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News

Fall Phone-In Seminars: Book Promotion, Contracts, Taxes, Agents & Copyright

October 24 - November 16, 2006. Join us by phone this fall for Authors Guild seminars and roundtables. Learn how to promote your book before and after its publication, negotiate a better book contract, improve your working relationship with your agent, prepare in advance for your taxes, and learn how and why to register your copyright. 10persessionformembers;10 per session for members; 10persessionformembers;60 per session for nonmembers.

For a complete list and to sign up, click here.

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Global Chilling Update: Major Libel Ruling in London

October 11, 2006. The House of Lords, the United Kingdom's highest court, ruled today that British journalists may now publish allegations about public figures without fear of libel claims, provided that they acted responsibly and in the public interest in carrying out their reporting. A recent Authors Guild Foundation panel discussed how British libel law was affecting American authors. We don't yet know whether or how the ruling will apply to book publishing, but we're trying to find out more information.More...

Global Chilling Panel in New York City

September 25, 2006. The unfavorable libel laws of the British Commonwealth are affecting American writers and publishers more than ever. Join Victor Navasky, Floyd Abrams, Rachel Ehrenfeld, and leading publishing law experts from the Great Britain and Australia for this free Authors Guild Foundation panel. Starts at 6:30.More...

Roy Blount Jr. Elected Guild President in Midst of Google Lawsuit. "A job for a humorist," says Mr. Blount.

March 8, 2006. The Guild announced today that its members elected Roy Blount Jr. to be its new president at its annual meeting last week. Judy Blume, James B. Stewart, Pat Cummings and Peter Petre were re-elected as officers at the Guild's annual meeting last week. Susan Choi, Mary Higgins Clark, Jennifer Egan, David Levering Lewis, Stephen Manes, Michele Mitchell, Victor Navasky, Peg Tyre, Rachel Vail, and Nicholas Weinstock were elected to the Authors Guild Council, the group�s board of directors.More...

September 20, 2005. The Authors Guild and a Lincoln biographer, a children's book author, and a former Poet Laureate of the U.S. filed a class action suit today in Manhattan against Google over its "Library" program. The suit charges the $90 billion company with massive copyright infringement. More...

Jung Biographer Stands Firm, Wins

October 19, 2005. This past summer, heirs of Carl Jung pressed a German imprint of Random House to insert "corrections" to the text of the German language edition of a Jung biography by Authors Guild member Deirdre Bair. With the help of Guild attorney Anita Fore, Bair succeeded in having her lauded biography published without alteration.More...

June 27, 2005. The Supreme Court today decided MGM v. Grokster along the lines that the Authors Guild urged in its amicus curiae brief, holding that the defendants' acts of promoting infringement -- not the file-sharing software itself -- made them liable for third-party infringement. The defendants' software results in billions of downloads of files, most of them copyrighted, each month.More...

New Judgment Filed Against Agent; Guild Seeks Information from Clients

June 2, 2005. The Guild has learned of a judgment filed on April 26 in California against literary agent Nancy Ellis (also known as Nancy Ellis-Bell) for wrongfully retaining $19,000 of one of her client's funds. Last year, Ellis settled a suit brought by a Guild member for failing to forward to him his advance.

Several other clients and former clients of Ellis have recently contacted the Guild making similar claims.More...

Authors Guild Urges Members to Negotiate E-Book Royalty Rates Diligently

June 10, 2004. Random House�s recent announcement that it intends to reduce e-book royalty rates for new contracts is one of several signs that these rates will matter, perhaps sooner than many authors expect. The Guild advises that authors take particular care to exclude ordinary sales from royalty-killing high-discount clauses and negotiate separate royalty rates for direct sales by publishers.More...

Authors Guild Builds Free Websites for New Members

The Guild has announced that it has begun building free websites for those who join the Guild. The sites are full-featured, with lengthy book excerpts, author photos, book cover images (where available), event listings and links to online bookstores. Regular hosting fees of $6 per month apply.

Sites are in the general format of MignonEberhart.com, but the basic look and color scheme may be altered at the author's request.More...

Clifford Chance to Represent Freelancers in Lingua Franca Bankruptcy

January 16, 2004. At the request of the Authors Guild, Clifford Chance, an international commercial law firm, will represent freelance contributors to the now bankrupt Lingua Franca magazine. The magazine's bankruptcy trustee has sued 27 Lingua Franca freelancers seeking repayment for fees the magazine paid the freelancers before it filed for bankruptcy.More...

IRS: New Regulation Doesn't Affect Agents' Reporting of Author Royalties

The IRS, at the request of the Authors Guild, the Association of Authors' Representatives and the Association of American Publishers, has formally clarified a new regulation. The IRS says that the regulation does NOT require publishers of agented authors to send Forms 1099 – the annual report of advances and royalties paid to an author – directly to authors, rather than to the authors' agents. Had the IRS interpreted the regulation otherwise, authors with multiple publishers would have received a separate Form 1099 from each publisher and would have been obligated to issue Forms 1099 to their agents reporting commission income.More...

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Fall 2006 Phone-In Seminars

Sign up for seminars on book promotion, contract negotiation, agents, taxes, and copyright. 10formembers;10 for members; 10formembers;60 for non-members. Info and registration.

Health Insurance

The Guild offers discounted health insurance plans to authors and journalists. Plans now available for much of CA, NY, CT, MA, NJ, FL, and IL from providers such as Oxford, CIGNA, Harvard Pilgrim and Tufts. Health plan info.

Guild Builds Websites for New Members

The Authors Guild is now building websites for new members at no charge. Full features, your own dot-com address. $6 per month hosting fee. More.

Author Domains

The Guild's proceeding to retrieve the ".com" names of nine authors set legal precedent. Read story.

Midlist Study

The 52-page report commissioned by the Authors Guild Foundation and the Open Society Institute and published in 2000 on the state of the publication, marketing and sales of midlist books: Read report.