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Archive for October, 2009

Readers have rights, too

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

The first thing I saw this morning on Twitter was a link to an article about e-book sales in the New York Times.

This link, oft-retweeted, was usually mentioned alongside an admonishment to a Kindle owner named Ms. Englin. Ms. Englin’s offense?

Exploiting a loophole in Amazon’s system, Ms. Englin has linked her Kindle to the Amazon account of some nearby friends, allowing all of them to read books like “The Lost Symbol” at the same time — while paying for them only once. “I read much more, I tend to read faster for some reason, and I read a greater variety of things,” said Ms. Englin, adding that this is nearly the same as lending a physical book to friends. “We haven’t really looked closely at Amazon’s terms of service. But I do suspect we are breaking the rules.”

This is not called stealing. It is not even in violation of Amazon’s terms of service. Let’s go take a look at a book that I love–Eloisa James’s A Duke of Her Own–on Kindle. (For some reason, Amazon seems to believe that this book was written by Lorraine Heath. Not the case, Amazon.) Scroll down to the product details, where you’ll see this lovely line:

Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits.

See that? What that means is that you can download this book five times. So if you had a Kindle 1, and downloaded it there; and then you got a Kindle 2, and downloaded the book there, and then got a Kindle DX, and downloaded it again, and then used the Kindle for iPhone app, and downloaded it again, and then replaced your iPhone with the iPhone 3GS–you, as a consumer, would not be able to re-download the content for a sixth time, simply by virtue of your being an early, regular adopter of content. If you wanted it again, you would have to purchase a second copy.

It also means, though, that if I purchased two Kindles–one for me, and one for my husband–we could read the same books while only paying for them once. Check your horror quotient there: How do you feel about that? Feel like we’ve done anything wrong? I hope not, because it would be silly to say that me and my husband couldn’t share digital books.

In order to link a Kindle to an account, you need to share an Amazon account. That doesn’t just give someone the right to download the books you’ve purchased; it gives them the right to buy books on your credit card. Linking someone to your Amazon account is in no way like putting a file on a file-sharing site. It gives them the right to purchase Selected Nuclear Materials and Engineering Systems (Part 4) for $6270.42, and stick you with the bill. In other words, linking accounts is an act of trust, limited by good sense (and the digital rights restrictions the publishers place on their products) to good friends and close family.

This is not stealing. It is not cheating. It is not piracy. It is the time-honored, all-important act of sharing books with a few trusted friends.

As authors, I think it is easy to jump on top of people for not paying for a book. But keep in mind that the value a book has is not just in the act of reading it. It’s also–hugely so–in the act of sharing it. In giving a book to a friend and waiting breathlessly to see if she loves it as much as you do. In reading a book someone else has recommended, and figuring out why it does (or doesn’t) work for you. Books are about building community, and if we undercut that community as authors, we take value away from our books.

In a world where the price of books appears to be in free-fall, that’s not an outcome that anyone desires. So authors, please, before calling your readers thieves, think carefully: is it really theft, or is it just part of the natural and inherent value of a book? And if you insist that that value be taken away, what price do you think your books will support?

(I edited this post in tiny part to clear up an antecedent.)

Posted in copyright thoughts | 24 Comments »

Next Generation Linking

Monday, October 19th, 2009

I’ve posted before about the PHP script I wrote to generate links to the major online retailers.

This was helpful to some people (who did not quail at the sight of a PHP script). It was not helpful to others, who did not have the ability to run PHP on their site, or didn’t want to mess around with PHP for whatever reason (lots of good reasons: not wanting to run strange code; not wanting to run PHP at all; running WordPress where the plugins allowing the execution of PHP interfere with the WYSIWYG editor).

I’ve now set up my PHP script to generate HTML code for everyone else. Insert an ISBN; press a button; it will generate code that you can copy and paste into your website or even your WordPress WYSIWYG editor.

I’ll be refining this script over the next month or two. I do this in my copious spare time–I have a day job, and also, I am lucky enough to have writing contracts with deadlines, so my copious spare time is something like “half an hour occasionally on the weekends.” When it’s sufficiently robust, I am going to write a simple plugin so that those of you running WordPress can link to multiple retailers with one button click, from within WordPress.

