Slashdot Mirror
Top Authors Make eBook Deal, Bypassing Publishers
RobotRunAmok writes "Home to 700 authors and estates, from Philip Roth to John Updike, Jorge Luis Borges, and Saul Bellow, the Wylie Agency shocked the publishing world yesterday when it announced the launch of Odyssey Editions. The new initiative is selling ebook editions of modern classics, including Lolita, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, exclusively via Amazon.com's Kindle store, leaving conventional publishers out of the picture. The issue boils down to who holds digital rights in older titles published before the advent of ebooks, with publishers arguing that the ebook rights belong to them, and authors and agents responding that, if not specifically granted, the digital rights remain with the author. Publishers and authors are also at loggerheads over the royalty that should be paid for ebooks: authors believe they should be getting up to double the current standard rate of 25%, because ebooks are cheaper to produce than physical editions. (Amazon pays authors 70%.)"
As far as I'm concerned, this is a very good thing. Any time one can get remuneration to the actual content creators instead of the middle-men is a good idea in my book. Now, maybe the prices will drop a little on these things. And in the future, maybe the movie industry can move this way too (yeah, I know, wishful thinking).
Publishers, whether it be of music, books, etc, all seem to have this idea that they are entitled to more of the profits than the people who actually _created_ the work.
Now, in the case of physical items, such as printed books, etc, there is the issue of mass producing it, distribution, deals with resellers, etc, etc. I can see where merely _creating_ the original can potentially pale in comparison to the work it takes to actually make/move/sell the item.
But, in the case of digital distribution, it takes next to nothing to make after the initial eBook/PDF is created. Merely the cost of duplicating those bits which equates to a tiny amount of electricity and then a little bit more plus bandwidth to push the item. Pennies. Sold with a _heafty_ profit margin.
Why would a publisher need to take all this profit? Or even a large percentage? They have next to no costs associated with the make/move/sell aspect of digital distribution. Sure, some guy at the end of the road, such as Amazon, needs an online storefront to actually make the sale, but beyond that these things are pretty much on par with Star Trek Replicators. Poof! another copy! Poof! Ten million more!
Damn straight the creators get the majority of the cut on this form of media/distribution. No need for presses, warehouses, massive shipping requirements, shelf space, etc, etc, etc.
Seriously I understand publishing a book in multiple languages and in multiple countries is a big deal but they should have saw this one coming for a long time now. If you are the middle man and technology rears it's ugly head prepare to be marginalized or bypassed completely.
I cannot wait for the day when this happens to Lawyers.
The digital revolution will continue to cut out the middle men until everyone has to actually produce something to make a living. RIAA, MPAA, and publisher parasites will no longer run the show.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Or is it just their estates, or rather, the agency in charge of them?
Hey, look at this RIAA! This is the record label industry getting murdered, and everyone else benefiting!
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
>>>"with publishers arguing that the ebook rights belong to them, and authors and agents responding that, if not specifically granted, the digital rights remain with the author."
This is the same argument that the music industry made with DVDs. The songs were licenses for TV and Videotapes, not for dvd, and therefore the music industry demanded more money for each song used. Likewise I think it's reasonable to say: the authors only licensed for books and audio, not electronic editions.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
At last, the trend is turned, and is going fast in the right direction. Who wanna to keep 1000 "normal" books in his house??? (1000 is the number of books that i bought during my still short life)
To be honest how can anyone be surprised at this? When books were set free from paper and placed onto the Internet it was only a matter of time before authors decided to cut out the publisher. They no longer have a need for them. Publishers should get wise and start to provide real value to the authors. If I write a book and do not require your editing, marketing or printing services why exactly do you expect to keep 75% of the sale price?
Give it time and most large authors will just sell their ebooks directly via their own websites.
This is exactly what the Internet is supposed to be about. Giving the little guy the chance to eliminate the need for the big guy.
Cheers for these Authors!
Short answer: They've already done so, they got sued, and the publishers lost.
Random House's standard contract specified they had the exclusive right to sell the works in "book form". The authors asserted, and the courts agreed, that "book form" did not include electronic rights.
