An Interesting Tidbit About Dead Agents

Everyone keeps going on about Miss Snark. For those of you who do not know, she is a literary agent. Or was. Maybe still is. Anyway, she has a blog that went on for years and is revered in the online writing world. Of course, I had to check it out. I read some of her later blog posts. And I didn’t get it. People would go on about her again. So I’d go back. I still didn’t get it. That’s not to say that I didn’t understand her. I just did not get the appeal. Then again, when you go to her blog, the last posts are about her retiring. So, uh, yeah. Kind of late place to come in on things.

When once again her blog was recommended to me through other blog comments, I dutifully followed the link. Yet again. This time I had a plan. I scrolled down until I got to her archives and then I did some random clicking. Oh, look at that, a question that I sent to ‘Ask Daphne’. Hmm. Maybe I have been missing something. Another random click or two. Ta-da. Something I did not know and did not even think about in order to think about.

Dead agents. That sounds brutal. What I am getting at is this: what do you do if you have an agent who is dealing with the royalties from your past projects and then poof! they are gone like last week’s cut flowers. In this case the agent was a solo. (They were the agency.) So then what? How do you get your royalties? They go to the agent’s estate and the estate then is to get their percentage of the royalties and send you the remainder. Eventually. But what about any further dealings with the old projects? Yikes! Do you get a new agent for that? Can you get a new agent for that? If the agent isn’t a solo, it is simpler as I assume the agency has a contingency plan and they take care of things. Easy as pie. (Unless they go belly up. In that case, oh brother!) What I learned, I suppose, is that an agency isn’t always ‘just’ an agency if there is one person behind it. Something to look into when you sign that literary contract. What is their contingency plan? Sort of morbid, but worth bringing up in conversation.

Oh and thanks Miss Snark. I guess I judged you wrong (several times). Oops.

Middle Name Contest

Finally, a contest for me. Over on this writer’s website, Nothing But Bonfires, she is having a contest. If you have a middle name, you can enter to win a Nintendo DS Lite. Not totally sure what exactly it is, but my nephew has one, so that means it must be cool, new and probably costs more than I would be comfortable shelling out for a game system. Oh yeah, and if you don’t have a middle name, you can enter–just say what you wish it was. Wahoo!

This contest brings a few things to mind for me. First, if you wish you had a middle name, why the hell don’t you give yourself one? For a few bucks, you can even make it legal. I know this because I did it when I was 19. I didn’t actually give myself a middle name as so much as gave myself a first name, but that is a rather long and somewhat convoluted story. (Not really, but there is some back story involved.) Second, if you are a writer, the comments section is GOLD! Hilarious, wondrous gold! I mean at this point there are almost 500 entries. Yep, my odds of winning decline by the minute. Anyway, there is all sorts of interesting rants, ideas, voices, names and complaints. It is great! There is even some woman who needed 30 years to embrace ‘Jean’ as her middle name. Give me a break and suck it up honey!

Rights and Copyrights

I was reading Publishers Lunch email today and got a little ticked off.

You see, Stephenie Meyer, a writer of a beloved series, had someone post a draft of her upcoming novel on the Internet, spoiling her project. If that doesn’t piss you off, well then I guess whatever, stop reading and go steal some music or something. Seriously, who would do that? How would they even benefit from that? It’s malicious. Plus, they could get their ass sued big time. (And I kind of hope they do just as an example to all those keyboard collar thieves.)

You might recognize this popular one.

Basically, what happened is someone was trusted with a copy of the draft (it is part of a series) and they posted it on the Internet or did something that allowed someone else to post it. It has been copied and sent all over the place. It cannot be retrieved. Meyer is putting the project on hold. I mean what is the point? A less-than-perfect version has been released. Fans have read it. Who is going to pay for it should it be published? Now her story and her name have been tarnished. How embarrassing would it be to have something that is half-written released for all to read (and critique)? She’s not going to benefit financially, just get her hard work trod upon, her time wasted. It’s like a model going out in a fashion show with only half the designers stitches done on the outfit. Which, actually could kind of work seeing as most runway stuff is a little odd. So, bad example, but I think you know what I’m getting at.

To place this in light of today’s Internet world where everyone is like, “Hey, I didn’t steal it. It was just sitting there waiting for me to download it for free.” Right. And that windshield bug juice sitting out by the gas pumps is just sitting there waiting for you to take it. They wouldn’t put it there if they didn’t want people to take it. What we are seeing on the Internet is displaced responsibility and moral justification. Compile that with the attitude of: ”Why would I pay for it when it is right there for free?” Well, because somewhere there is some poor soul trying to make a living from this thing that has been stolen, reproduced and left for the taking without regard for their rights, that’s why.

I have a highly educated acquaintance and the other day we were talking about movies. I was trying to convince her that renting through Zip.ca is the way to go. But she wasn’t ‘buying’ it because she and her equally-educated husband download any movies they want to watch off the Internet–for free. She doesn’t think it is wrong because the movie companies make enough money as it is. I asked her about the writers. What about them? They don’t get paid much. She changed the subject to how her husband does it, not her. So I asked about opening your computer up to viruses. Apparently they just overhauled their computer. (Virus, I suspect.) What about her kids? What lesson is she teaching them either directly or indirectly? Stealing is okay if it is on the Internet and someone else took the first step?

To get back to Stephenie Meyer, what about her right to earn a living off of her hard work? What about her rights to protect her original work? Just because it is sitting out there, it doesn’t mean we have to take it. I know, I know social groups and displaced responsibility because of all the others doing it or not doing it and the moral justification that stems from that. Well, isn’t it be time we did something? Isn’t it time we acted like an individual with our own set of morals and values when faced with a crowd of folks eager to ‘shut it off’? Maybe we should all go read that draft (now on Meyer’s website) and send her our warm compliments and the $10.99 we would have spent to buy the novel had it not been spoiled.

What do you think?