Bad book deal Mr. Assange!
Julian Assange's short-sighted book deal
December 27, 2010
December 27, 2010
By E.B. NEW YORK
THE big news of the day is Julian Assange's book deal. The Wikileaks founder has secured more than $1m in advances for his autobiography from Alfred A. Knopf, a New York publisher, and Canongate based in Britain. A manuscript is expected sometime next year. "I don't want to write this book, but I have to," Mr Assange told the Sunday Times. "I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat." Struggling writers around the world are crying crocodile tears for this man. Woe is he and his handsome advance.
The deal is impressive, but there are signs that Mr Assange's rush to shake hands with big publishers was penny-wise, pound-foolish. As it stands, the contract barely covers his existing legal costs, which he says are approaching £500,000. Knopf will surely do its best to rush the book into print, but its cut of final sales will be considerable. A typical contract would give Knopf electronic rights and Mr Assange 25% of net profits. As the towheaded Australian already has a cult following, it might've been savvier for him to self-publish an autobiography and sell it via Amazon, which offers authors 70% of net profits for e-books sold in America (though the book must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99); Barnes & Noble and Apple offer similar royalty rates.
This is why authors with sure audiences have begun making their work available online. "If an author has the choice of two distribution models, one that costs nothing and has no gatekeeper and the other has lots of gatekeepers and costs a lot of money, a lot of people will go with the free one," explains Seth Godin, a bestselling author of marketing books. He now peddles his work himself, having cut ties to Penguin Group in August, according to the Los Angeles Times. And he recently announced plans to self-publish a series of "idea manifestos" on Amazon.com. E-books may still seem novel, but they are fast becoming the way we buy books. E-books now constitute 10% of total book sales, up from 1% two years ago, according to DailyFinance. Recent gifts of Kindles and iPads will nudge that number higher this winter. And Mr Assange's fans are surely the technophillic sort.
Mr Assange may be a fascinating subject for an autobiography, but he's no businessman. Though Visa, MasterCard and PayPal have ceased processing donations to Wikileaks, he could have bought some time shaking down his many wealthy benefactors who believe in his whistle-blowing cause. (Surely there is plenty of fancy junk lying around the Norfolk country mansion where he is under house arrest that could find its way on to eBay without being missed.) But the deal is done, and perhaps it doesn't completely bilk Mr Assange out of electronic rights. Regardless, the arrangement seems fitting for a man whose book will be primarily about trials and errors.
THE big news of the day is Julian Assange's book deal. The Wikileaks founder has secured more than $1m in advances for his autobiography from Alfred A. Knopf, a New York publisher, and Canongate based in Britain. A manuscript is expected sometime next year. "I don't want to write this book, but I have to," Mr Assange told the Sunday Times. "I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat." Struggling writers around the world are crying crocodile tears for this man. Woe is he and his handsome advance.
The deal is impressive, but there are signs that Mr Assange's rush to shake hands with big publishers was penny-wise, pound-foolish. As it stands, the contract barely covers his existing legal costs, which he says are approaching £500,000. Knopf will surely do its best to rush the book into print, but its cut of final sales will be considerable. A typical contract would give Knopf electronic rights and Mr Assange 25% of net profits. As the towheaded Australian already has a cult following, it might've been savvier for him to self-publish an autobiography and sell it via Amazon, which offers authors 70% of net profits for e-books sold in America (though the book must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99); Barnes & Noble and Apple offer similar royalty rates.
This is why authors with sure audiences have begun making their work available online. "If an author has the choice of two distribution models, one that costs nothing and has no gatekeeper and the other has lots of gatekeepers and costs a lot of money, a lot of people will go with the free one," explains Seth Godin, a bestselling author of marketing books. He now peddles his work himself, having cut ties to Penguin Group in August, according to the Los Angeles Times. And he recently announced plans to self-publish a series of "idea manifestos" on Amazon.com. E-books may still seem novel, but they are fast becoming the way we buy books. E-books now constitute 10% of total book sales, up from 1% two years ago, according to DailyFinance. Recent gifts of Kindles and iPads will nudge that number higher this winter. And Mr Assange's fans are surely the technophillic sort.
Mr Assange may be a fascinating subject for an autobiography, but he's no businessman. Though Visa, MasterCard and PayPal have ceased processing donations to Wikileaks, he could have bought some time shaking down his many wealthy benefactors who believe in his whistle-blowing cause. (Surely there is plenty of fancy junk lying around the Norfolk country mansion where he is under house arrest that could find its way on to eBay without being missed.) But the deal is done, and perhaps it doesn't completely bilk Mr Assange out of electronic rights. Regardless, the arrangement seems fitting for a man whose book will be primarily about trials and errors.
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 7:56 AM
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