Posted in it's all about me! | 2 Comments »

Testing

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

I am testing this website script.

The Heart of Christmas (buy from: Borders | Amazon | B & N | Powell’s | Indiebound).

Posted in it's all about me! | 1 Comment »

Random Things

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Massively Random things:

For those of you what need reminding, this month on my website contest, I am giving away (among other things) an audio book of Sylvester by Georgette Heyer, narrated by Richard Armitage. Let me repeat that slowly: Richard Armitage is narrating. If you do not know who Richard Armitage is, I command you to get thee to a copy of North & South (BBC version) immediately. Do not stop. Do not pass go.
Hey, it’s now officially official! Publisher’s Marketplace has posted that I’ve sold two more books to HQN. That means that after the two books that most of you haven’t read, that will be coming out in 2010, there will be two more books, likely coming out in 2011. Yay!
Speaking of books, I read and loved the following books during the last few weeks: Liar, by Justine Larbalestier (twisty sneaky adventure where the truth is out there, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (steampunk Victorian with illustrations; also, girl dresses as boy, my favorite trope Ever), Love in a Bottle by Zoe Archer (early Georgian with a mountebank hero and a botanist heroine–it is almost a complete inversion of my debut novel, PROOF BY SEDUCTION). And I am still absolutely bereft that I’m busy enough that I haven’t gotten around to Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel.
My anthology is holding onto the USA Today list by the skin of its… pages, holding steady at #135. I call it “my anthology” even though it is clearly Mary Balogh’s and Nicola Cornick’s anthology. I’m just along for the ride.
But what a fabulous ride it is! It’s with some shock that I’ve discovered that now I have readers, some of whom have never actually met me. It’s one thing when a friend says she likes your book. My friends are good at lying to me. They are good at smiling and nodding when I ask questions like, “if you had to build a bookshelf out of either bamboo and staplers, or cinderblocks and mashed potatoes, which would you choose?” So I never know if I can trust them to tell me the truth. It’s another when someone you’ve never met says they like my story. I really, really appreciate getting those e-mails. They make me smile.
And I’ve gotten my Very First review from someone who is not Mr. Milan. Rakehell says:

Ms. Milan brings readers a story of faith, hope and redemption that embodies what the Christmas season is all about…. [T]his story[] is multi-layered and had a few surprises in it that really made me sit up and take notice of Ms. Milan’s writing. If this short novella is what we can expect of her writing I cannot wait for her full-length novel next year. Even if you already have the other two stories in this anthology and are thinking of passing on getting them again, do not miss Courtney Milan’s This Wicked Gift.

All in all, it has been a good week. I’ve been busy around the blogosphere. I’ve been busy writing, too, so that you all can actually have your four books in the next two years.
Also, I taught my dog a new trick: “Go long!” for when we are preparing to lob the ball really hard. He’s getting the hang of it! That, and we’re teaching him to jump through a hoop made of our arms. No, really. He loves it.

Posted in it's all about me! | 12 Comments »

In more boring news…

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

I have no illusions that this has anything to do with me, but the anthology The Heart of Christmas has landed at #94 on the USA Today list.

Posted in This Wicked Gift, actually its about mary balogh, it's all about me! | 20 Comments »

The Case Against Mandatory Disclosure

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

The main argument I’ve heard for the FTC guidelines so far is this: “It’s just disclosure. How hard is it to disclose where you receive a book? Just paste something on your sidebar and you will be okay.” I am a strong believer in openness and transparency. I also believe in disclosure—if you will note, when I talk about books, I have always tried to work my relationship with the person into the conversation. But although I think that disclosure is generally a good idea, I think there are clear instances where whatever value we might gain as a society from disclosure is swamped by the negative aspects of that disclosure.

So let me tell you what I mean by this. I’m going to start with a person who doesn’t exist—at least, she doesn’t exist precisely as I describe her.

