#DisneyMustPay - Part Deux

A long time ago, in some states not so far, the name Disney was synonymous creativity and fairness.

Not so much anymore.

Back in November, I talked about SFWA publicly shaming  the House of Mouse in order to get them to pay back royalties to esteemed SFF writer Alan Dean Foster. I'm glad to say according to SFWA, Mr. Foster and Disney came to an agreement.

Unfortunately, that "agreement" is lawyer speak for Disney giving Foster some of the money, but not all of it with a high probability of "If you take this to court, we'll bury you" and/or "You'll die before you win in court" thrown in.

(Sometimes, I hate knowing enough to read between the freakin' lines.)

The problem is Mr. Foster wasn't the only creative Disney has been abusing. More writers have been coming out to SFWA and other author organizations. Worse, there could be hundreds, or even thousands, of writers who have been screwed over and don't even know it.

The #Disney Must Pay Taskforce is working to rectify these problems. It isn't just a matter of money. Copyright law hinges on it. Disney claims it can make money on intellectual property without paying the owner. This is an incredibly dangerous precedent if it is either codified or becomes a judicial ruling.

It means no writer is safe if Disney is allowed to continue on this route.

Check out the #Disney Must Pay Taskforce, especially if you could possibly be an affected author.

Joiining or Not Joining

There's a ton of various writers organizations in existence, but most seemed to be geared toward either beginners or big sellers. I'm in the weird position of being somewhere in the middle.

Then there's finding a group that is geared toward the same business interests as mine. But what exactly is my business interest?

Fiction or non-fiction? I've done both.

Trad or indie? I've done both.

Novels or short stories? I've done both.

But most organizations define their interests rather narrowly.

Romance Writers of America is only for people who write romance. Recently, they've dropped the hammer on people who aren't pursuing romance writing as a profession. I can honestly say I've pursued the genre professional, but I left in 2012 over the crap they were giving both erotic romance authors as well as indies. I've heard they've backed off on both stances, but I have to make nearly ten times as much as an indie than as a trad author to qualify as a professional. Needless to say, I lean toward screaming, "UTTER BULLSHIT!"

[NOTE: I will say if you're a beginning writer, as in you haven't sold or published a damn thing yet, RWA membership is great for their craft classes.]

The Authors Guild only focuses on writers in trad publishing. No, thank you. I like doing my own thing too much. Not to mention, a good chunk of the membership wants to return the publishing industry back to the 19th century. You know, when publishing was a gentleman's game. *eyeroll*

One of my original goals was to qualify for membership to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. As the name states, you have to be writing science fiction and/or fantasy. I qualified for membership a couple of years ago, but they have similar rules as RWA, which still pisses me off. Add in the political drama within the organization over the last few years, and I'm perfectly happy sitting in my apartment all by myself.

Novelists, Inc., terms for membership eligibility are a little fairer toward indies than either RWA or SFWA. Several people have suggested I join, but...okay, I have a hang-up. For a professional writers organization, they have an ungodly number of typos on their website.

There's several formal groups and organizations now that are geared toward indies, but I have yet to find one that doesn't have the same elitism or political problems. Maybe it's a human problem. Or as several people have told me, I expect too much.

But in all the cases, the annual dues are roughly in the $100 range. There's so much I can do with $100. That's the e-book and print book covers for a new novel. That's formatting for a few short stories or nearly a full-sized novel. That's shipping ten proof copies of trade paperbacks.

And that's part of running a business--figuring out what's the best use of resources. And right now, joining a club for the sake of joining a club is not the best use of my time or money.

As always, your mileage may vary.

SFWA Is Gossiping About Me

Or maybe they're not. You see, I'm not a member so I'm not really sure what's going on.

Wednesday evening, I checked my Blogger stats. One of the things it displays is other web pages that have linked to my blog. Usually, it's my main author website or some dumbass porn purveyor hoping I'll click on their link so they can infect my computer.

