The long awaited settlement for the Author’s Guild, AAP and Google is official. Under the settlement, “Google will have the right to make browsable copies of the books it has scanned through its Library Project as well as books scanned in through its regular Book Search program.”
As part of the $125 million settlement, Google will pay $45 million to settle the class action lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild. Authors whose books have already been scanned will receive at least $60 per work. Another $34.5 million will go toward the creation of a Book Rights Registry that will be responsible for building a database of rightsholders information and for disbursing all money generated through the use of books in Google Products and Services. (The remaining $45.5 million will go to legal and attorney fees). Under the deal, Google will receive 37% of revenue and rightsholders 63%. Publishers and authors will have 120 days to opt out of the settlement once the agreement receives approval from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, something that is expected to take several months.
“The City Council of New York officially declares the week of November 17, 2008 ‘National Book Awards Week in the City of New York’”
If you happen to be in the city that never sleeps this week, you can catch some incredible events, including a dinner with the various winners from the National Book Foundation (the rest of us can see updates as they happen at the website linked above). The crown jewel of prizes, the National Book Award, will be announced on Wednesday, and tomorrow there is a (sold out, sorry) reading by the finalists. They are as follows:
With the tense financial atmosphere, the insanity of the political season and the general stress of the upcoming holiday season, we figured what better time to talk about the Top Ten Comedy books. These books have serious laugh out loud value, sure to turn people’s heads as you cackle on your commute or at the coffee shop.
10. I Am America (And So Can You) (Stephen Colbert)
9. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Tom Stoppard) [dark but brilliant]
Check out our first ever print ad in GOOD Magazine on newsstands now. GOOD is a really well done bimonthly magazine about what is right in the world. What is really cool about GOOD? 100% of your subscription fees go to non-profit organizations like our friends at Room to Read or Dave Eggers’ 826.
Also in the issue is a new feature called GOOD Business. The GOOD Business section was done in partnership with B-Corporation. (Of which Better World Books is a founding B-Corp). The most interesting article for me was “What Nau?” about what went wrong with the clothing start-up Nau. Here is an excerpt from the article:
“Nau had gambled naively without a backup plan. But the company had come close to turning a corner. The clothes, the webfronts, the giving program, the bylaws—they all worked. The fundraising and the timing hadn’t. The irony, of course, is that a company so committed to sustainability was ultimately unsustainable. But not because of its principles. Rather, the mundane problems that plague most startups—lack of money and poor execution—had undermined Nau. Still, the brand had an impact in its short life span, accelerating the greening of the apparel industry and creating a new genre of outdoor clothing.”
I had the pleasure of speaking to the 2008 Green Business Conference yesterday in my lovely home city of San Francisco. I was on a panel that addressed the way businesses and financial institutions were handled the crazy financial times we’re in. Let me tell you, people could not be more optimistic. With the lost credibilty of the world of high finance and greed, people are hungering for something more real and authentic. The Green Business community provides this in spades.
I would like to claim that I stole the show, but that honor goes hands down to Tom Szaky of Terracycle. In a true show of audacity, he proposed the elimination of the concept of waste in favor of “upcycling”. In his company, Caprisun pouches are turned into tote bags and old floppy disks into jot pads. What separates Tom is not just that he’s a visionary, but that he’s scaled his enterprise, growing over 100% a year and working with some of the biggest names in packaged goods.
As the bulk sales coordinator for Better World Books, I have the pleasure of working with buyers from all over the world and the U.S. for orders of 50 or more used books. I could go on and on about the fabulous people I have ‘met’ while assisting them in putting together their orders – whether it is the ladies book club in Australia, a retired teacher in Canada, a used bookseller in Pakistan, or the children’s second hand book buyer in South East Asia – all have their own story, and all share a common love of books.
I recently had the honor of working with Fletcher Roberts, a distinguished young man who came up with a fabulous project to earn his Eagle Scout badge with the Boy Scouts of America. Fletcher raised money locally to fund building shelves (and filling them with books!) for the local Birmingham, Alabama, YWCA homeless shelter.
Chris Johnson, Better World Books’ organizer of the epic Great American Book Drive (which by now you know is the biggest community based book drive in the US) just dropped me a line about the recent event in Boston:
“The drive went very well, we collected about 13,000 books and everything went super smooth, and I’m itching to begin the national rollout.”
Hello and welcome to the Better World Books Blog. Here you'll find author interviews, book reviews and general ramblings from employees of the "Online bookstore with a soul." But we didn't make this blog as a soapbox... talk back!