But imagine there’s an anonymous book blogger who calls herself Ms. Revels. Ms. Revels reviews young adult books with a mission: She wants to highlight books that are fun and entertaining for young adults, while still being clean enough for the parents. Ms. Revels’ reviews range the gamut. She glows about Ally Carter’s DON’T JUDGE A GIRL BY HER COVER, because of its proactive, positive message. She completely trashes Suzanne Collins’s THE HUNGER GAMES because of its violence. She gives a so-so to Scott Westerfeld’s UGLIES, because while it is violent and scary, she thinks the message about being comfortable with your own body is important for teenagers to hear.

Ms. Revels, however, has a secret. She is also a young adult author. She does not review her own books; she considers that ethically suspect (and she is trying not to be suspect). But she receives regular checks from Simon & Schuster and Random House (she has written for both over time), is friendly with editors from all the major houses, and as a fairly prominent author herself, she regularly receives ARCs and manuscript copies for her blurb (or, just in case she reads it and maybe likes it). The vast majority of her reviews come from these free copies.

Ms. Revels has not disclosed that on her site. She has not done it for one very simple reason: She has lambasted books that her own editor worked on. She has called “dangerous” books that people who are her friends have written.

She does so, because she firmly believes that teens should be taught that “clean” activities can be fun. Now, you may not agree with Ms. Revels’s philosophy. You may not like her. But that’s the burden of the First Amendment: we let people speak, even if we think what they are saying is a load of crock.

The requirement of disclosure would sink Ms. Revels. In order to meet the FTC’s disclosure requirements, she would have to issue a statement that she had written books for Simon & Schuster and Random House, and that she receives ARCs from all major houses. And that disclosure would be tantamount to a revelation of identity, because there aren’t many people who would fit that bill.

There is some value to the consumer in having that information about Ms. Revels. But Ms. Revels’s speech is entirely burdened by the FTC’s disclosure requirements: She must either provide information that divulges her identity, or quit speaking altogether.

For people outside the U.S., it’s hard to understand why anonymous/pseudonymous speech is given such a privileged place in our system of laws. It is, however, a large part of our culture. A major event in the Revolutionary war involved anonymous persons dumping tea in Boston Harbor. Advocates for the Constitution wrote “the Federalist Papers” under the pseudonym “Publius.” In more recent history, the Supreme Court held in 1958 that members of the NAACP had a First Amendment right to keep its membership rolls private, because members of the NAACP, if disclosed, might be subjected to abuse, ranging from lynching to burning crosses.

Under the First Amendment, we protect people who voice unpopular opinions from disclosing their identity. We think the opinions they have to share are more important than the value the public gets from the disclosure. And it is this that makes me quail from the FTC guidelines: The disclosure the FTC seeks, in some cases, requires a person to leave a trail of informational breadcrumbs leading to her identity, as a precondition for engaging in speech that is both politically and culturally valuable.

Let me give a somewhat less abstract example: Moonrat.

Moonrat talks about books on her blog. She is in publishing, so presumably, she gets many of these books for free. More importantly, if she ever discussed a book produced by her house or one of its subsidiaries, she would have to disclose her interest, and that means she would have to disclose her house. If she discussed a book produced by a friend of hers, who bought her coffee, she would have to disclose that. And that means, of course, that if she talked about books at all, she would have to divulge information that would make her identity a foregone conclusion.

Moonrat is anonymous, and we all know why: Because if she were not, she would be deluged with people telling her to buy their novel. Also, her authors would tear their hair out, and people would take all her rejections personally. Moonrat nonetheless provides a very valuable service, and I would be sorry to see her go away, or to discover that Moonrat might not be able to talk about books.

The book publishing industry is small, intimate, and interconnected. Sometimes, the only way for insiders to speak harsh truths about books is under the veil of pseudonymity.