But Wednesday evening, this was on the Traffic Sources page under Referring URLs:

http://www.sfwa.org/forum/index.php?/topic/7907-is-amazon-your-friend/

Now, I'm not a member of SFWA. Why would a link to Wild, Wicked & Wacky be on an SFWA forum? When I clicked on the link, I got this:

HTTP 404 Not Found

So was it someone bitching about girl cooties in their fantasy? Because let's face it, I do put romance and sex in my stories.

Was the link referring to the rise of indie publishing? Because, yes, I do promote indies.

Did someone who was an SFWA member talk about the review I gave their book? Maybe. Were they pissed I hadn't put the review on Amazon? That doesn't make sense because I may not have bought the book from Amazon.

Given the very tired meme the link mentions about Amazon and cuddling, did they link to one of my many gripes about Seattle's finest? Because, I'll be the first to admit Amazon is not my friend. It's a book retailer for my publishing company. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Frankly, Amazon is not even one of the better retailers for my products. I sell more through Barnes & Noble and Apple.

So anyone out there who's an SFWA member want to give me a hint why a link to my blog appeared on an SFWA forum?

The Battle Is No Longer Between Amazon and Hatchette

[Edit to add: I wrote this blog post during lunch yesterday. When I checked in after painting Genius Kid's old room last night, I thought the fumes had gotten to me. But no, Amazon issued their second volley in the propaganda war with Hatchette.

The news broke while the TPV crowd talked about Michael Stackpoole's blunt essay on the A-H battle. The last half of the comment thread talks about the Amazon bombshell. Folks there also posted the responses from Hatchette,

Joe Konrath posted the Amazon's press release and his personal thoughts, but I warn you Stevie Z. tries to take over the comments. Both TPV and Joe have links to responses from Hatchette, Douglas Preston, and The Author's Guild.

For those that don't feel like clicking on any links, the gist of Amazon and Hatchette's BS:

Amazon: Since you're accusing us of harming writers, we'll reinstate the pre-order buttons and order larger amounts of Hatchette books if ALL royalties go to the writers affected by our dispute.

Hatchette: How dare you offer our writers money!

Yep, kinda proves who's insane, doesn't it?]

Everyone's worried about who's drinking what Kool-Aid.

The two-month six-month long negotiations (changed based on Amazon's news release from yesterday) between Amazon and Hatchette have taken an interesting twist. In their efforts to get Amazon to back down, Hatchette and the other big publishers launched a massive PR campaign against the 'Zon.

None of this should be a surprise because the Big 5 announced their PR plan in January. What is surprising is that Hatchette and their minions tried to pull the indie writers into the fight by using scare tactics. They all run something along the lines of -- "If Amazon is screwing us over, just imagine what they will do to you once we're dead."

What Hatchette and the other big publishers didn't anticipate was the indies' collective "Fuck you!"

There's a large contingent of indies who have been trad-published, and they were treated horribly. Those who weren't kicked to the curb by Hatchette and their buddies ran as soon as they could. Then there's some of us who heard the horrible stories of how our fellow writers were treated, and we decided dealing with the Big 5 wasn't worth the soul-sucking pain. The rest of the indies, who never bothered with query letters, just shook their heads, published their books, and ignored the brouhaha.

Ignored the Big 5 until other authors (all of them in some kind of business with the Big 5) started insulting us. We pulled our heads out of our writing cubbies (or in my case, out of the closet I was painting), looked around, took in the obvious lies being spouted about Amazon, and said, "Seriously, dudes?"

So Hugh Howey and Joe Konrath put together a letter, posted it on Change.org and asked other indies to sign it. I did. Not because I think Amazon is the Second Coming. (Pornocalypse, anyone? Those fuckers banned my books!) I signed it because they're not lying out their assholes like Hatchette is. You see, Hatchette never would have touched me. And for that, I thank Djedhuti every day.

