Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
Will the Author's Guild do the flagging, or will the Publishers?
I think Amazon presented the option of flagging as a way of making the Author's Guild happy without having to pay them any more in royalties. However, whether or not this flag gets used will probably be up to the Publishers, who don't necessarily have the same objections to TTS as the authors do.
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Whoever licensed the rights to Amazon will do the flagging. In many cases, that will mean the pbook publisher. In other cases, a separate ebook publisher, or even the author herself.
The Authors Guild advocates for writers' concerns in a general way, but is not a rights-holder and does
not represent authors the way a union does (in contrast to the Writers Guild, which for screenwriters
does represent script writers as a union). The AG does not negotiate contracts for writers, or represent them individually--though it may lend advice and support.
As to whether publishers have an incentive, that could go either way:
1) They might think this is a great feature that will enhance ebook desirability and sales, and choose to enable TTS.
2) They might look at the contracts they have with their authors, or with subsidiary publishers (such as audio publishers), and say, "Frak, no, this could violate the terms of the contract. We
can't say yes." And quietly thank the AG for taking the heat.
Or...they might just leave it up to the individual author and agent to give a thumbs up or thumbs down.
I've already asked my agent to Enable TTS, but if another author feels it's an infringement, I won't think less of her for saying no.