Article: The Publishers are as bad as Amazon.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

cum hoc, ergo propter hoc -- fallacy of presumption.

ham hoc, ergo eatum hoc

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by shalym

Did you bother to look at the link I provided to Amazon's Kindle resale program? There is absolutely no minimum price requirement mentioned for selling Kindles.

Amazon can be a bizarre company, and that was a bizarre link. Hardly anybody is going to sell with such a low markup, even before considering the $1.00/item shipping charge, and hardly anybody does. It would be cheaper to buy at retail, with the ten percent AARP discount, than this so-called wholesale. Even Costco, which makes all its profit from the membership fees and is famed for retail efficiency, requires a 14 percent markup. A small business is not that efficient and so needs a bigger markup to break even, let alone make a profit.

Price maintenance terms are most commonly in the advertising allowance, not mentioned in your link.

Your link has nothing to do with the advertised Kindle prices at Staples, Best Buy, and Office Depot.

Having said all that, I suspect that there is no advertising allowance with this small business program, and that a bold neighborhood hardware store, participating in this program, could in fact give a heavy loss leader discount on Kindles. Amazon is probably willing to take that small risk of their devices being locally cheapened.

Part of the lesson to big publishers, of this kind of discussion, is that consumers have a pretty strong tolerance for price maintenance as long as you are quiet about it, and allow limited discounts. Maybe, if Hachette is still negotiating over agency with Amazon, they should offer say, a 15 percent discount 20 percent of the time, which is more like the typical price maintenance deal. The problem with that, from the perspective of a publisher who has read The Everything Store, is that you can't trust Amazon to abide by the fine print of complex price maintenance agreements. And you can't sue for such violations because it would generate horrible publicity.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

-- