Talk about last minute, but then in all honesty I was undecided. So what swung it for me to opt out of Google Book’s settlement?Well, lack of control really. A lack of control of what is digitized from my works. After all, come July the rights to my first two books will revert back to me and technically it will mean I will be out of print and Google will be allowed to digitize my books without my say-so.
Now I’ve heard the arguments, especially from the Society of Authors, about this being the best deal for the author. But that assumes we have no choice, and we do. We have a choice about not being digitized without agreement or arrangement. And I’ve agreed not to. Google says the author receives 64% of whatever profit is earned from their digitization and they think that’s fair. Most e-book publishers give the author up to 85% of the profits and you just know that Google will do anything to make sure the author gets as little as possible probably using net rather than gross profits.
They aren’t doing this for art, for the author, or for the reader – to think otherwise is quite naïve. Google are doing this for themselves.
So I’ve opted out and retained control.
Time will tell if that was a good thing or not…
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