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Originally Posted by cjcherryh
The generation of revenue by giving away an e-book is daily cited by some publishers as a benefit of their site. As a writer whose book is being thus dealt with by a certain publisher, I can state it is not beneficial: what they are doing is using it to promote their company's site, to generate sales---but I get a few dollars a year from this process, and see no added sales. Not only that, they thus hold it 'in print' and thus prevent reversion of rights. This is not a good thing.
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This is terrible - ebook only shouldn't mean 'in-print', just as being only available in PoD format should be 'in-print'. I guess it depends on the individual contracts. Ouch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cjcherryh
Of all the many copies of my books in e-book release, I have yet to see any revenue---and most of them are pirated copies, or copies distributed by otherwise honest sites who have assumed based on their acquisition of a company that e-rights went with the sale. My publisher's legal department is now trying to straighten this out, and many have been withdrawn from sale, but neither my publisher nor I have received revenues from these copies.
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Double-ouch. Do you mean that you're not getting anything from the copies of your books available on (say) fictionwise? I've bought six of those. (Very good too, BTW, although the formatting on the Chanur books left a lot to be desired. Good enough that I read them despite the formatting!) I know the author doesn't see a lot of the cover price, but I'd be rather upset to find out you got nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cjcherryh
Yes, it is publicity, which never hurts, but if no funds ever come through, where is the money going? Not to the creator, certainly. Not to the publisher of record. Somebody is collecting money from these sales. Who, I wonder.
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For fictionwise, I'd suggest asking them directly. They're good people at fictionwise.
As for publicity - yes it's great, so long as your books are readily for sale to take advantage of the publicity, and that your cut of the sales revenue gets back to you. Best of luck in getting it sorted out.