We are receiving an increasing number of enquiries from members regarding suspicious emails and phone calls that seem too good to be true. It's easy for spammers to sound informed and convincing. We've put together our latest advice to keep you on your guard societyofauthors.org/2025/09/16/a...

Liz Kendall asked on Today if the government has given any guarantees on copyright to the tech sector in the Prosperity Deal: “No, we have not [...] I actually had a meeting yesterday with Lisa Nandy, our Culture Secretary, to see where we can find common ground” [between tech and creatives]

...petition to rename the Bodleian 'Dol Guldur'

We promised you that we would keep you up to date on the Anthropic case in the US. Read the latest developments in our news piece. societyofauthors.org/2025/09/11/a...

Heavy metal, fingerless gloves, the Yazidi genocide, Turkish melancholy, Don Quixote... I got to interview Elif Shafak. For The Author, the magazine for members of the @societyofauthors.bsky.social.

v proud of this issue of The Author from @societyofauthors.bsky.social – featuring Sarah Hall on a human-authored 'maker's mark', my interview with Elif Shafak, Adam Weymouth on wolf research, Roman Krznaric on befriending your translator, Richard Smyth on bending the non in fiction...

"some reports, such as Reuters, reported that Nepal's Gen Z-led protests began over the government's social media ban. Many protesters rejected this characterization, emphasizing that their fight is primarily against corruption, nepotism, and the lack of accountability in political leadership."

Nepal needs fresh leadership, fast. And no more police shooting, especially after yesterday's murders of 19 protesters.

It takes publishing a book to make Nick Clegg a staunch defender of intellectual property

"UK government trial of M365 Copilot finds no clear productivity boost" www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/m...

Wise words:

The book smack in the middle of this is @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social ONE BOAT by the remarkably understated @jcbuckley.bsky.social . It is definitely the best book I've read this year. His sentences are TO DIE FOR. Buy it.

Really interesting. And a blessed antidote to the monomaniacal / driven writer myth. Also 'she faced “a sort of E=mc² of energy and commitments” when her children were little'. Yup.

I'll be teaching my first course for the @faberacademy.bsky.social during the last week of August. Focus is on the personal essay. If there's something you've been longing to write, but dallying, put it off no longer. faberacademy.com/tutors/marin...

Forgive me William Carlos Williams but the plums on the tree are sweeter and more delicious than any from the icebox so hot so freely given

Obviously a lie, since the definition of PhD-level expertise, standard across universities worldwide, is that you can produce original knowledge.

We have created "Author Care: a Toolkit for Authors" to help you navigate a complex industry and empower you in your relationships, as well as find ways to support your own wellbeing. Download your copy from our website societyofauthors.org/resource/aut... #AuthorCare

This is not the only Biggles problem

dream response tbh

Wonderful to see @jamesmcconnachie.bsky.social’s review of #SmallEarthquakes in today’s @thetimes.com, ahead of its release on 31 July with @hurstpublishers.bsky.social.

‘Meghji has the true travel writer’s eye for the comic, pathetic & tragic… This is writing full of rust, wind & sadness. It captures splendidly the air of South America.’ Thrilled with @jamesmcconnachie.bsky.social’s review of #SmallEarthquakes in @thetimes.com. www.thetimes.com/article/f371...

As Bookbanks new Ambassador I’d like to spread the word about this brilliant charity giving books with food at food banks. Please share and support if you’re able :) www.bookbanks.co.uk

Just heard about a new publishing set-up where author has to personally find pre-orders at zero profit to underwrite the publisher's entire costs - knowing they will be billed for a set number of books no matter how many orders they actually get. My professional advice is to run a fucking mile

When someone says, okay this contract clause to cover the publisher's risk of a specific liability could be read as giving them other rights, but it never will be - I remember the clause on electronic transmission of books for editing which was creatively interpreted into an (unpaid) ebook licence.

What a start!

ALCS had a real leadership role in this, and it's fantastic news for authors, so many of whom are freelancers. A significant win. Thank you, ALCS.

Just to be clear, the other post shows the US terms. My post shows the non-US terms. Insane rights grab, including to train LLMs on the content you transfer.

Don't use WeTransfer

The children’s publishing world was rocked this week as a book was released by a new author who wasn’t a celebrity. From the latest Private Eye, out now.

Incredibly important report on AI training & copyright released today by the European Commission. It gets lots right, slamming the idea that creators should be required to opt-out of having their works used for free by AI companies. It says: - Generative AI must be based on opt-in consent 🧵 1/n

Fantastic. I only wish it had mentioned language justice and the threat to minority languages. By default, AI models are trained and deployed in English.

"The profit of Taylor & Francis is rent extracted from taxpayer funded research... Neither the taxpayers... nor the researchers who created the intellectual property... participate in the company’s profits. Royalties on academic publications are notoriously negligible."

"Penguin undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence, including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy". Those contractual warranties to the publisher are dangerous things for authors. When the shit hits the fan the author is often left, er, spinning in the wind.

Publisher gave Winn a "contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy" to get them out of having to check anything and the book "a standard legal read". So they did fuck all. With these kind of contracts the author often has to indemnify the publisher for legal costs or losses too

Westbury Festival currently have 'Raynor Winn' lined up for July 21. Sold out, but hopefully they'll live-stream the Q&A.

fascinating

It's always the small things: "A few months later I noticed that I had been charged publicity expenses on my royalty statement for the drinks I thought I was being treated to."

Strong journalism. Wish I'd written it. Questions: how much should publishers fact-check memoirs? When does story-shaping shade into fraud? At what point are readers entitled to refunds? And will they have to sue, as some did after A Million Little Pieces?

So I just saw a friend's daughter. She told me she'd quoted this book called the Book of Love in her dissertation. Her lecturer had recommended it to her as good on sex and India. Later, her mum told her I'd written it. So, so pleasing to know your book still has a life, almost 20 years on.

A tale in four screenshots about trusting ChatGPT's literary opinions

"the accuracy and authenticity of my story significantly benefited from AI’s quick, reliable insights" [splutters]

The Bonnie and Clyde of poetry.

infamous?!

My cartoon in this weeks @newyorker.com

At the moment, I'm particularly looking for *scientists* interested in writing for @aeon.co. Is that you? I have recently commissioned essays on geology, oceans, cosmology, astronomy, Antarctica, the brain, computer science, quantum and more. aeon.co/science

Today is the last day you can register books for PLR (money for library loans of your books in the UK and Ireland). They have to be already published. If you have unregistered books, you'll miss out on this year's income. It adds up! Illustrators and audio narrators are also entitled to a share.

'In all circumstances, we will only hire human audiobook narrators, rather than “narrators” generated by AI tools that were built on stolen voices.' ...And translators?

"Is this the end goal—to fully remove us from the equation so that those at the very top of the capitalist structure can profit even further off our labor than they already do?" er...obvs.