He Giveth Then He Taketh Away - Prince Sues HIs Fans

One moment he is staging 21 amazing nights of affordable concerts at London's O2Arena, giving away his CD to concertgoers and with copies of the Mail On Sunday.

The next he is threatening to sue his biggest fans for breach of copyright.

His lawyers have forced his three biggest internet fansites to remove all photographs, images, lyrics, album covers and anything linked to the artist's likeness. A legal letter asks the fansites to provide "substantive details of the means by which you propose to compensate our clients [Paisley Park Entertainment Group, NPG Records and AEG] for damages".

The cease and desist notice went as far as calling for fans to take down pictures of their Prince tatoos and Prince-inspired licence plates.

Now like anybody who was a young person in the eighties, Prince is part of the sountrack of my youth - but this just goes against the grain of the social web.

The new reality of the social web is giving artists and authors headaches galore across the world.

What is fair use? What is theft? Should an author's work be digitised forever and ever thus blurring the any boundaries in terms of rights?

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Fans on social sites play a massive role in the virus-like word-of-mouth relay of good books and music. In the field of YA fiction where readers are particularly skilled, fans produce videos, music, even countdown counters in honour of their favourite authors.

Here's a countdown widget (right) that a fan created for Scott Westerfeld's new book, Extras.

And here's a YouTube video in homage to The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Should authors and artists resist such flashes of inspiration in the name of copyright?

Or would it save time to just shoot one's self in the foot?

Let Them Print Money - Some Authors Have All the Luck (And Readers)

So maybe I will blog more if I go for brevity, the punchy thought, the poignant comment.

And maybe I'll get more of my novel written.

So here's a punchy piece from ShelfTalker, the Children's Bookseller blog over at Publisher's Weekly.

I propose a moment of silent sympathy for the writers of the world, in the face of what's been a rather humbling, reality-bending month in the world of children's book sales. First, J.K. Rowling witnesses (by proxy) the sale of more than 72 million copies of HP7 within the first 24 hours of its release. Last week Scholastic announced that their initial print run of 12 million copies doesn't look like it's quite going to cut the mustard, so they're headed back to press to print another two million. Ah, yes, business as usual. Just going to print another TWO MILLION books to satisfy American readers.

We can only dream.

Oh Richard and Judy!

Do you know, I'm being a very good novelist and working hard every spare minute of the day on the last five (!) chapters of Ugly City! That's why I've been a very, very bad blogger, with little to say and nothing to show ...

But just so you don't consign Notes from the Slush Pile to your must NOT read blogroll, here's a humble but very interesting post excerpting the latest Publishing News - about Richard and Judy's golden touch:

THERE HAS BEEN an instantaneous and dramatic effect on all the books featured by Richard and Judy on their children's books special, which aired last Thursday. “Sales have been going extremely well for all the titles, with a 250% average uplift across the board,” said Waterstone's Jon Howells. “The stand-outs for us have been Andrew Cope's Spy Dog [Puffin], which has seen an 800% increase, week on week, and Claire Freedman and Ben Cort's Aliens Love Underpants [Simon & Schuster] which has had a 370% increase - a four-figure number in sales terms - which is particularly impressive as it has been out for a while and been a consistent seller. It just proves how many new people the show brings in.”

At Borders, Children's Buyer Becky Stradwick was equally enthusiastic about the programme's impact. “It's been very significant so far, particularly for Aliens Love Underpants, which has crashed back into our Top Ten, and for Robert Muchamore's The Recruit [Hodder], Sophie McKenzie's Girl Missing [Simon & Schuster] Betty G Birney's The World According to Humphrey [Faber] and Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant [HarperCollins]. It's proved that last year wasn't a flash in the pan and that Richard & Judy has a very consistent influence.”

While both Waterstone's and Borders have seen a marked upturn in sales, and will be promoting the R&J list right up to Christmas as part of their festive offering, the programme's effect seems to have been more muted in independents. “I think the programme is wonderful and popularises the act of reading,” says Joanna de Guia of Victoria Park Books in Hackney. “But we haven't seen a lot of movement, although Skulduggery Pleasant has definitely been affected positively.” At Tales on Moon Lane in Herne Hill, south London, Georgia Hanratty noted that “a few people did come in on Friday, asking for recommendations from the list, but we haven't seen a hugely noticeable increase in sales”.

Certainly, Simon & Schuster is celebrating. Nielsen figures revealed this week that Aliens Love Underpants is the number one best-selling picture book and the number ten best-selling paperback children's book, outselling the other titles among the R&J children's winners.

Does this mean that we wannabes should quit stalking our traditional targets - editors and agents - and head for Richard and Judy's? Ah the publishing life.