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Thanks for the link, Blue Tyson. Interesting. As usual publishers come in for the flak. But I'm surprised that those publishers quoted in the article don't raise one important point ... they're not to blame.
My own indie house holds international rights to all its titles, so I have no vested interest in the huge row over territorial rights; but I've been in publishing for forty-five years now and know enough to point out that it's authors and their agents who lay down the territorial law. I've done it myself very, very often in the past.
An agent representing an author is working in his client's best interests (and he has a percentage stake in the result), so he will go for royalties deals with different publishers in different parts of the world to maximise up-front royalties advances and to ensure the highest possible income after those advances have earned out.
This arrangement often means several publishers running the same book without syncronised launch date, with different cover designs, sometimes with editorial differences in text. An author can only be in one place at one time, so even vital promotion can be staggered. Territorial rights thus established have been traditionally respected by publishing and retail.
Where there is now a muddle is with the universal reach of a single ebook edition sans frontier. There is no easy answer for publishers or retailers. It's really in the hands of agents who collect by selling both print AND digital rights to several houses, each in a strictly separate region.
One solution might well be an agent's negotiation of print and digital rights separately. But what major house dealing with titles and authors with best-seller potential is likely these days to sign for print only, with ebook reading on the boom and already eating into print profits? Another way might be to sell publishing rights by language rather than country, but could, say, a UK or Australian or New Zealand house really afford the massive cost of increased advances and print publishing also in the US just to also secure the international English-language digital rights?
One thing is sure -- the customer is always right. And the ebook reader is justifiably miffed. Everyone in the chain from author to agent to publisher to retailer must realise that this is a major problem that somehow has to be fixed quickly or everyone stands to lose.
Cheers. Neil
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