Mine for today is not to get agitated ahead of time with internet service providers. I'm back online. Looks like it may have been the router that was at fault not the ISP, despite my rantings to them over the phone :-(.
Tomorrow I'm hooking up a replacement router.
Oh well.
My study is looking well tidy (meaning really/ very neat in teen lingo). I'm a happy chicken. Cluck.
However this generally happy chicken does have one serious concern to air. (I'm not imitating you Atyllah really). I thought I would raise an issue that has been drawn to my attention recently, just to see what all of you think of the number of second hand book sellers sprouting up on the Amazon website.
Now, as a consumer I can see the benefits of buying a book for 30p, but as a writer I am all too aware of the fact that even the piddling sum of 3p that would normally be passed onto a writer from such a sale will not trickle down to us if the book is classed as second hand.
This is an issue that The Author - the Society of Authors journal raised in its most recent issue and one I am aware of. I need only to look at my York Notes on Amazon to see a bundle of apparently second hand merchants selling the title for less than its market value at almost new condition. I'm fine with discounted stock going to genuine sellers but I slaved over that work and I'd quite like to get paid for it.
Educational writing isn't well paid as it is. What is to become of us?
Luckily I teach so I have that income but what about all the full time writers whose works are sold as second hand and they never receive royalties on these books, as far as I understand it. The reason I say never is because these books seem to be being sold as 'new'. Did they fall off the back of a lorry? Were they freebies? I question where they've come from. What do you think?
I read over the holidays that the writer - or at least one of the writers of The Hardy Boys Series, a much loved (and I speak from personal experience) series of detective novels, died. I also read that despite their international sales, the books' writers were not paid via royalties. The writers received a flat fee, so they did not benefit from the world wide sales that I assume the publishing company, enjoyed.
Do you have any idea how much these writers were paid for creating these pieces of fiction? Guess.
$100
Yes, $100. Even back then that can't have been much. It's criminal!
I really think that intellectual property is a highly undervalued commodity and I for one intend to make my views regarding this matter well and truly heard. Maybe I should become a publisher or book seller? Nah... I was born to write; no use fighting it :-)
Okay, rant over.
Enjoy your day!