This looks like a retarded money grab and nothing more. If the author's are so sure they retain "digital rights," why doesn't one of them post a book the publisher still has the rights to, in its entirety, on a website and see what happened.
Is this not what they just did? At least for the dead ones I doubt they have books without a publisher. Maybe you are just angry that they still want money, but you cannot blame the middleman?
the first book offered under this deal will be titled 'Balkanization'. Seems apropos.
I really don't know what to think of Amazon.
Sometimes they are great for consumers - competing fair and square with great prices and a great website.
Their video service is available to anyone with Flash, and while many people hate Flash (and some now don't have access to it) that seemed like a good way to allow customers to view the video they purchased across a very broad range of OS's, browsers and devices.
Then they go and do something like this, which seems to lead us to a world where different retailers control different books and have no competition in the sales of those books. This is very bad for consumers.
This avoid competition and seems to guarantee their customers higher prices. This is the sort of thing I would expect from Apple, not Amazon. I thought Amazon was prepared to compete fairly in book sales?
So instead of making the books cheaper so that more are sold... we try like hell to keep it at status quo so we can increase profits...
at 70% royalties and ebooks selling at the same price as dead tree editions... I feel far less guilt getting the cracked epub off of a torrent site..of dead tree books I own...
The authors are getting as bad as the publishers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The author pays the publisher.
Wait a minute! That's how it works in academia.
Not only are you not a lawyer you don't know much about contracts or publishing rights either. Publishing rights are sold on a country by country basis and format by format basis. If you sell a book to be marketed in the US your publisher has no right to sell it in the UK or Australia unless they negotiate that separately. Same goes for audio books. So those advances are paid for the rights that were negotiated in the contract. Given that's the case then why would you think a pre-digital paper publishers have the right to publish digitally unless they've negotiated it or you work for a publisher who's interested in spreading FUD? The older contracts don't include those rights. Unless a contract is written specifically to allow future changes then things don't get grandfathered into a contract. They have to be renegotiated.
Reminds me when Valve started Steam, Vivendi got pissed for being bypassed.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I imagine that many of the authors that this greatly effects are the ones that do this as a full-time job. If no one buys their books NEW, then they see no money, or maybe no future book deal. The profit margin approaches 100% after enough time and copies have sold. This allows the good authors to write full-time and not have to worry about asking if we want fries with our order. Book sales trail off after release, so the most money is to be made in that first year, though some books enjoy a long life of sales popularity. So, good for the authors.
This is a very bad deal for consumers, in the end. My copy of "Nothing: The History of Zero" was a fun read. Now that I am done with it, I can give it to a friend, sell it, trade it in at Half-Priced Books, etc. In this way, I can recoup some of my cost. And the book can be purchased and resold many times, profits staying in the hands of the seller each time. The author makes nothing. The DRM on the eBooks prevents you from selling it, or giving it away.
Thus, in a sly maneuver to make big publishing look like evil bastards (not a difficult task), the authors conveniently and quietly take control of book distribution and remove the freedom of the consumer to control the end product themselves. This is bad. Very bad.
Thus, I am conflicted. Yay for getting what you deserve to be paid. Boo for limiting my ability to resell the book.
Bearded Dragon
What did Amazon offer to get exclusivity for two years? My hunch is that Amazon agreed to heavily promote the books on its site, and wouldn't do so if they also went to BN and Apple.
Also, they apparently don't have the rights to decent looking book covers - the current covers are pretty ugly. Seriously - who thought it was a good idea to include quotations as cover art when it goes on devices like cell phones? Just the title and author in a decent font would do.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
> This publishing programme is designed to address that need, and to help ebook readers build a digital library of classic contemporary literature.
> It offers 20 modern literary classics as ebooks for the first time, exclusively via Amazon.com's Kindle store.
So, you should build your library with ebooks DRM-looked to Amazon's kindle.
Yeah, right. I think I will pass.
