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Dear Roy Blount: Fire your Literary Agent!
February 25, 2009 | 6:45 am
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By Robert Nagle
Here’s Roy Blount’s plea for authors to be compensated for the Kindle’s ability to do text-to-speech. (By the way, kudos to the NYT headline writer for coming up with “Kindle Swindle.” Wow, why didn’t the marketing committee to name the Kindle notice that? )
Dear Mr. Blount:
Instead of calling for what is tantamount to a restriction on a device maker, why not do something more constructive: fire your literary agent! 
A good literary agent might have inserted provisions to anticipate this kind of technology. A decent literary agent might have warned you about the potential revenue loss from such a capability.
You make it sound as if the author had no sayso in the manner in which a book gets published. If I understand correctly, the author is the copyright holder, and that brings with it certain rights and controls (yes, I’m being facetious).
Amazon offers a new platform for reading. It is powerful and likely to increase the overall literary market. Question: should you authorize your publisher to make your works available on this platform or not?
I cannot decide this for you. However, if there is significant revenue in selling audio versions of your works, that would be a compelling reason not to make your works available on this platform.
Also, Amazon has the right to wrap DRM around its ebooks. Is that good for your career as an author? I don’t really know. Maybe yes, maybe no.
Your choice, Roy. (Gosh, it looks as though you have already decided).
A cursory glance through Teleread headlines shows how much innovation is taking place with reading and device technologies. Amazon may have the biggest muscles around, but you and your agent are free to choose other platforms more amenable to your specific goals as an author. Also, given that DRM-free audio is now selling briskly (even on Amazon.com), you could even hire someone to make quality audio recordings and self-publish print versions of your books which you could sell online. That’s a way to address your concerns.
Is text-to-speech fair use? Let the lawyers figure that out. But there is one simple alternative which you fail to mention in your editorial: don’t allow ebook sales!
I agree that authors have a stake in how their works are used in the literary marketplace; I also agree that authors should be more aware of the potential ways in which advancing technologies might increase or decrease the commercial possibilities of their works. But only you and your agent can figure out what is best for you. A way to demonstrate what you believe in is not to allow ebook distribution of your works on Kindle. Perhaps if enough authors joined this boycott, Amazon might be forced to offer concessions or better rates. Really, I wish you luck.
In the meantime, stop criticizing ebooks in general and instead direct your criticism against the company of Amazon for its compensation scales.
To show moral support for your cause, I will state publicly my intention to boycott all Roy Blount Kindle ebooks! Boy, that will really stick it to the man!
(Note to TeleReaders: I count at least a dozen Roy Blount print books on sale at half.com for less than the price of a single Kindle ebook).
FYI: Here are three audio interviews with Roy Blount at wiredforbooks.
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Comments:
I have a book for sale for the Kindle at Amazon. One’s that also available DRM free at O’Reilly. I have no problems with a mechanical reading of the text. I don’t feel cheated. I don’t consider text-to-speech to be equivalent to a true audio book, recorded by a human, and designed specifically for listening pleasure.
I really believe in the eBook market, and am getting really ticked at all the greedy SOBs trying to muck it up.
I buy a lot of books. The kind of attitude shown by Roy Blout, and too many authors and publishers like him, is why I’ve switched to buying mostly second-hand books from charity shops.
All this “Kindle TTS affaire” makes me really sad. It is quite disheartening listening authors talking just the same as megacorps.
Thanks for the really funny turn of the post, by the way.
Robert, you have it wrong. Blount’s agent did a good job — the agent DIDN’T give away audio rights with the ebook rights. Amazon is the one who says the audio rights are included and is using its 800 lbs to sit on authors and publishers who disagree, but Amazon has yet to produce anything other than its PR department to support its position. It’s like Bezos saying that it is the publishers who insist on DRM when the truth is it is
Amazon through its contract that insists on DRM. The one thing Amazon is truly good at is blame-shifting and getting people to buy its propaganda.
…and another thing!
I’m sick and tired of people sharing their kindle with a spouse. When you buy an e-book for your Kindle, you damn well better buy one copy PER PERSON in your household who reads it. Little Johnny can read a few sentences, perhaps even a chapter (if it’s a big book), but more than that… PAY UP!
If you disagree with me, you’re clearly in favor of financially ruining mom’n'pop writers. Won’t someone think of the writers?!?
Rich: If Blount didn’t want his content to be sold on Amazon’s ebook platform, he could have taken action to prevent it.
However, if Amazon misrepresented in their agreement with the publisher (and/or author) about the capabilities of the Kindle, then that would be a different matter. I haven’t seen evidence that this has occurred.
[if it is true that there is significant revenue in selling audio versions of your works, that would be a compelling reason not to make your works available on this platform.] No, it’s not. What Amazon may contend, (and we can’t know until court documents are filed, should it come to that) and I would agree with, is that text to speech is not an audio “recording” in the same sense as when Meryl Streep reads “The Bridges og Madison County” to tape, and then that tape is edited and sold as an audio book. Text to speech merely creates a change in format, Meryl creates a unique work.
What a douchebag move. I will never buy any Roy Blount books, and I will encourage my friends to do the same.
@Robert: There is no mention in the Amazon agreements used PRIOR to the release of K2 of text-to-speech capabilities and K1 didn’t have it (I don’t know if the agreements have be modified since the release of K2). Amazon made no disclosure so does that amount to misrepresentation? And what difference does it make when it is clear that audio rights are sold separately and have been sold separately for years? Does this mean that once an author gives Amazon ebook rights Amazon can create an audio version for sale via Audible.com without infringing? That’s really what you are saying.
If what Rich says is true, then Kindle TTS becomes a lot more interesting. The EFF brief on the Kindle persuades me that the Kindle is not violating any performance right (although that could be argued against; who knows?) because it is not creating any kind of fixed work. But lack of disclosure by Amazon seems to misrepresent the nature and the scope of the platform. I assume that Amazon provided an all-inclusive “you can’t sue us no matter what” clause in the contract. The key quesiton becomes whether this failure to inform changes the nature of the platform itself. I can see both sides of the issue. For example, content should be playable on both Kindle 1 and Kindle 2. On the other hand, why should Amazon be obligated to remove functionality simply because it didn’t notify a recent publisher about a feature not yet implemented?
At this point the IANAL crowd can only shrug and wave their hands helplessly.