a book is a product. As the publisher you are taking on the responsibility to develop and market that product profitably. If you’re not going to follow through with the hard work of marketing, why do you want to invest in developing the product?
Of course, it’s less expensive to develop an e-book than a printed book. You still need an editor. You still need a cover designer. But in many cases you can get by without a designer for the interior of the book. And you can test market an e-book through Smashwords at no cost. A printed book costs more to develop, and then you have to pay the cost of printing it. So maybe you want that to be something you take on after you see how well the e-book sells.
I edit and design books. Why am I suggesting that a printed book should be your last choice? Isn’t that driving away potential business? I suppose it is. But I don’t take people’s money under false pretenses; I don’t suggest that all they need is a printed book and their next stop is a private island in the Caribbean, paid for with the profits. Publishing is a business, not a get-rich-quick scheme. I like to work with clients who understand that.
Figure out where your passion lies and then decide how far you want to go with your story.
Monday, January 24, 2011
And also...
Writing—any writing—is hard for some people. Here’s a blank screen, and the assignment is to write an essay or a chapter or a book on a subject the author knows well. What to do, what to do?
Well, apparently what some authors do is cogitate for a few minutes and then think of a sentence to begin with. That sentence may, if we are lucky, convey a fact. Then the author thinks of something else to say that seems to belong to the same paragraph. This is, however, a new thought. Or perhaps the authors categorizes it as an afterthought. So he begins the second sentence with also. This process repeats, and most succeeding sentences begin with also or the semantic equivalent (for variety), too.
This is the written equivalent of the spoken run-on in which the person on the other end of the phone line (or the interview guest running over his time slot on NPR) strings forty or fifty independent clauses together with and so that the interlocutor cannot get a word in edgewise. (You’ve heard people do this. You never do it yourself, of course.)
In another variant of this authorial tic, we see remember that used to start every second or third sentence.
Okay, listen up, dammit. The reader expects succeeding sentences to convey information that is in addition to the first sentence. Also is implied automatically. And is implied automatically. We can assume that if you are writing something down to be printed in a book it is something you want the reader to remember; so you don’t have keep reminding us of that, either.
Please stop doing that. You know who you are.
Well, apparently what some authors do is cogitate for a few minutes and then think of a sentence to begin with. That sentence may, if we are lucky, convey a fact. Then the author thinks of something else to say that seems to belong to the same paragraph. This is, however, a new thought. Or perhaps the authors categorizes it as an afterthought. So he begins the second sentence with also. This process repeats, and most succeeding sentences begin with also or the semantic equivalent (for variety), too.
This is the written equivalent of the spoken run-on in which the person on the other end of the phone line (or the interview guest running over his time slot on NPR) strings forty or fifty independent clauses together with and so that the interlocutor cannot get a word in edgewise. (You’ve heard people do this. You never do it yourself, of course.)
In another variant of this authorial tic, we see remember that used to start every second or third sentence.
Okay, listen up, dammit. The reader expects succeeding sentences to convey information that is in addition to the first sentence. Also is implied automatically. And is implied automatically. We can assume that if you are writing something down to be printed in a book it is something you want the reader to remember; so you don’t have keep reminding us of that, either.
Please stop doing that. You know who you are.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Snomigod
I suppose I should post pictures, but I’ve been too busy clearing snow for the last twenty-four hours (had a handle on it by yesterday afternoon, but then the plow came through and undid a lot of it) and I’m bushed. Almost feels like I’m back in the Adirondack foothills. Except the plows were bigger there.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
A small victory
Update
The infringing document (see previous post) has been removed from the server, as of today. The link returns a 404 error. Chalk one up for persistent whining.
The infringing document (see previous post) has been removed from the server, as of today. The link returns a 404 error. Chalk one up for persistent whining.
Friday, December 03, 2010
I'm sorry you feel that way
Editor’s note
A few years ago, when I was trying to be diligent about posting regularly to this blog, I tossed off a Seinfeld-style observation about something of no particular import. No, I’m not going to link to it in this post, for reasons that may become clear as you read on.
