A state regulation has recently been amended for clarification purposes regarding publishing. Regulation 1543 states that any transfer of copy or a manuscript, cartoon and/or comic strip from an author to a publisher explicitly for publication purposes is a nontaxable activity. The transfer of the original manuscript or copy, whether in tangible or machine-readable form is incidental and the author is to be considered the consumer of the property. (Regulation 1543, California State Board of Equalization, effective September 18, 2002)