That represents all authors, and were trying to ensure that authors can make a living today and its getting harder and harder. So we did a survey of our members about a year ago where we found that as we had suspected from anecdotal evidence that authors are making less money, and our survey actually showed us that the mean income was down over 30 , from a mean annual income of 24,000 a year to just 17,500. So were talking about pretty low wages for a book author, who tend to be very highly educated, and its getting to the point where its becoming really unsustainable to be a book author. So, a lot of what were focusing on right now, actually, is very much ensuring that authors can make a living wage. Host before we get into those issues, 9,000 members. Would James Paterson and David Mccullough be a member . Guest we have quite a number of wellknown authors who are members of the guild. And we also have we have all kinds of authors. We have everything to be a member you have to have a published book too be a full Voting Member have to have published a become or have certain levels of income. We have associate memberships whether the levels are low and we do the income levels to accommodate selfpublishers so theres an opportunity for publishers to also publish themselves or very, very small publishers, or some call themselves independently public, which means were becoming our own publisher. Host how didout get into this work . Guest well, i have been a copyright lawyer for about 25 years. I have spent a lo worked at copyright offers, at the library of congress, a lawyer by training i spend a lot of time advocates for authors rights as lawyer and private practice i represented a number of authors and author estates and publishers, so ive been part of this world professionally for a while and i also mr. Mother is an author, my cousin is an author, my stepdaughter is an author, dear friends are an author so im very elm pathetic to the plight of authors. Host because of the electronic aspect have contracts for authors changed . Guest well, thats a good question because part of our Fair Contract Initiative is that they have not changed enough. Things are really shaking up in the industry. We would expect to see more type of models of publishing agreements. You would expect in other industries in Digital Media the deals are up for grabs, what the creator might get. Theres more diversity, right . So, part of our Fair Contract Initiative is we want to take a step back, have publisher does the same and say, what still makes sense today in this new environment . And do it in a way that ensures that authors are Real Partners in the publishing agreement. I will amend what i just say and say there have been some recent changes in publish agreements and they have largely favored publishers to the detriment of authors. For instance, things like advances used to be paid out in two then it went to three. But still most of the advance came before the book was completed or before its published. Now authors have to wait until after the book is finished and even after its published to see a big churching of a big chunk of their advance and advances are going down. Used to be the advance is what you live off of and you used for research and travel while youre writing the book, thats let and less true. Were seeing authors having to take on other work to write a book, which makes it much harder to write a book in a timely fashion or write the book you want to write, or having to take credit to write the book. So that one of the things we would like to see changed. Lets go back toad vanses being advances. There are also things like option clauses, noncompete, not true have gotten much more stringent, or substance clause where the publisher has complete discretion whether a book is accepted. No. If somebody spends three years riding a back and they deliver as promised you need to accept it. These are issues around the edges that were talking to publishers about right now. Host if you could walk us through a couple court cases this is almost a distribution case. Amazon, apple, google. Where is the authors on electronic guest well, thats a broad question. Let me start with where we are with the electronic distribution. We are neutral as to how books are published and what format, what media. We want books to be written, read, and distributed. Right . So the format is really it doesnt really matter. Depends on how the reader wants to read. But the Digital Media has caused some destruction in how authors get paid, how books get paid for. And this is a huge issue for us right now because why are authors making less money . There are we looked into the reasons. There are a number of different causes. One of them is that we see that amazon pushed down the price of ebooks to 9. 99. Created a standard and many case even lower. Thats had the effect of causing devaluing books. Now consumers expect that 9. 99 is a threshold for what youre going to spend on a book. That means theres less money for the publisher and guess where they can the one budget line where they can actually that is somewhat negotiable is what they pay the author so the author loses out. There are also theres the whole information wants to be free movement, that if something is online, it should be free and we are starting to see this impact book. So one issue is piracy. In recent years theres an increasing amount of books available for free or low cost that are actually made available by real criminals, copyright infringe jerries, people trying to make money youve your book through advertising and charging 2. 99 instead of 9. 