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%.)"

Comments

Re:Good!

[roman_mir]

Well, it's not a surprise. Do you know what the markup is at a clothing store on those designer jeans or any suit or dress, etc?

Here are the numbers: anything at all did not cost the store more than 20 dollars. In fact $20 is the highest price that a store would ever pay for any dress or any single piece of clothing.

A cashmere sweater cost you $350? It cost the store $14.

Of-course I am not talking about sable fur coats, that's a different purchase price, but it's not thousands of dollars either.

And that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Re:A good idea

[commodore64_love]

>>>To use a film clip in a TV show, for instance, you may need permission not only from the studio, but also from the actors, writers, and director, depending on how their contracts were negotiated.

Usually the studio retains all rights to show a TV show on air and on videotape, while the actors/writers get fixed residuals from each airing or sale. That eliminates the need to renegotiate every time you air an old episode. ----- The problem arises when a new technology comes along. Like DVDs. The music industry said the songs were licensed for TV and Videotapes, not for dvd, and therefore the music industry demanded more money for each song used. That forced the studios to renegotiate each-and-every song.

Likewise I think it's reasonable to say: The authors only licensed their creations for books and audio, not electronic editions. So they are free to sell those e-editions directly to amazon without the studio's prior permission.