Tw’accuse! Rebecca Eckler takes to Twitter to protest missing payments from Key Porter

With Senate page Brigette DePape’s silent demonstration during last week’s speech from the throne and the ongoing uprisings in the Middle East, the spirit of protest is definitely in the air.

That spirit may have moved author and lifestyle columnist Rebecca Eckler to take to Twitter with her complaints about money owed to her by Key Porter Books, which published her recent novel The Lucky Sperm Club, one of the last books it released this past spring before shutting down operations.

This morning, Eckler sent out a series of tweets, beginning with one that read, “So, Key Porter owes me $9,000. No small change friends. Nothing I can do either except say, ‘HONOR YOUR FUCKING CONTRACTS!’ #nomorenicegirl.” She later wrote that she was forced to spend a thousand dollars to buy copies of her book, and that she would tweet her complaints “once a day until eternity.”

When asked for clarification, Eckler told Q&Q the $9,000 represents the last part of her advance for the novel, and that Key Porter has “ignored me, ignored my agents.” She says she bought her books back from Key Porter (which also published two earlier memoirs by Eckler) and that she is working directly with Indigo to get copies of them in stores.

See below for selected screencaps of Eckler’s tweets:

East Coast author files lawsuit against Warner Bros.

A Nova Scotia sailor and writer is suing Warner Bros. for allegedly plagiarizing his novel, Fandango’s Gold, for their 2008 Matthew McConaughey/Kate Hudson vehicle Fool’s Gold.

In a statement of claim filed in federal court last week, Lou Boudreau maintains that writer-director Andy Tennant’s screenplay shares “uncanny” similarities with Boudreau’s book, written in 1999. Fandango’s Gold, based on the author’s real-life experience as a diver and fisherman, was registered with the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia and published in 2006 by Tiller Publishing, a Maryland-based press specializing in nautical books.

The claim doesn’t specify the amount Boudreau is seeking in damages, though he says he’s entitled to the same cut afforded to the screenwriter of the film, which made over $300 million.

From Halifax’s The Chronicle-Herald:

In his statement of claim, Boudreau says his manuscript ended up in the hands of movie industry insiders, particularly in California, because he spent about five years between 1999 and 2004 promoting it.

In an interview… Boudreau said Fandango’s Gold starts out as the tale of a Spanish sailor on a galleon laden with gold sailing for Spain. It runs into a hurricane and is wrecked on a remote atoll in the Caribbean. The crew carries the treasure ashore and hides it in an underground cave with a passage to the sea.

[...]

In his statement of claim, Boudreau lists pages of similarities between his book and the film. They include the two romantic leads looking for the galleon’s treasure, the female lead being taken hostage by the bad guys, and the lead characters finding the treasure in an underground cave and swimming through an underwater tunnel to safety.

Boudreau is wading into risky waters – many an author has taken on big U.S. production companies and filmmakers, and the results haven’t necessarily been favourable. (Remember when Rebecca Eckler took on Judd Apatow in 2007?) In the end, Boudreau says he has to stand up for his work and his “moral rights.”

“I’m the little schooner captain from Cape Breton and they are Warner Bros. Therein lies the great inequity,” he told The Chronicle-Herald. “It’s important for me because I wrote this book. It was very personal to me.”

How you know you’re in a recession, Part MMCXIIV

Quillblog is well aware that hard economic times have a disproportionate effect on writers (who aren’t usually in the top earning brackets to begin with) but it’s a sign that things have become untenable when authors are auctioning off characters in their upcoming books. It sounds unbelievable, but that’s exactly what Nathan Tyree is doing. The author of Zombie Lust and the New Flesh and How to Make Love Like a Zombie is offering some lucky bidder the opportunity to appear as “a major character” in an upcoming novel.

This is not the first time an author has auctioned off a character in a novel. Stephen King, Amy Tan, Lemony Snicket, and John Grisham did so for charity back in 2005, as did Margaret Atwood in a 2007 fundraiser (that one went to Rebecca Eckler, who worried that Atwood might turn her “into a crack-whore-murderer”). But, to Quillblog’s knowledge, this is the first time an author has offered a chance to appear as a major character in a novel, complete with physical description and character traits.

According to Tyree’s seller’s description on eBay:

The winner will have to provide me with their name, a photo of themselves, a description of their personality and mannerisms, a bio (background info and such). I will write the novel and guarantee publication within one year of the end of the auction. Then they will also receive a free copy of the book.

No word as to whether the character will be a hero or a villain (or a zombie), or will survive to the end of the book without being viciously decapitated.

As of this morning, the top bid was $40.

The most popular Quillblog posts of 2008

A look back at the most visited posts of 2008, with no comment or judgment (beyond a little shudder of despair over #1, which was nearly 10 times as popular as #2).

Next year on Quillblog: more penis references.