99. So, that is caused disruption, and then theres this sense of devaluation of writing. Anybody can write so why should we be paying for it . Theres a difference between what i or i was going to say you i dont now if year writer north but the person who even spends a lot of their time writing and their job as i did, its real different what i will write versus a professional book author. Those are we want theyve been honing their craft, their whole whole lives. They tend to be extremely good with words and we want to encourage them and allow them to make a living writing books. Why . Because we benefit as society. Host but the recent court case. Guest yes. The recent court case. So, youre referring, i think to google books. That comes from the information wants to be free movement. There google went this is now going back over ten years went to major academic libraries and scan all the books. They never bought a single copy of a book, not one. They just went in and scanned them and in exchange told the libraries well give you a free digital copy back. Then they used these books to help them for Research Purposes to help improve their algorithm to basically teach their computers natural language. They have this huge database of language now. So they use authors expressive content to figure out how to improve their business to make more money. So, they made copies for themselves, made copies for the libraries, made many, many copies, trying use these books to improve their searches, and then they created google books, where any book that they scanned is searchable, and then you can find snippets of the book. Lets say you want to research hummingbirds all the books come up and then you get to a particular book and it will bring up all the places in the book that the term appears, which some text around it. So, actually, authors lose we brought the case on behalf of authors who earn their rights to their books. Publishers also do but they separately settled. So, our case only involved books that authors had done. And the fact of the matter is that people will use google books and not actually buy the book. In fact this is at dinner my daughter, who is college student, said mom i hate to toll you this but we love google books because i dont get around to the library in time and they have i just google books and type in the search term and i can get what i need. And enough to add a citation. And that we have heard from many of our authors who use google books that way. But its a bigger issue with the google books case and im so sad, so sad the Supreme Court didnt take the case because it sets a very bad precedent in the second circuit. They said its okay. Everything that google did. Every copy they made is fair use because of this service that they provide, google books, which is such a wonderful service, we want them to be able to provide it and so were just going to call this all fair use, and i think the court was convinced it would be too hard for going toll try to get the rights going toll try to get the rights from authors which isnt true because there was a Settlement Agreement earlier that where google agreed to pay to acquire these rights and to set up a they knew it was doable, but that settlement was not approved by the district court. So, that why the litigation continued, and when the case was brought, nobody thought it was fair use. They said, yeah, its fair use. The problem is that as we knew further into the digital age were just at the beginning of the changes well sunny Book Distribution the way people can access books, less and less money in the book business, less ability to pay authors advances or for authors to sell books themselves, and we will see fewer professional authors, fewer of the kinds of books that take a while to write. Highly researched books, and thats not a good thing for us. For the country. Host you referencees that theres a whole generation growing up thinking everything is free. Music, books. Has the music world seems to have settled a little bit. Where is this going to end up with the book industry . Guest we are really trying to prevent what happened to Music Industry, happening to the book industry. The music i think the Music Industry is Something Like 25 percent of what it was Something Like ten years ago. They really lost their shirts because the music the idea that music should be free took hold. Now we see Services Like spotify where you pay a monthly fee and the music is getting back on its feet. But much smaller than the past. So, we have been able to learn from that. Right . So, we are trying to prevent that same mindset from entering the public sphere, but i think you have less of a music than music because book readers are not the kind theyre not teenagers looking for things for free. They tend to be more you know, more mature type citizens. However, it is starting to happen that people its so easy now to find books for free online that people are in fact finding them and reading them, and one of our authors told me recently, she is a scholar but also writes romance novels, and her fans come up to her and say with immunity, i read your books for free. Sorry about that but i just i cant afford them. So were seeing that start to happen. And one thing we want to do over the next year is start a campaign that is directed towards the public, which is writing is work. Writers work. They need to be paid for their work, and readers, dont get books for free because youre making it impossible for them to make a living writing. Host your referenced that were just on the cutting edge of how books will be distributed in the future. What are some of the changes that well see . Guest well, i think that well see more reading online, and im thinking very longterm. If you go back to when the Printing Press was first invented it a was 100 years before the Publishing Industry really became the Publishing Industry we know today. Initially they were basically pretty oneoffs of book that look like a manuscript. So we are vary much in the paradigm of the physical books. I think people will always love physical books but there will be more and more reading done online. So what im talking about is the way people read, the distribution. The way they find books. I dont know exactly what that it will be. I just know that given how much has changed in the last ten years, were going to see a lot more change. Host currently does the Authors Guild have any court cases