Tad Williams

27 July 2010

I really don’t want to make a habit of posting Publishers Lunch content in my blog, but whilst the ‘EvilWylie’ thing is happening, and because it is now (for once) a funny episode in this time of Extreme Turmoil – here’s the latest.

Good, Evil and Jack-All

While the UK media is stuck in their cliched mode of writing about Andrew Wylie’s Jackalicious adventures–today’s Independent offers up three stories all amounting to little–some trade wag is having a lot of fun. Under the Twitter handle “EvilWylie” have come a string of zingers starting last Friday afternoon with “All your contracts are belong to me! muah ha ha ha ha.”

New followers are rewarded with exclusive rights grants (“Evil Wylie has granted you exclusive rights to write like @margaretatwood writing like Stephen King”) and there are numerous special offers: “Sizzling summer deals! Evil Wylie just posted e-book rights to Philip Roth’s backlist on Priceline. Name your price!”

Commencing at almost the same time, in a similar voice, were broadcasts from arch-enemy “GoodRandomHouse”: “At last, @EvilWylie, we meet again. Prepare to be vanquished, miscreant! You have outdone yourself this time, @EvilWylie, and decent people everywhere WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!”

Meanwhile we’re conflicted over whether to use Jackalicious (per above) or Jackalope as the new standard Lunch nomenclature, so feel free to vote.
EvilWylie
GoodRandomHouse
Independent

23 July 2010

If you have any interest in books, the turmoil right now in the book industry is astonishing. I’m reprinting this from today’s Publisher’s Lunch: go buy subscriptions, y’all.

Odyssey Editions Fallout: Random House Puts Business Dealings with Wylie Agency On Hold, Macmillan CEO “Appalled”, and More

The fallout over [agent] Andrew Wylie’s entry into the e-book business with the help of an exclusive deal with Amazon continues, with publishers and independent booksellers expressing their displeasure – and in one Big Six house’s instance, some forceful action.

In a statement released yesterday afternoon, Random House has indicated that The Wylie Agency’s decision to sell e-books exclusively to Amazon through its new Odyssey Books company “undermines [Random House’s] longstanding commitments to and investments in our authors, and it establishes this Agency as our direct competitor.” As a result, “Random House on a worldwide basis will not be entering into any new English-language business agreements with the Wylie Agency until this situation is resolved.”

The NYT managed to reach a vacationing Wylie for a response when no other outlet was able to do so, finding that the agent was “taken by surprise” by Random House’s decision. “I’m going to think about it a little bit,” he said, adding that he had not spoken with Random House on Thursday. “We take it seriously, as do the authors we represent. This area of discussion and negotiation needs to be resolved.”

What makes Random House’s decision even more striking is that the agency has at least two auctions scheduled for next week, and no doubt they will be watched with much more than the usual interest a Wylie client tends to generate.

Macmillan CEO John Sargent, in a blog post on the company’s website, said he was “appalled” by Wylie’s decision to sell only through Amazon: “A basic tenet of publishing is that our function is to reach as many readers as we can. We disseminate our books and the ideas within them as broadly as possible.” Sargent understands why Wylie would make this deal, since it is “smart retailing, and a great deal for Amazon,” which has also asked for exclusive product from Macmillan “as has every major retailer we deal with.” But the deal is “extraordinarily bad” for “writers, illustrators, publishers, other booksellers, and for anyone who believes that books should be as widely available as possible. This deal advantages Amazon, which already has the dominant share in this market.” *

Comment from Wylie-represented authors whose e-books will be distributed via Odyssey Editions has been scant, though Susan Cheever did tell the AP she thought her father, John Cheever, “would have been torn” by the e-publication of his collected stories. “He was a tremendously loyal man who famously stayed at The New Yorker even when they weren’t doing right by him. He had very good feelings about Knopf and Random House, with good reason....But in principle, I’m all for writers getting the largest percentage possible for their work.”

* My emphasis

21 July 2010

Here are some extracts from emails I’ve been receiving about what appears to be a company of thieves with possibly a huge list of titles, all available on Amazon.

I checked out reviews on Amazon for some other books by these clowns ... the reviews all said essentially the same thing:

“[ The product ] is a collection of wikipedia articles on these books. Mucho misleading marketing by this publisher.”

“Books LLC, Alphascript Publishing, Betascript Publishing, Fastbooks and General Books LLC - these are all imprints of a company called VDM Publishing ... completely unethical in their marketing and product descriptions. Between the different imprints, they have 500,000 odd books listed on Amazon now.”

Given such a crappy product, why should anyone buy? The answer is: it looks like a promise of free books after you’ve done so.

Pause for reality check: It may only be Books LLC’s crappy product that’s on sale here. I’d be happy with that; I fear it being something more.

I just spoke with our Amazon liaison, and he said that although this is fraud, and the company (in its various bogus incarnations) is seeming to sell entire backlists, in actuality what the buyer gets is a self-published (if you could call it that) stapled 56 page compendium of cover copy and wikipedia listings. Amazon is refusing to take this material down. The first (and biggest) Penguin author that this happened to was Ken Follett and the Penguin legal team couldn’t get anywhere with Amazon ... Media is only 30% of their business, and that includes DVDs, Videos, and CDs as well as books. At least Tad is in good company ... But even though books might be only a tiny percentage of their business, they are still the world’s largest bookstore by a huge margin. The whole aim of their business is different than ours ... It’s not a great situation for publishers or authors.

9 July 2010

On Jul 4, 2010, at 6:23 PM, Michelle A. Caldwell wrote:

Good evening, is there a possibility of the Shadowmarch being published on kindle someday? I pre ordered and then the order disappeared and its no longer listed as even a possibility. Maybe authors hate the Kindle, I don’t know. I know as an avid reader I enjoy the weight and the lack of wasted paper.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

From: Deborah Beale [mailto:deborah.shazam@batnet.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 6:48 PM

Michelle

Thank you very much for emailing us. I have in fact forwarded your email to our agent so that he can show Tad’s publishers.

The book industry is still in a condition of near-melt-down, and doing things like digitizing all of an author’s books (especially if that author is published by Penguin) is coming very slowly to them. It does not make a great deal of sense, but it’s an old industry facing vast change.

Hopefully Tad’s books will be available as electronic editions in 2011 at the latest.

I love reading however it comes to me - paper or electronics. Just gotta have something to read at all times!

Best wishes, Deborah Beale

p.s. Tad’s on FaceBook, and I’m there too plus on Twitter as @mrstad, should you want to see more of what goes on in our writerly world.
Have a good summer!

From: “Michelle A. Caldwell”
Date: July 9, 2010 6:26:39 AM PDT
To: “‘Deborah Beale’“ [deborah.shazam@batnet.com]
Subject: RE: Good evening,

Dear Deborah

Thank you for your reply. I loved the blog on the old site and now I’ve befriended Tad on facebook, I will look for you as well! Regardless of the medium, I will always be a reader. Creativity and art and having a sense of community are very crucial to avoiding anomie and banality.

Warm wishes and kind regards,

m i c h e l l e a. c a l d w e l l
Executive Vice President
Chief Financial Officer
G A R C I A S T R O M B E R G

www.garciastromberg.com