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Top Authors Make eBook Deal, Bypassing Publishers

Posted by kdawson on from the what's-mine-is-mine dept.

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%.)"

32 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A good idea by cob666 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I Agree, if ebooks are cheaper to produce then they should cost a fraction of what paper books cost. I should not have to pay 7.99 for an ebook when the physical book costs 3.99 at the book store.

    --
    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
  2. Good! by rotide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Good! by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't see where entitlement is involved in any way. Publishers/distributors offer a set of terms to which a content creator can agree or not. There is no 'why' or any balancing of who contributed what, just terms freely offered and freely accepted by the two parties involved.

      You could argue that prior to widespread digital distribution there was no practical way to distribute content on large scale without entering into an agreement above, but that is just acknowledgement of the value that the distributors are offering in their contracts.

      --
      "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
    2. Re:Good! by rotide · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course, if you sign your rights away to the digital version of your work, it's theirs. Not arguing that point in any way. But for those that haven't explicitly signed away any rights/privileges/licenses to their digital versions, it should be theirs.

      No one can say that they have some implicit right to your version of work that isn't already covered by a contract. It just doesn't work that way, and rightfully so.

    3. Re:Good! by butterflysrage · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Problem with that is good old fashioned price fixing. "We will give you 20%, nothing more", next guy says "We will give you 20%, nothing more" third guy says.... well you get the idea.

      For a physical book, you can not do any serious volume without signing on to a major publisher, and they have you by the short hair (and they know it) because they have total control over the market.

      Signed
      A "slightly" bitter author

      --
      the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
    4. Re:Good! by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have you bought a book off of a big-chain's shelf? There's heavy marketing to get books on those shelves...

      (Just because marketing isn't to the final consumer doesn't mean it doesn't exist.)

      --
      'Sensible' is a curse word.
    5. Re:Good! by IICV · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well that's the other thing - it costs almost $0 for Amazon (or anyone with any sort of real IT infrastructure) to publish an eBook. They don't have to gear up a print run, they don't have to haggle for commercial shelf space, they don't even have to pay shipping - all they do is put a 1 MB file in their multi-petabyte storage cloud, make a page based on that one template they've been using since 2000, and set the price. Every cent they get after doing that is almost pure profit.

      At that point, Amazon would be stupid to not publish every eBook they can get their hands on.

    6. Re:Good! by ISoldat53 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or the editing. Have you read many blogs lately. An editor, even in electronic media, is still needed. But I applaud the writers getting more of the profit from creating the work.

    7. Re:Good! by butterflysrage · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You don't write a book 9-5. You live it. I can't count the number of nights I've woken up and found him madly scribbling down some idea he came up with while laying in bed so he won't forget it by the next morning (hell I've done this several times on my own book). So yes, I would call it 10 "man-years" as you don't really get to 'stop' being creative if you want to write anything worth reading.

      There is also the question of how you define "work". Ya, you have to pay those loaders minimum wake to move box A to truck B. I've done that kind of job, it's painful work, it's annoying work, but it is far from what I would call "hard work". You are told what to do, when to do it, and when you are done you are done... creating doesn't have that. No one can tell you how to write a book, there are no forklifts to make it easier either, there is no whistle at the end of the shift to let you know you can stop and go home.

      --
      the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
    8. Re:Good! by butterflysrage · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe I missed it, but how did they gather their data? Does Harry Potter and the Next Big Thing count as one book or one million sold? Does Granny Jem's Guide to Catholic Churches in the North West count as one book or 5 sold?

      Yes, the advertisement on a very select few books can be insane, but just how many books get that treatment? Looking at it from a total books sold per publisher, yes, it can be impressive. However, when looked at amount spent on the average title the numbers trend down drastically.

      --
      the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
    9. Re:Good! by TubeSteak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seems a little unfair to dump your publisher after you get the fame that they helped you achieve.

      They would dump you in a hot second if it made financial sense.
      The business world and Joe Average have long been playing by different sets of rules...
      Mostly to the detriment of Joe Average.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    10. Re:Good! by SydShamino · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seems a little unfair to dump your publisher after you get the fame that they helped you achieve. It would be different if these authors has *started out* as indies.

      Then why didn't the publisher insist on a contract that included all of the author's output for the rest of his or her life, published in any medium?

      Are you trying to imply that the poor, defenseless publisher was roped into signing an inferior contract by a big, powerful no-name author? If the publisher helped make the author famous, then clearly the author was not famous when they signed their first contract with the publisher. In every case the publisher chose to promote them and their work knowing the contract would end.

      Should the company that first hired you in your chosen field be able to prevent you from ever working again? It's very likely that you learned a lot in your first professional job, so you were learning and building your resume at the same time. Seems unfair to dump your employer after you get the experience that they helped you achieve.

      Your post isn't the first time I've heard your argument. But it's a very, very anti-freedom argument.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    11. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Not true. If by editing you really mean proof-reading, yes; however a significant portion of the work of the editor is choosing fonts and doing typesetting, arranging any illustrations, and making the whole thing look professional and organized. Even if this is part of the writing process, it will still be necessary even in an ideal situation.

    12. Re:Good! by bws111 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is plenty of competition in those markets. The question is: who is competing for what? Are publishers competing for authors, or are authors competing to be published? If you are a best-selling author, then publishers will compete for you. They may try to one-up each others percentages, or offer stronger promotion, or any number of things to win that author. However, if you are an author competing to be published, then it is YOU who must offer better terms. If other authors are willing to settle for 20%, you are not going to get higher than that. If you really want to be published, you need to be willing to DROP your take, not complain that they won't give you more.

