Local book clubs in the UK seem to be sharing unpaid-for copies of books, which has raised the potential need for a standard, simple book-club contract
In a blog post in late July, the UK self-publishing author and Guardian Masterclass instructor Roz Morris wrote about what appears to be a recurring problem for authors: local book clubs sometimes don’t seem to actually purchase copies of an author’s book to read. Morris noticed that a club of seven members—after having her offer a presentation about one of her novels—elected to read it. “The organizer went out of the room,” as Morris recalls the event. “Ten minutes later she returned. The books were ordered, she said. So quick. Everyone went home happy.”
It wasn’t hard for Morris to tell something was amiss: “I should have seen seven UK sales within 24 hours, but there was only one. An ebook. Being indie, I know the local bookshops don’t have that many copies. Also, cheap secondhand copies on Amazon are scarce.” Learning that another author in London had seen this as a pattern, she questioned the leader of the club and was told that the group buys its books through third-party vendors on Amazon. She had suspected, of course, that the club was buying a single ebook edition, removing the DRM, and sharing it.
We contacted Nicola Solomon, chief executive with the Society of Authors in London, and she said that while she herself hasn’t seen this sort of thing in action, “ebook DRM is one of the simplest to crack—takes about three seconds to do it. In fact many indie authors want their readers to be able to read freely on any device, so based on the fact that it’s so easy to crack anyway they don’t bother with DRM at all.” Solomon did recall one author’s book club report from years ago: that she’d visited groups to find that only the organizer had a purchased copy of her collection—everyone else had photocopies.
Morris’s post has brought out some comments along the lines of “I just want to be read, and if a club doesn’t buy a few copies, it doesn’t matter.” While it’s every author’s right to choose the best strategy in such situations, no one wants to see content taken for free without clear understanding and acknowledgment.
Bottom line: While a reading group of seven people may seem small, such sales can add up and have a cascade effect, especially for literary authors. We wonder if the Society of Authors or the Alliance of Independent Authors might consider creating a simple contract draft for authors to use with local book clubs, stating that cottage piracy, even when unwitting, can be damaging, and that the author understands that each member of a club will have a legitimately purchased copy of the selected book. Or, even if an author is willing to be read by a club without pay, it’s preferable for that scenario be captured in writing so that club members realize that content is normally paid for and that the author is okay with it being made available for free. ALLi and/or the Society might also be able to arrange a way for authors to share information about which clubs aren’t buying copies, to warn others.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