But the lies! Amazon is not boycotting Hatchette authors. Every Hatchette book in print and available from Hatchette is for sale on Amazon. Those books marked "Unavailable" HAVEN"T BEEN FUCKING PUBLISHED YET! Given the tenor of the current negotiations, why would any retailer do pre-orders for merchandise they may not be able to deliver? As for the delays in delivering print books, Amazon isn't warehousing them because they don't want to get stuck with the shipping costs if they and Hatchette do end their business relationship.

Sorry, folks, but I'd be doing the same thing in Amazon's position. Part of owning a business is keeping your overhead low.

By no means do I consider Amazon a saint. They are not perfect. (PORNOCALYPSE!) I get that. It's just one of the retailers I sell books through

In fact, I sell fewer books on Amazon than I do on any other retail site except for Kobo and the now-defunct Diesel. Hell, I did about the same business with them as I did with the departed Sony E-Bookstore. So I don't think you can call me an Amazon shill (the other favorite insult if anyone is even perceived as NOT taking Hatchette's side).

But the really sad thing in all of this are the organizations that are supposed to be FOR writers are publicly throwing their support to Hatchette. (SFWA, anyone?) *sigh* Where were these organizations when the Big 5 dropped e-book pricing from 50% of gross to 25% of net?

Let's assume the leaks are true, Hatchette is trying to reinstate agency pricing with Amazon. Now these writer organizations want their membership to support a pricing scheme where Hatchette gets more money and the writers still get pennies on the dollar? Why would any writer buy into that scenario?

So to trad-published authors, I have nothing against you or your choices. But your business interests are nowhere near mine. I'm not going to help you commit career suicide. And I'm sure as hell not going to agree to a suicide pact with you.

Since I'm allegedly the bad guy, I leave you with this:

Come to the Dark Side, my pretties! We have chocolate.

[2nd edit to add: Normally, I only get 2 hits from France on any given day. Woke up Saturday morning, July 12th, to 51 French hits on the blog. Wonder if Hatchette and their buddies are going to start calling me names.]

Sometimes I Weep for the Future...

Unles you've been living under a rock for the last few days, you've probably heard about the racist bullshit involving a Cheerios commercial showing a white woman in a family relationship with a black man. Frankly, the whole stupidity makes me want to cry. Which is why I LOVE this meme:

But other writers give me hope. Go read N.K. Jemisin's Guest of Honor speech she gave at the Continuum SF convention in Australia.

I think what bothers me most is that Nora shouldn't have to send out a call to action for equality. Too many people have fought too long and too hard for rights that we are letting slip through our fingers.

On top of the Cheerios commercial, there's the sexism blow-up in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organization. Angie Benedetti has a rundown here and here with lots of links to other writers.

Why are we letting other people foster this hate (yes, I'm specifically talking about the GOP, the Tea Party and Fox News)? Even worse, why are so many of us taking this into our hearts?  Can we not accept that things change?

Well, guess what? Change is a part of life. When my great-grandparents were born, the Civil War had been over less than twenty-five years before. Automobiles were fancy toys rich people used to scare horses. And the idea that human could fly? Laughable.

Five out of eight of my great-grandparents lived to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I let my son stay up to watch the returns for the 2008 presidential election.

Because things change.

Yet, my mother still refers to African-Americans by the n-word, despite having a master's degree in multi-cultural education. My sister-in-law claims immigrants are pushing her out of a job, even though she lost one position because she was caught stealing. I've been told by several well-meaning "friends" that I shouldn't make more than DH because it affects his self-esteem.

Hell, if the last one were true, I wouldn't be married to the guy in the first place.

So what does this have to do with a Cheerios ad?

They put out a damn cute commercial, and I'll buy more of their cereal to support a company that uses the same types of families I see everyday.

Including in my own house.

The SFWA Strikes Back

In a strongly-worded response (for a trad-pubbed writer organization, anyway), the board of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in response to Random House's weaselly letter regarding the Hydra imprint in Publishers Weekly, told Random House "there is very little to discuss."

Click here for the full text.

Nice to see the SFWA board grow a pair.