Unbeknown to me, it turns out that the title I chose for the post is actually a phrase people search on with some frequency. As luck would have it, my post floated to the top of the search listings for that phrase, was then scraped for a while by some miscreant in the Philippines (outside the reach of U.S. law), thus further raising the visibility in search listings of the original post. The way major search engines work, the higher something is in the listing, the more likely it is to be clicked, and the more often it is clicked, the higher it goes in the listing. So here we are, more than three years later, and a little squib I tossed off is still high on search listings.
A couple of weeks ago, in a moment of idle procrastination, I searched for the first sentence of that post. And there it was: my blog post, yes; but also a link to a newsletter published by a small rural public school in an English-speaking country. I clicked the link, and a Microsoft Word document file opened. There was my blog post, presented as the school principal’s letter at the top of the newsletter, over the principal’s signature, with no acknowledgment that the words were not his own.
And thus begins the tale…
A few years ago, when I was trying to be diligent about posting regularly to this blog, I tossed off a Seinfeld-style observation about something of no particular import. No, I’m not going to link to it in this post, for reasons that may become clear as you read on.
Unbeknown to me, it turns out that the title I chose for the post is actually a phrase people search on with some frequency. As luck would have it, my post floated to the top of the search listings for that phrase, was then scraped for a while by some miscreant in the Philippines (outside the reach of U.S. law), thus further raising the visibility in search listings of the original post. The way major search engines work, the higher something is in the listing, the more likely it is to be clicked, and the more often it is clicked, the higher it goes in the listing. So here we are, more than three years later, and a little squib I tossed off is still high on search listings.
A couple of weeks ago, in a moment of idle procrastination, I searched for the first sentence of that post. And there it was: my blog post, yes; but also a link to a newsletter published by a small rural public school in an English-speaking country. I clicked the link, and a Microsoft Word document file opened. There was my blog post, presented as the school principal’s letter at the top of the newsletter, over the principal’s signature, with no acknowledgment that the words were not his own.
And thus begins the tale…
Dear [redacted],The principal replied:
The Principal’s Message in your school’s newsletter, [redacted], over your signature, is directly taken from a blog post I wrote on [redacted]. My blog is copyright, with notice of copyright given in the footer of every page. Your newsletter column gave no indication that the words were not your own and in particular gave no credit to me.
I do understand that my article has been posted without my permission on other sites from time to time and that you may have copied the text from someplace other than my blog. Nonetheless, you, or whoever “wrote” the column in your newsletter, knew or should have known that taking someone else’s words and passing them off as yours is both illegal and a violation of one of the fundamental tenets of scholarship.
Whether or not the copyright infringement and plagiarism were the result of your own actions or those of a subordinate to whom you delegated the writing of the column, I think this was a poor example to set for your school’s students. I believe you owe them—and me—a public apology, in language that shows you accept responsibility for this serious infraction.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
I am very sorry that your article was used in our Newsletter without your permission or acknowledging your work.That didn’t sit well with me.
I will ensure that this never happens again and an apology will apear in our next edition.
Regards
Thank you for writing back to me.When nothing further came my way, I wrote to the head of the regional education department. After a bit of bureaucratic buck-passing, I received a letter last night from the principal’s boss and responded as below (italics are what I wrote).
Let me try this again.
[Your country], like the United States, is party to the Berne Convention. Copyright infringement is a serious violation of [your country’s] law just as it is a serious violation of U.S. law, and enforcement is international.
More important—in this case much more important—you are the principal of a school. Plagiarism, which has become rampant in higher education to the point that it threatens the integrity of the whole system (see http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/) starts with a presumption on students’ parts that it doesn’t matter. If you, in your role as an adult model for young children, engage in plagiarism, then you are essentially condoning their cheating in their own studies; and that’s a despicable thing to do to them.
