Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
It's not odd for non-fiction.
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And, just to remind people, Google would have allowed authors and estates to charge, for the eBooks, whatever they wanted up to $29.99, of which the rights-holder would get $18.89 (63 percent). It is only the titles where no rights-holder came forward (or where the rights holder was content with the Google recommendation) where Google would set the price, 63 percent of which would go to the Books Rights Registry.
This all seems to me a little like the accepted ASCAP music royalty scheme.
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That's likely where Google got the idea. IMPO, it was a good deal for the vast majority of authors, but a few authors got on their high horse and shot it down. There really is a great deal of emotion involved. A lot of professional authors had their finances planned around the previous business model of books being re-printed on a regular basis, generating a predictable income each time. One can argue that they will likely get more income on a steady basis via ebooks, but until they have data confirming that, it's a bit of a gamble.
I suspect that now ebooks have been around for a number of years and as more and more authors start releasing their backlist as ebooks, if Google were to make the same proposal, it would be better received. But I don't think that Google is all that interested in revisiting it. Also, I would imagine that Amazon will strongly oppose such deal.