in some states theyre pursuing . Guest currently, no. We do not have any court cases right now. Host do you have plans to guest no. Not currently. If we were in the sort of i dont think i could talk about it anyway, but we right now we just finished the google books cause, because the Supreme Court did not hear it, so were taking a deep breath and we have a lot of other advocacy programs were work only right now. One thing were launching is a campaign to authors to get your rights back and help people authors learn how to exploit their books themes, how to selfpublish them and sell them to publishers. Were concerned about elder writers. Authors are free lancers. No pension no retirement no benefits. And so they often live hand to mouth, and even you would be surprised, very, very famous writer who are now elderly, they never made a lot of money, never made the kind of money you think they did, and they are not doing well now. So, theres that group that we feel like we have to help them find new sources of income. We also are have a new membership for student writers and emerging writers, to help them understand the business, get into the business, understand how to become a professional writer, and then we continue to have all sorts of issues that were helping professional writers with. If you have been in the business 20, 30 years, things were sort of the same for a long time, and all of a sudden youre having to learn new ways of almost never had to do a now they have too be on some kind of social platform. So we do a lot of advocacy right now. Were very focused on copyright law in washington. The Judiciary Committee of the house has been looking at doing a big revision to the copyright law for several years now, and there are a number of issues we think are particularly important to authors so we are working very actively in washington right now. Host has the consolidation in the Publishing Industry affected what you do . Guest well, it hasnt directly affected the Authors Guild. What it has done is for the big pressurers to the pressure on them to make a profit and that has in turn pleased midst authors to some extent. Theyre looking for books that are going to make big money. Theyre less willing to provide big living wage advances to the midlift midlist authors which is 59 of authors. So authors see it in terms of the squeeze. Host an author sells a book. Somebody buys an authors book. It costs 20. How does that 20 break down . Can you walk us through a general breakdown of that cost . Guest well, probably not without figures in front of me, but theres a certain amount that guess towards were talking bat hardcopy book. 3 goes to manufacturing, marketing costs. Then the wholesaler takes irforget but they take a big cut the author for hard copy gets somewhere between 10 to 15 normally of the retail list price, which isnt necessary live the price it sold at. And then the publisher gets the profit on top of that. Ebooks is different. The author gets 25 generally, although we learned today on panel its sometimes negotiable you get a higher percentage if you dont take an advance. Theyre get tag of the profit after costs getting 25 of the profit after cost jazz of the 9. 99 for ebooks they dont get 25 of that. Guest no. Theyre getting the profits to the publisher after amazon has or whoever has taken their 30 , 35 cut, and the publisher is paid a profit. Host how many different model are out there new talked about midlist author. What is that . Guest a midlist author is an author that sells, continues to publish but is not a best seller. Host so, how many different models are there out there right now for that breakdown that you just walked us through . Guest okay. So theres traditional publishing, which is what i just walked you through, which is today most trade books still get traditional publishing. Also ways to selfpublish. New services coming up like that will provide ebooks and print copies of books where you can ash as an author you can contract directly with them now. If you want to selfpublish, you just take amazon. Theyre kindles platform. They have format that you put your text into, and you put the book up, and you check an agreement, you cant negotiate it at all. You just its a quick accept type arrangements and you have to just accept whatever terms that amazon gives you, but they will put your book up, they will if you give. The exclusive rights they give you 70 of what they get. 70 . Guest 70. But theyre doing nothing other than putting your book up. And you also have to agree to a price your book between i think 2. 99 and 7. 99. So, if you want to sell on another platform, which most of us authors do, dont want to be exclusive with amazon or want to have more leeway in setting prices theyll choose a nonexclusive option, which gives you a 30 amazon gets 70, the author gets 30. And we think thats just ridiculous. Amazon are providing the technology the platform, thats all theyre doing. Theyre not investing much in terms of labor at all. They do, however, pay monthly. Theyre very good at accounting, getting you paid regularly. If youre exclusive, youre also part of their library. Basically a Subscription Service where the reader can pay Something Like 10 a month to a whole library of books, and there they pay based on a pool. They completely nontransparent, what that pool consists of or how they divide the pool among the authors. We hear heard authors in the pool, which you have to dive you have exclusive arrangement are paid much less money doing so. So the authors who can make it selfpublishing they generally choose to the nonexclusive option which is 30 . Host finally you mentioned the senate Judiciary Committee looking at copyright law. What are the changes theyre considering and is the Authors Guild in support . Guest yes. So, right now, its been led by the house Judiciary Committee, a subcommittee. The senate is starting to get involved. So, the issues that we are focused on right now, for the there are a number of minor issues but the ones that are going t