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That is what I find frustrating. The publishers are sitting on tons of older material, still under copyright but not being published. If they sold it in electronic format, they could make some money from their back catalogue instead of making no money from it just sitting there. The Burroughs estate gets nothing from the books not being published. If they released the books in paper format, the profit would not be massive because most of the fans of his work have the books already (I know I used to). An electronic release would not cost them much and would result in more profit for the family. And the publishers.
You know, why do we even need publishers anymore? You could have editor groups that would choose books and edit them and guarantee that the books are of a higher standard. Then the author could do with them as they will. Sell them to a printer, or a print on demand or a electronic company. Or there could be companies that would do this for him for a cut. This is probably why the publishers don't want to go with electronic books. They know their business is obsolete in the future.
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