Authors Guilded, United, and Representing…Hah

Guest-blogging today with Techdirt on how all these “Author This, Author That” organizations are fundamentally publisher lobbyists:

One of the more Orwellian aspects of the book world is the number of publisher advocate groups calling themselves Author This and Author That. The Authors Guild, Authors United, the Association of Authors’ Representatives…their devotion to protecting the interests of authors is right there in the names, right? No further inquiry necessary.

 That’s the idea behind the misleading nomenclature, anyway. But even a cursory glance at the behavior of all these “author” organizations reveals their true priorities and actual allegiances.

Let’s start with the Authors Guild, which claims to “have served as the collective voice of American authors,” and which describes its mission as...

Read the whole thing at Techdirt.