Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
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.
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Dealing with thousands of authors or possibly their estates is very time consuming, so no publisher will do it unless they see real upside in it (Eric Flint who is or at least used to be also a major editor of older work for Baen talked a lot about that) . The rights for older books are very cheap usually even for print, more so for e, but the hassle is the major problem.
Some authors are taking the issue in their hands, releasing cc e-books or trying to get deals through e-publishers, the problem is that there are very few "established" e-publishers out there... Maybe if Amazon does something with their trolling message and gets big time in e-books, more authors will go that route...