Posted in Legalese, elsewhere on the web | 2 Comments »

The unethics of the FTC regulation

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Here’s the thing: Book bloggers can avoid the FTC regulation by disclosing any and all relationships. Authors cannot. And this is what you have to recognize, as an author: The new FTC regulation says that if a reviewer does not disclose a relationship, both the reviewer and the author are liable:

The Commission recognizes that because the advertiser does not disseminate the endorsements made using these new consumer-generated media, it does not have complete control over the contents of those statements. Nonetheless, if the advertiser initiated the process that led to these endorsements being made – e.g., by providing products to well-known bloggers or to endorsers enrolled in word of mouth marketing programs – it potentially is liable for misleading statements made by those consumers.
Imposing liability in these circumstances hinges on the determination that the advertiser chose to sponsor the consumer-generated content such that it has established an endorser- sponsor relationship. It is foreseeable that an endorser may exaggerate the benefits of a free product or fail to disclose a material relationship where one exists. In employing this means of marketing, the advertiser has assumed the risk that an endorser may fail to disclose a material connection or misrepresent a product, and the potential liability that accompanies that risk. It is foreseeable that an endorser may exaggerate the benefits of a free product or fail to disclose a material relationship where one exists. In employing this means of marketing, the advertiser has assumed the risk that an endorser may fail to disclose a material connection or misrepresent a product, and the potential liability that accompanies that risk. (p. 15)

So what do those terms “advertiser,” “sponsorship,” and “endorsement” mean? For purposes of providing review copies, “advertiser” means “person who gives out merchandise” generally, to someone who reviews–so that could include me, the author, handing out free copies of my reviews, to someone who reviews the books:

[A] blogger could receive merchandise from a marketer with a request to review it, but with no compensation paid other than the value of the product itself…. If that blogger frequently receives products from manufacturers because he or she is known to have wide readership within a particular demographic group that is the manufacturers’ target market, the blogger’s statements are likely to be deemed to be “endorsements,” as are postings by participants in network marketing programs. (p. 10)

Okay. So if I send my book to a reviewer that I know, they have to disclose, and if the reviewer fails to disclose, I can be held liable if (a) they fail to disclose their relationship, or (b) they make claims about my book that may not be true (“Courtney Milan’s book is the perfect cure for a blue day!”–this statement has not been evaluated by the FDA for accuracy. Admittedly, a book is neither a food nor drug, unless taken internally, which I do not advise.)

What can I do to avoid liability? The FTC explains that I can police the relationship by asking bloggers to disclose, or I can tell them to edit their reviews. In other words, the only way I can avoid liability is to tell book bloggers what to write.

Sorry, FTC. That goes against the grain. That really is, in my mind, unethical, and I’m not going to do it. It is not my job as an author to tell anyone what to write. Now, if the person chooses to disclose our relationship, or that they got the book for free, that is totally fine with me. But I find it personally offensive that I should have to tell a person what to say in a review, or on their website. That is the opposite of ethical behavior on the part of an author, and I won’t participate. Now, telling a reviewer what to say vis-a-vis disclosure is not as bad as telling a reviewer what kind of review to provide (which is heinous). But it still sticks in my craw as a bright line that should not be crossed.

So I am not going to follow that regulation. Sorry. I am not going to tell people what to write in their reviews. And quite frankly, I think the contributory liability portion of the FTC’s regulation, as it applies to bloggers, is unenforceable under 47 U.S.C. 230, which states that “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

I don’t advise that anyone reading this should take any of this as legal advice–it is not–or that you follow my example–because I am opening myself up to liability. But the alternative seems to my mind to be unethical, and so them’s the breaks.

(All citations are to a PDF which has been since wiped from the FTC’s site, for reasons unknown to man or mouse.)

Edit: the PDF is back, here. They deleted the word “to” and changed the word “setting” to “settings.” Nothing substantial.

Posted in it's all about me! | 7 Comments »

Monday, October 5th, 2009

The FTC released guidelines today governing blogging about books. In those guidelines, it makes it clear that it wants bloggers to disclose to consumers their relationships with the horrible companies that give them books for review. As far as I can tell upon perusal of the FTC guidelines, those “horrible companies” include me, and “book bloggers” includes you. Yes, you, reading on this blog. Have you ever talked about books you got for free online? This applies to you.