Setting aside the issue of circumventing the print publisher, exclusive deals like this are extremely consumer-hostile. We're rapidly careening towards a world in which you can only read the set of e-books that's compatible with your reader. I like to think that as a society, we'll stop buying books from publishers (Wylie is acting as publisher of the ebook in this case) that are so shamelessly consumer-hostile. And that writers will refrain from sending their work to agents/publishers that are in the business of screwing over readers. But I know better.
It seems, the publishers have already began to strike back:
http://www.michaelastackpole.com/?p=1582
Btw.: On above blog there are a lot of articles about ebooks, creation, costs & how much a writer gets paid. In case somebody wants to know details...
The 25% figure is only for those who are known bestsellers. If you are a nobody... you are lucky to get $5000 from the publisher total. JK Rowling for the first harry potter book went to tons of different publishers. They all ignored her. One of the publishers was going to ignore her but a daughter had picked up the book and read it and wanted to know how it ended. The publisher decided to pick it up for $4000 and that's it. The first harry potter book has made about a $1,000,000,000 and JKRowling hasnt seen a dime beyond that original $4000. Publishers are making fucking loads of cash with no risk. That's why kindle ebooks and services like lulu are so much better because you are the author retain the copyright the entire time. Not to mention the 75%-80% author profits. Publishers are losing out on their bullshit.
We had to specifically name digital rights or we couldn't publish an ebook, and it was a major pain if there were any photos in the book, since we had to negotiate rights for those as well. In fact, many of the older books, we didn't even bother. We just made them sans pictures, which really crippled some books. But that's copyright for you.
Also, it was negotiated that print and ebook would give the same royalty rates, but we bumped up royalties by 5% overall. Just for a non-representative example, I suppose. Being a University Press, and Canadian, we're not really playing in the same field as US textbook publishers, or trade publishers.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
What happens when the publishers demonstrate some e-book reader in the form of a book?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Now, if they could bypass Amazon, we'd be at our destination.
The Kindle format is not standard. Nobody but Amazon uses it.
This deal, while a good start, leaves out a large market, all the people who use other readers. Unless they offer these books in ePub format, it is a big fail.
The only thing I don't like about this is the Amazon exclusivity.
The "only thing"? I'm practically screaming about it!
I have a Nook. It's a superior e-reader to the Kindle. (YMMV.) What this deal is saying is that I may not read any of the affected books on my Nook, period. If I prefer to read on my Nook, then POOF! These books are lost to me. Apparently, permanently. I do not understand how these authors (or their heirs) can sit still for that.
And I know the Slashdot audience tends to read mostly fantasy and sci-fi books, but for the literature-minded among you, Jesus titty-fucking Christ! These are indeed modern classics, lost to Amazon's DRM. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Ellison's Invisible Man? London Fields? The Naked and the Dead? These are great books... and now I may not read them in a digital edition unless I give $199 + $10 to Amazon. Fuck me.
Breakfast served all day!
If the author's [sic] are so sure they retain "digital rights," why doesn't one of them post a book the publisher still has the rights to, in its entirety, on a website and see what happened.
Cory Doctorow did, and it got him on the New York Times best seller list.
BTW, since you're an illiterate, why are you concerned about books?
Free Martian Whores!
I wonder if iTunes could pull something like this off with bands. Holy hell, that'd be a day in paradise now, wouldn't it? Finally break the back of the RIAA.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Half of the authors mentioned in the article are dead. The people receiving money are not the authors, but whoever holds the rights... I will be happy to see a scheme in which authors are the ones that actually receive the money while still alive. Still, happy to see some of the leeches in the middle out...
I can see if you are a physical book collector or like to maintain a collection, eBooks will seem stupid. To each his own.
Well I'm a dedicated bibliophile and I see the advantages of E-books. The only problem is the technology hasn't caught up to the state of the art of the printed book.
this is one of those issues in the larger IP discussion that drives me fucking bonkers. what did/does work in the physical world, just doesn't cut it on a global network. in fact, it is retarded. sectioning it off any more is just stupid. license globally or gtfo.
...