  3. yay by Lord+Ender · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I think you're forgetting something... someone still needs to distribute the books; you're just changing names and faces from HarperCollins and Tor to Amazon, Apple and B&N. The stores are STILL middlemen, and they still control the distribution.

  4. Re:A good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    All of the above. Just not (or at least not as much) to the idiots responsible tagging the movie with a production label and burning dvds. Distribution mechanisms are great, but there are cheaper ways now that mean the middle man is the one who's not doing the job and should therefore not be making a mint off it.

  5. Re:A good idea by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The only thing I don't like about this is the Amazon exclusivity. (Unless Amazon offers DRMed eBooks in formats other than the Kindle's - I haven't looked into that too much, but I understand that eBook DRM is at least semi-standardized.)

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  6. What to think of Amazon?? by Qwavel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

       

    1. Re:What to think of Amazon?? by Brett+Buck · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This will help you sort it out - they are in it for the money! That's not a bad thing, thats what they are there for.

  7. Re:What took so long? by easterberry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You mean when we invent artificial intelligence? (in before lawyer intelligence joke) Because lawyers aren't middle men. They are paid exclusively to research, think, debate, create documents and do other things that a computer can't. Lawyers aren't middle men in any way shape or form.

  8. Re:A good idea by straponego · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And there's plenty of middle ground for both.

  9. Re:A good idea by arth1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Indeed. I'm one of those who still boycott Amazon over its 1-click patent, and will continue to do so until that patent expires.
    Which means that anything sold exclusively on Amazon will be a sale they won't make to me (and others who still continue that boycott), and the money is spent elsewhere, quite possibly on competitors.

    For books, I much prefer the PeanutPress format (also known as ereader) for "locked" books, as the format is device agnostic, and I can read the same book I purchased on my PDA, my laptop, my cell phone or my Nook e-ink reader. I'm not locked down to one provider, and can continue to read AND transfer the books between devices even if Barnes and Noble should go out of business one day.

    Why people willingly go for locked down technologies like Kindle and iTunes, I'll never understand. Is it just because of the hype?

  10. Re:What took so long? by easterberry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The irony that the book publishing model is less dated than than the music industry publishing model is staggering.

  11. Re:A good idea by Kryptonian+Jor-El · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Whoever holds the copyright?? Actors, writers, directors, cameramen are all for-hire. Just like if a band hires a temp drummer, he is for hire and does not gain any of the copyrights to any songs he helps the band record, same for those rolls above. I'd assume the copyright is held by the executive producers and the movie studios, of course, and they cant cut themselves out...

    --
    All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
  12. Re:A good idea by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's only a good thing because they're not bound by a publisher, so they can further license their book rights. Kindle books are a tyranny.

    --
    Support my political activism on Patreon.
  13. Re:A good idea by b0bby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    $10 is too high for older books; even on Amazon itself, you can get a used copy of London Fields for $4 ($0.01 + 3.99 s/h). One of these days I'll get an ereader, but it will likely not be a Kindle. Their DRM is bad enough, but the ability to mess with stuff already bought & the refusal to support epub is the final straw. I'll stick with my trusty Palm Tungsten for now, my eyes are still ok.

  14. Re:In Soviet Russia... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Have you taken a look at academia lately? This is hardly news. ;)

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  15. Re:I'm not Shocked by Garwulf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, good grief...

    THIS got marked "informative"?

    Right, I'm both an author who has worked with big publishers, and the owner and operator of a small publishing company. Let me explain what happened here.

    Rather than deal with Random House's e-book terms, Wiley founded an e-book publishing company, which will be publishing the work of his clients. This is still a publisher - it's just a new one. The dispute is over electronic reprint rights, and that will depend on the wording of the contracts that Wiley's authors signed ("first English language publication rights" includes e-book rights - "first English language print publication rights" does not).

    Now, subsidiary matters:

    1. Any new book requires editing by somebody who is not the author (the author is too close to the book to be able to edit it properly), as well as typesetting (which is harder than it sounds - my first typeset job is an embarrassment to me now), as well as some form of marketing. These are what a publisher provides, and yes, they cost money. So, while an author can go it alone, and sometimes succeed, they're usually better off with an actual publisher.

    2. Publishers make much less on books than you think. Let me provide the breakdown, based on any one of my publishing company's books with a $24.95 USD cover price:

    55% goes to the wholesaler (who then sells it on to bookstores and Amazon at a 40% discount off the cover price). So, now we're down to $11.23.

    Next we have the print cost - for a print on demand book like one of mine, we're talking anywhere from $4.00 to $8.00, depending on the page count. We'll take a middle number, so $6.00 is printing. Now we're down to $5.23. Then there's the royalties on top of that.

    Now, for larger print runs (around 1500 copies and up), offset printing is used, which cuts down on the print cost considerably. But, the wholesaler still takes 55%.

    This new publisher is going to specialize in e-books, and that makes the calculation much different. If you're just going through Amazon for distribution, then you don't have the wholesaler in the picture, and that means that rather than having a net profit (before royalties) on a $10 book being around $3.50 (very rough estimate), you can have it at around $7.00.

    But these are the factors in play. It's far more complicated than you described it, and this is certainly not a case of authors going out on their own and leaving the publishing system behind.

    --
    Robert B. Marks
    Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
  16. Re:A good idea by hgriggs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They go for it because of the convenience. You might have other options open to you, but regular folks just want to click a few buttons and have the book on the device and ready to read. They don't care about DRM or patents or rights or morality. They just want the book there, and they don't want to have to think about it, or go to any extra effort to satisfy someone else's views on right or wrong.

  17. Re:A good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Exclusive to Amazon is kind of nutts. It begs for darknet intervention to supply material to non-kindle hardware.

  18. This is absolutely terrible by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!