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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Because Baen has contracts that permit it.
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Exactly. And my guess is those contracts will become the norm over the long run
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My interest is in getting the best deal I can, and if I can get more out of selling my book to multiple publishers instead of one, guess what I'll do?
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The question is: Will you be able to negotiate terms like the current ones a few years from now? My guess is: no, since both readers and publishers will profit from a world without geo-restrictions. Authors won't necessarily, of course, but they are probably going to have to adapt if they want to get published. (You'd have my sympathies there, btw: I write mainly for German TV, and both writer's rates as well as contract terms have gotten much worse over the recent years.)
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And it leaves out the thorny issue of how my book gets into other languages in the first place.
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Is that really a probem? My guess would be: Via a translator paid by the respective publisher. (Who'll probably deduct it from the author's royalties...
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Digital content is digital content. Territory issues won't go away just because you can deliver over the Internet.
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Not for existing content, of course. But the current model is so ill-suited for digital publication that I'm convinced it won't hold up much longer for new releases when (or if?) eBooks become an important market factor. The industry is going to fight change for a few years, since it always seems to do that, but at some point big name publishers will simply start demanding worldwide rights to make their life easier. And if they offer attractive terms, authors are going to go for it, eventually.
Just my personal guess, of course. Feel free to ridicule me a few years from now, if the current territorial model should actually manage to successfully survive a market dominated by eBooks.
