[taustin]

The second most common complaint I see, after erratic pricing, is on geographic restrictions on sales (and it certainly is annoying, and part of an outdated business model). The consensus is that publishers are entirely at fault, and do it out of evil stupidity and greed (and they certainly are guilty of both in spades).

However, I believe that there is more to it than that. And, in fact, I believe that more of the push-back on this is from authors than from publishers. Because, you see, the tradtional busines model of publishers buying rights only for specific countries did not originate with publishers' interests, but authors. That system is a source of additional revenue to authors, not publishers.

If I sell rights to a publisher in the US, who is not going to sell (paper) books outside the US, then if I sell them worldwide rights, I can't sell, say, European rights to a British publisher for more money, or rights to publish in Russian to a Russian publisher.

The change that has taken place is that, in the past, publishers were OK with that because they were not getting rights they had no practical way to use anyway. But the internet has changed that, and any publisher can sell direct to a consumer on another continent as easily as to the guy who lives next door. I suspect that most publishers would love to get worldwide rights on every new contract. But authors will not - and should not - give up additional rights, especially additional rights that will translate directly to additional income for the publisher, without getting more money. Not necessarily a higher royalty percentage (just for the extra geographical rights, at any rate), but a higher advance, and perhaps a change in the way the royalty percentage changes as sales build up.

And all this at a time when the market is demanding lower retail prices in the incorrect perception that ebooks cost a lot less to produce than paper books (when, in fact, it isn't that much less). Caught between a rock and a hard place, and they are generally not too bright, and are, generally, far more interested in making their boat payment than serving the market well.

I think authors are going to need to adjust to the worldwide nature of the interent as much as publishers are, and I think it's going to be every bit as painful for them.