After an author complained publicly on Twitter about the publisher’s poor treatment, AW&C president John Quattrocchi posted an open letter to authors, apologizing for delayed payments and other issues. Then, in an interview with Publishers Weekly, Quattrocchi blamed the problem on changing distributors, which he says led to slower cash flow. (The company switched from in-house distribution to the distributor IPG in 2018, then switched back to in-house for 2020.) Agents have pointed out that payment problems at AW&C are longstanding; the Association of Authors’ Representatives alerted its membership to such issues in March 2018 and again this year. The Authors Guild has posted a statement that demands transparency from AW&C and rectification of past-due royalties. For a long accounting of author grievances and the company’s problematic behavior over the last decade, read Claire Kirch in Publishers Weekly.
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.