Apparently, my giving you books could be construed as an act of “sponsorship,” and the FTC thus thinks it can regulate the resulting speech. The regulations it has promulgated are actually more stringent than those applied to print magazines and newspapers.

Let’s be honest. We’re talking social media here. Even if there was no giving of books, reviewers choose to review things because of the social context in which they encounter them. Jane has posted on Dear Author that she read a book on my recommendation (or on others, e.g., SB Sarah). She usually posts the context in which a book comes to her attention. Some bloggers include context; others don’t.

It’s also not a surprise that my acting like an idiot could have an effect on reviews. If I started writing regular rants on this blog saying, “Jane Litte is a poopy-head! Smart Bitch Sarah makes really lousy baklava!” bloggers would start thinking I was crazy, and would be less likely to read my books and review them. Especially true if they thought there were reviews were going to be negative, and they didn’t want to have to keep deleting comments from me that said, “Yah!!! You poopy head!”

Blogging is a social world, and the currency of the social world is trust. Not money. Not even free books. The truth of the matter is, if I can get people to trust me, they are overwhelmingly more likely to give me a try, free book or no.

This effect is so strong that it completely overwhelms the simple question of, did the blogger pay for the book? It’s certainly true in my case. I regularly blog about books I think people should read. And here’s a secret: I read all those books for free. But you would have to be dumber than dirt to read my posts and think, somehow, that Tessa Dare “sponsored” me. Confession: Tessa bought me dinner a couple of times. Other confession: I have bought her dinner, too, even though one time I had to douse her in ice water first to grab the check. To try to characterize our relationship as one of commercial sponsorship is beyond ludicrous. I couldn’t even attempt to disclose what Tessa has given me, or for that matter, what I have given her. It’s called “friendship,” not “sponsorship.”

I also read an early copy of Victoria Dahl’s ONE WEEK AS LOVERS. Vicky is also a friend. She is a friend in part because I followed her around meeping piteously at her talent for years until she took pity on me. That’s not commercial either.

I’ve given people copies of my debut anthology for a number of reasons. Because they’re my friends. Because they won them in giveaways. Because I hope they will like it. Because I think they have fantabulous taste in books and respect that. To relegate this relationship to one of “commerce” or “sponsorship” is to do violence to the heart of social media. FTC, it’s called “social” for a reason.

So I am not going to add disclaimers to any of my discussions of books, either on my blog or on the website. It would be clearly stupid to do so, and while I am generally not a fan of scoffing at the law, I think that if the FTC conducts its case by case analysis and concludes there is any sort of sponsorship going on in my case, it is insane.

But if anyone was wondering, from here on out, every copy of a book I send out will contain the following disclaimer:

THE FTC MADE ME DO THIS

Under new FTC guidelines, bloggers and authors can be held liable for making statements without disclosing the existence of a “sponsoring” relationship. The FTC seems to think that under some circumstances, my giving you a free copy of this book could constitute “sponsorship.”

So let’s just make things clear for the FTC: This book is a gift. I do not expect or care whether you do anything with it.

You can give this away to a friend. You can use it to prop up the short leg on your desk. If you would like, you can even do something radical with it, like read it. If you read it, you can choose to mention it to other people, or not. You can choose to review it, or not. You can review it as harshly or as positively as you like. If you review it harshly, or you review it positively, or you do not review it all and instead use it as a mass-market doorstop, it doesn’t matter to me.

Posted in book recommendations, copyright thoughts, elsewhere on the web | 14 Comments »

Over at Carolyn Jewel’s

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Today, I am over at Carolyn Jewel’s blog, telling an inordinate number of lies about myself, and my release, “This Wicked Gift.” Come over and say hello, and try and identify which one of my statements are lies. There are more of them than you think.

By the way, Carolyn Jewel’s follow-up to the marvelous “Scandal” comes out tomorrow. I have been really looking forward to this book ever since I read the awesome excerpt on Carolyn’s website. Go and read it, and tell me it doesn’t make you shiver with longing for the book!

Posted in elsewhere on the web | 2 Comments »