|
No attempt to hold onto paper rights when they're not selling, even if the e-Book sells like hot-cakes. And, since the e-Rights are non-exclusive, authors are free to sell those rights elsewhere too (starting right away). Essentially, they treat reversion of the e-Rights and the paper rights quite separately.
That might be true for Baen, but I don't believe it is an industry wide phenomenon. I believe that Harlequin's e-rights are quite punitive to the author and S&S wanted to stage a rights grab similar to what Harlequin has had. There was much discussion of the S&S "rights grab" over the late spring. There are also different royalty rates for some authors for ebook sales and print sales. You are right that ebook and print sales are treated differently.
I.e., some authors are resistant to ebook sales because those sales are not reported to any of the major bestseller lists and thus ebook sales can hurt an authors' chances of getting on those lists (which is hugely important and not simply because of the recognition but because being on the list can propel sales).
I also haven't seen any publisher, outside of Baen, purchase non-exclusive rights to ebooks, particularly the epublishers. Where would their profit be then?
|