Mobipocket does, which for many years was a staple on a slew of pre-WebOS Palm products (including the Centro and Treo family). Of course, since Amazon bought it and took over the MOBI format (which is merely a file extension change from the old PRC format - everything else remains the same), they have been content to keep old Mobipocket customers frustrated with a lack of DRM-capable reader for them. Feh!
Anyway, a pox on Amazon for this but I just wanted to point out that their format may not be as widely used as ePub but is about as widely used as any other format (except ePub). Besides, Mobipocket still offers its publisher software for free so it's actually much more open than any other format (except again, ePUB). Just wish it hadn't been hijacked by Amazon.
If the publishers own the digital rights and the title is not currently available in eBook form then I say that the publishers have either:
1: Clearly forfeited the rights by not using them, or
2: Clearly don't believe that they do own the rights since they're not making any effort to monetize them -- and who knows of any publisher to walk away from easy money?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Just curious that the title of this story ways "Top Authors Make eBook Deal" yet once again it seems to be all about the publisher...
and now I may not read them in a digital edition unless I give $199 + $10 to Amazon
I think you can run free kindle software on your PC, Mac, Linux box, Android device, iPad, or iPod Touch.
See subject line above and as far as your 'widespread opposition' moron? Anyone is free to read how stupid you are here versus the widespread opposition to your stupid and obvious trolling here http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1725068&cid=32968572 as well as any of the posts in this exchange which began on this thread which was modded up http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1725068&cid=32960808 and which you tried to troll and you did a massive fail on. Silanea, the evidence in those 2 posts show you are nothing more than an idiotic uneducated troll, and quite clearly. You can try to "play smart" here you moronic dolt, but those 2 url's show you are anything but intelligent.
simian
intelligence
lamebrain
and
not
educated
also
I guess I assumed literacy was more concerned with reading comprehension than proper use of an apostrophe. As long as we're being dick lickers, I'll also provide a citation. You, ironically, are the one that failed at reading comprehension. I'm not sure which part of my post led you to believe I'm concerned about books.
FWIW, I understand how to use an apostrophe. I honestly read four words of the quote (that's right, I didn't even make it to YOUR comments) and stopped to think "Jesus Christ, I accidentally put an apostrophe where it doesn't belong and this douche bag goes out of his way to point it out." You can imagine my reaction to the last line.
Your hostility makes me feel like you ARE concerned about books, or at least authors, and don't like what I said. My best advice is to read this. And remember: Even though it worked for Will Hunting, insulting my intelligence isn't going to impress any girls.
In fact, you remind me of one of my favorite quotes, you fucking loser. Addresses the only two cases I can think of to explain your behavior.
Guy 1: I think he has Asperger's.
Guy 2: Yeah, but he's all ass and no burger.
Whale
Silanea I read those urls and you came in there trolling and now you're complaining about it like a beyotch? Please. Who are you attempting to fool here?? It seems you like to dish it out in trolling but when it comes back your way, you cry like a bitch. Grow up. You can also stop attempting to issue orders like you run things around here, because new news/clue: You do not.
I am bored. Let me poke the troll. Brightens up the day every time - by silanea (1241518) writes: on Tuesday July 20, @10:07AM (#32963666)
After you said that quoted above, you're trying to play "innocent victim" here you fucking troll? Don't make us laugh, you stupid fuck! You sow the wind, now you reap the whirlwind you little trolling punk, so you had better learn to take what you yourself dish out and quit crying like a little girl. Instead of bothering others as you did here http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1725068&cid=32963666 and then you messed up with radically inaccurate and faulty technical data on your part, you have the nerve to complain? Shut the fuck up already because you're attempting to insult the rest of us that can actually read you dimwitted screwball.
You reply with rumor and ad-homs. Either cite your sources or move on.
As for mine: Dune ( The Road to Dune (2005), p. 264 )
LoTR: "World War I and World War II". http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html. Retrieved 16 June 2006.
I'm afraid I will have to go home to look up the info on Journeys of the Catechist (the one I was not to sure on)
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.