Quote:
|
Bob Mayers just did a post over on another forum talking about how he wanted his backlist rights back so he could self-publish them. He expected a long drawn out argument to prove he had never sold the erights. (Bob is a fairly high midlist seller in a couple of genres.) Basically according to what he wrote, the publisher didn't argue at all. Now, granted, they probably didn't have a leg to stand on, but they could have made an OFFER to try and get some of the "real estate" out of the series he was talking about--it's stil in print. This was a series that sold EXTREMELY well (a million copies comes to mind, but don't quote me on that. I'd have to go verify the number. But even if it were 100,000, you'd think the publisher might want to negotiate for e-rights to get some of that.)
|
It may be the reason is that making money from the back-list just isn't the sure shot proposition people make it out to be.
If Bob Mayer makes a go of it, we will see publishers do it more. If he fails... well I'm sure folks on this forum will concoct lots of explanations about how he didn't do it right.