If you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and have nothing to do this weekend (and if I'd been on the ball and written this much earlier, you'd have had warning) ConDFW is going on in North Dallas at the Crown Plaza Suites Dallas-Park Center.

This is a new hotel for ConDFW, and it should be an exciting weekend. Writer Guests of Honor are David Weber, who needs no definition or introduction, and Jim Butcher - of the Dresden Files and the Alera fantasy series.

In an unusual move, ConDFW's Artist Guest of Honor is actually an animation studio, Janimation. I'm not sure how that's going to work, but personally looking forward to meeting them.

The other guests/panelists at ConDFW are the "usual suspects" for the area - but Dallas/Fort Worth area boasts a HUGE number of "local" major talent: Rachel Caine (Morganville Vampires and Weather Wardens), PN Elrod, Carole Nelson Douglas (for the mystery fans), just to name a VERY, VERY few. This is a full-range literary and artistic convention.

For the aspiring writer, this is a great place to network with some small press editors and publishers, like YardDogPress. With writers, artists, and to buy books you might never buy otherwise.

This is a perfect opportunity to support the industry and keep science fiction and fandom alive. Hope to see you there.

I wrote up this big long rant yesterday about the world at large not respecting writers in terms of morals and money. It's an old rant that comes up often as I look for work as a freelance author. You'd think that with the rise of Social Networks, the Blogosphere, and Viral Marketing, avenues for the industrious writer would abound. And it does. If you don't mind working for basically nothing.

On October 28, 2008 The Authors Guild announced their settlement with Google. Their class-action lawsuit has been going on since 2005 when Google started scanning and making books available online from University libraries - books that were both in and out of copyright. Google believed they had every right to put books online without paying for the privilege. The lawsuit took three years to settle. Google has agreed to pay $45 Million for books already scanned.

If approved by the Federal Judge, the settlement allows for the scanning of books into a database that subscribers can search and purchase. 63% of the proceeds go to the publishers and author. Payments will be made to publishers and authors through a "book registry" which, according to Ray Blount's statement, "can be thought of as the writers’ equivalent of ASCAP."

Unfortunately, if the book registry works like ASCAP, smaller list writers and small press writers will see little to no money from this organization. ASCAP works on a percentage basis. All ASCAP usage money goes into a pot and songwriters are paid on their rankings in the usage charts - so the higher selling artists AT THE TIME, like Britney Spears' songwriters, get the money.

Now I don't know how exactly the Book Registry is supposed to work, but if it's in the image of ASCAP, then my small press title that gets scanned into Google Books can make $1 in fees and yet if JK Rowling and Stephen King publish a book that year - $0.80 of my $1 could go to them. That's always a good feeling, isnt' it? We'll definitely need to keep an eye on this as it plays out, but the only thing that's guaranteed, the authors are still getting screwed. Matt Ratcliffe has a similar take on the outcome.

Technology has given writers more outlets than ever before to ply their trade. Unfortunately, that also means more avenues to be screwed over. Writers are not Indonesian Sweatshop Children - in fact, if you look at what many web content companies want to pay for articles, those exploited, Third World kids are better paid than most writers, and they aren't required to have a degree. There's just something wrong with that picture.

Writers do have dues to pay and donate their time and talents to worthy causes - but that should be a choice not an assumption.