10. Sony Reader fails to wow them at WOTS

9. Photos from the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award

8. L.M. Montgomery’s sad end

7. Russell Smith takes on Stephenie Meyer

6. Rebecca Eckler and the cyber-bullies

5. Meyer dumps new Twilight installment

4. Canadian praise for the not-in-Canada Kindle

3. High school student expelled for short story

2. Small Press Book Fair spat gets ugly

1. U.S. publisher relents on eensy-weensy penis in German kids book

The Q&Q online-only bonus review blowout

The latest issue of Q&Q includes reviews of 40 new books, but we’re not stopping there. We’ve just posted an additional dozen new online-only reviews, covering some big titles that might otherwise have slipped through the production-schedule cracks. (We also wanted to weigh in on a spring title, Atmospheric Disturbances, that has recently garnered award attention.) The books in question are listed below, with links to the reviews.

Non-fiction

• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
• Hell or High Water: My Life in and out of Politics by Paul Martin
• Hope & Despair: My Struggle to Free My Husband, Maher Arar by Monia Mazigh
• I Live Here by Mia Kirshner, J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge, and Michael Simons
• Dispersing the Fog: Inside the Secret World of Ottawa and the RCMP by Paul Palango

Fiction

• Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
• Distantly Related to Freud by Ann Charney
• Fear of Fighting by Stacey May Fowles; Marlena Zuber, illus.

Books for young people

• Rotten Apple by Rebecca Eckler
• Milton’s Secret by Eckhart Tolle and Robert S. Friedman; Frank Riccio, illus.
• Numbers by David A. Poulsen
• The Lit Report by Sarah N. Harvey

Event photos: Eckler’s Apple launch

Rebecca Eckler launched her latest book, the kids’ novel Rotten Apple (Doubleday Canada), at Toronto’s Ten Spot Nail Bar on Oct. 22. (Photos courtesy of Jenna Illies, Random House of Canada.)

One perk: on-the-spot manicures.

Eckler with fellow Doubleday author Jan Wong.

Author David Layton, Doubleday Canada editor Tim Rostron, and Canadian Idol judge Jake Gold.

Maclean‘s editor Ken Whyte, who gave Eckler her first big job at the National Post, flanked by Random House publicity assistants Taylor McInnes and Jenna Illies.

Event photos: The Catch

Louisa McCormack launched her latest novel, The Catch (Key Porter Books), at Type Books in Toronto last week, doing an interview with National Post style columnist Nathalie Atkinson. Attendees included Russell Smith, Rebecca Eckler, Canada AM’s Seamus O’Regan, owner of the Peach Berserk clothing store Kingi Carpenter, and Stuck in Downward Dog author Chantel Simmons. (Photos courtesy of Key Porter Books.)

McCormack and Atkinson.

.

Key Porter senior designer Marijke Friesen and editor Jane Warren.

Key Porter marketing manager Daniel Rondeau with Chantel Simmons and publicist Kelly Ward.

Scenes from the show floor, part 3

More photos from Sunday afternoon at the show. In this set: Michael Rose, the BookShorts touchscreen terminals, Edeet Ravel, Donna Morrissey, Rebecca Eckler (who rivaled Elizabeth Hay for the longest lineup at BookExpo Canada), John McFetridge, Robert J. Sawyer, and more.

(more…)

Rebecca Eckler and the cyber-bullies

Author Rebecca Eckler has a piece in Maclean‘s about being mocked and criticized in online forums. “They’re barely worth a minute of my time,” she writes of her detractors. Apparently, though, they are worth a 1,600-word article in which Eckler compares her own experiences to those of cyber-bullied teenagers.

The year in Quillblog

We are officially on holiday as of yesterday, but we thought we should end the Quillblog year with a look back at our ten most popular posts of the year.

They are:

• Secrets of the Canadian literary cabal (January 23)
• Event Photos: George Jonas launches book with a little help from Conrad Black (March 29)
• Fun with blurbs (Rebecca Eckler edition) (April 2)
• Eckler vs. Hollywood (June 4)
• Harry Potter and the Online Leak (July 18)
• Lawyers are not rats, say lawyers (July 30)
• CanLit hates youth, says young author (October 22)
• Bill O’Reilly outs J.K. Rowling as a “provocateur” (October 24)
• The Golden Compass banned by Catholic school board (November 22)
• The most influential people in the Canadian book-biz are….? (November 26)

What these posts say about our readership we wouldn’t presume to say.

All we can do is hope that all you scandal-loving, muckraking, conspiracy-minded booklovers who delight in the misfortune of others have some very happy holidays.

See you in the new year for more of this kind of thing.

Feel free to tell us in the comments what your favourite books of the year were, what books you hope to be given as presents, what books you plan to give yourself as presents, and what books you are looking forward to next year.

Oh, and tell us how you think the industry should handle the issue of pricing differentials – you know, Christmasy stuff.