Quote:
Originally Posted by Liviu_5
That's a great idea, though there is one problem that applies to many books; who owns the digital rights? All the recent contracts go into this in great detail, but this was not case 10, 20, 30 years ago, so I think that's a big hurdle for publishers; when the stake is high they will go for it (see Disney's battle about Winnie the Pooh's subsidiary rights with the estate of the author), but for marginal books and for so many of them, they do not have the incentive, manpower..
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I think publishers so-inclined could easily present the case to each author: "Here's an additional value to your older books, by releasing them as e-books, at this percentage from us... versus doing nothing and getting nothing at all." Assuming they're not completely condescending and greedy about it, I think most authors would say, "Okay, let's do it." And there's even room for negotiation.
The problem is, getting the publishers so inclined. However, if older agreements and contracts did not cover digital rights, the authors
may be free to pursue e-book release with other publishers. Authors so inclined could find themselves moving to independent publishers, once existing contracts expire, and authors refusing to renew old contracts without an e-book clause could make the big publishers sit up and take notice.