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By David Rothman

Warren AdlerHere–from Warren Adler; yes, the Warren Adler, author of The War of the Roses. Excerpt:

People have been telling me for years that authors in general are totally brain dead when it comes to business decisions. I have always denied this accusation, but it appears that the Authors Guild, which purports to represent authors, is pursuing a lawsuit against Google that confirms this general opinion…

Of course, being included in the Google search engine is no guarantee that the book will ever be called up by a click of the keys. But the very fact that it might trumps all possibilities available to authors with books out there collecting dust on library shelves or being sold by second hand dealers which provide no financial benefit at all to the author. The Authors Guild suit wants Google to pay the author a royalty for putting the book into its search engine.

In my opinion, the Authors Guild is fighting the wrong battle at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. They are, in effect, fighting the publisher’s war, not their own. For the bringers of the suit, I say beware of what you wish for.

The TeleRead angle: Adler writes: “Another noble authors cause would be to get libraries to pay authors a fee for each borrowed book. A library buys a book which is read by multiple people without any further compensation to the author than what he is due as a royalty on the sale of a single book. Such fees are paid to the author in some other countries. Why not the United States?” From the start of TeleRead initiative–in fact, even before the first article appeared–I’ve suggested this business model. I wrote: “In all cases, TeleRead would pay fairly. If you wrote a book, for example, your earnings would depend on how often people dialed it up.”

 
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