Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Correct. but whomever it was that accepted those bid terms (bankruptcy court?) didn't have to accept the Amazon bid if it was too miserly.
Note that there are many titles that no solvent publisher has purchased, and those authors also get reversion rights:
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat...authors_b58967 |
Right. It was a bankuptcy court auction.
The authors had zero say.
If Amazon had outbid everybody else without being author friendly they still would have gotten the contracts.
The point is the authors have no control once they sign the deal; the contract can be sold, traded, or even gifted.
Every author gets to weigh the pros and cons for themselves but when you're making a deal that lasts a century the potential for remorse is very high.
For example: ebook rights (when they were explicitly mentioned at all) were originally lumped in under subsidiary rights at 50% of list. Then it got changed to a pbook-like 15% of list. Not content, the publishers changed it enmasse few years back, around 2009, to 25% of net. In at least one publisher's case, the amendments went out to authors directly, bypassing the agents. Big todo all over. (I saw it all unfold at Teleread.)
One of many reports:
http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/simon...ook-royalties/
Fast forward a few years and mass market paperbacks are vanishing, print shelf space is down by half... and ebooks are the most profitable format around but not for tradpub authors.
Look around and you'll find plenty of other similar stories.
The life of midlist authors has never been easy: the biggest change is that what happens in Manhattan no longer stays in manhattan, now it shows up online for readers and other interested parties to see.