Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Well, of course not all books are currently available in ebooks. The point is that since ebooks don't take warehouse space and are not taxed as inventory, you can easily always make them available for purchase. Having a book always available for purchase is a very different model than the old model of a book being reprinted every few years on a regular basis. Ebooks only go out of print when the copyright holder doesn't want to make them available. While I'm sure there will be the occasion where the copyright holder wants to remove them from the market, I doubt it will be the norm.
|
Ebook contracts have clauses listing when the rights revert to the copyright holder (i.e., author), and they are usually time based and/or units sold per time period. If the Cordwainer Smith books are no longer sold by Baen, it's likely the rights reverted to his heirs/literary estate, and they haven't been able to sell them to another publisher yet and they're not prepared to self-publish. I think it's much less likely that the copyright holder wants to remove them from the market, ever.