Moreover, the public actually takes this issue seriously in many cases: politicians’ careers have been damaged or have ended entirely because of disclosures of plagiarized speeches. Senior scientists have been professionally disgraced and have lost their jobs over this issue.
Now I can see from your photos on the Web that you are a young [person]. And you are further handicapped by being an educator. So I am not particularly surprised at the inadequacy of your apology. Therefore, I’ll offer you another chance, with some friendly editorial coaching.
Let’s look at your first sentence: “I am very sorry that your article was used in our Newsletter….” I don’t doubt that you are sorry (or will be, eventually). However, your use of the passive voice (“your article was used”) serves only to deflect responsibility to some unknown agent. That’s one of the main uses of the passive voice—deflecting agency to an unknown actor. So this is the form people use when they want to issue a non-apology. I’m sure you’ve heard many people say things like “I’m sorry you feel that way [but by implication it’s not my fault]” or “I’m sorry your dog was killed [but the fact I ran her over isn’t my responsibility].” That’s a non-apology, as was yours. An actual apology begins with the words “I’m sorry I,” as in “I’m sorry I killed your dog.”
My work did not appear in your newsletter by magic. Someone put it there. It appears over your signature. So I expect an apology that begins with the words “I’m sorry I” followed by an action verb that tells me what you did.
Now let’s look at your second sentence: “I will ensure that this never happens again and an apology will appear in our next edition.” The first clause promises something quite outside your control to make it happen. The most you can ensure is that you will never engage in this activity again, and I would like to hear that from you. The second clause promises that an apology will magically appear, but it does not say that you will be the one apologizing. I would like to hear that from you as well.
So let’s look at what an appropriate remedy would be at this point.
1. It is absolutely necessary that you remove the contraband newsletter from the server where it resides. There should be no way for a search engine to locate that document on the Internet. It is up to you whether a link returns a 404-not found error or redirects to a substitute document. My preference would be that it redirects to a substitute document that explains why the original newsletter was removed (referencing this incident).
2. I expect a rewritten apology that takes into account the editorial advice above.
3. I want to see and approve in advance the apology you will issue to your community. And I want you to send me directly (by email) a copy of the newsletter in which it appears.
4. I would like to be invited to address a school assembly on the subject of cheating (in an age-appropriate way), specifically with regard to plagiarism and copyright infringement, at your personal expense (rather than out of the school’s budget). I will be in [your area] in May 2011 and could speak at your school the afternoon of 10 May. My fee for this engagement will be US$___ plus round trip travel between [large city] and [your town].
My hope is that this will become a learning experience for you and that you will rise to my challenge to take this incident as seriously as I do.
Sincerely,
Dear Mr MargulisIf you feel I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, well, I’m sorry you feel that way.
I refer to your previous emails to [redacted] (“School”) regarding the use of some material posted on your website in the School Newsletter, the [redacted].
Thank you for responding.
As it appears that you have not fully accepted [the principal’s] apology, [she/he] has asked me to respond as School Education Director for the [redacted] area.
Here we differ. I do not accept that [the principal’s] response was an apology. As [she/he] never offered an apology, there was nothing for me to accept. This is a point of some importance in public life, and it’s worth dwelling on for a moment. As I tried to convey to [the principal], the essence of apology is the acknowledgment of responsibility. The basic form of an apology is “I’m sorry I did that.” That implies remorse for having done something injurious to another. The form [the principal] used, “I am very sorry that your article was used,” lacks any acknowledgment of responsibility. I am very sorry that tyrants kidnap children and turn them into soldiers in Africa; I am very sorry the world’s economy is in recession and that a great many people are unemployed; I am very sorry that tuberculosis still kills millions of people. None of those statements implies remorse for my responsibility in causing any of those terrible conditions to exist. “I’m sorry I stepped on your toe” is an apology. “I’m sorry your toe hurts” is a non-apology. [the principal] offered a non-apology.
See, for example, http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000327.html for analysis of this point by a world-renown linguist.
[The principal] has advised me that [she/he] does not remember the website where [she/he] accessed the material, however [she/he] has provided an apology to you on the 22 November 2010 for any inadvertent use of your material without receiving your permission. In addition, I understand that the Newsletter was removed from the School’s website on 1 December 2010.
Your understanding is incorrect. The following link still retrieves the document(I just checked). Hence it is still available on the World Wide Web and is available on a Web search, which is how I found it in the first place.
[link redacted]
You have a legal obligation to remove the document from the server where it resides. I’m reasonably certain that there are enforceable statutory penalties for leaving it up there and that such penalties accrue daily. I’m not the sort of nasty person who goes around launching international lawsuits over such matters, but someday you may run into someone who is. As I said in my email of 22 November, “It is up to you whether a link returns a 404-not found error or redirects to a substitute document. My preference would be that it redirects to a substitute document that explains why the original newsletter was removed (referencing this incident).”
In any case, “provided an apology…for any inadvertent use” doesn’t come close to acceptance of responsibility.
[The principal] has learned a valuable lesson from this matter and the importance of respecting an author’s copyright. [She/he] has assured me that [she/he] will make every effort to comply with copyright requirements in the future and has again expressed [his/her] sincere apology to you for [his/her] actions. As previously advised a formal public apology will be made in the next School Newsletter which will be sent to you.
It’s nice to hear from you that [the principal] has learned a lesson. It is completely opaque to me why [she/he] wasn’t able to write back to me asserting as much for [him/her]self, thus saving you a great deal of time and trouble. But I will take you at your word on that point, as I imagine the cost in administrative and legal time [she/he] has caused the department has been impressed upon [him/her] to [her/his] everlasting regret (if not, please don’t disabuse me of my fantasy).
The [redacted] (“Department”) does not consider that it would be appropriate for you to address the school on plagiarism and copyright infringement. The Department has a Copyright Unit which provides a broad range of information and advice to staff on these issues. In addition there are learning programs for students in the Kindergarten to Year 6 range which includes an awareness that deliberately copying the work of others and claiming ownership is plagiarism.
Well, that’s a bit of a disappointment for me, because I think it would have been a fun presentation for me and for the students, as well as an opportunity for [the principal] to appear contrite in a constructive way. However, I’m glad that you do teach young children that cheating is wrong, as it’s a fundamental lesson.
I have asked that all staff at the school include a component on copyright and plagiarism in their next Staff Development Day.
These are two separate concepts, and I hope the teaching component clarifies the distinction. Copyright infringement injures me. Plagiarism corrupts the institution. The first consists of taking property that is not yours. It is a commercial tort, and yet we make fair use exceptions so that teachers can often get away with wholesale copying—of almost anything but a textbook—for educational purposes, without threat of penalty (so long as they acknowledge their sources). The second consists of claiming credit for someone else’s work. This is a critical concept in all academic settings, and those charged with the education of children should understand it in their bones. We, as a society, entrust educational institutions to award diplomas and degrees to people based on the work those people do. We expect those institutions to police their students with regard to plagiarism; to the extent that they fail to do so, their integrity—and our trust in them—is undermined.
On behalf of the [Department], I offer a further apology for the use of your copyright material without first obtaining permission.
Permission would have freely been offered had it been sought. And, frankly, if [the principal] had merely cited [her/his] source, I’d have been happy to be quoted even if permission had not been sought. I will gladly accept the department’s institutional apology once the document is removed from the web server. I don’t see how it substitutes for a simple and direct apology from [the principal], though.
Yours sincerely
Please let me know when the department’s IT administrator has successfully quarantined the contraband document against public access over the Internet. And I would still appreciate a simple and direct apology from [the principal], as evidence of lesson learned. I know some people are constitutionally incapable of remorse, but I should hope that’s not the sort of person you would place in charge of schoolchildren.
Sincerely,
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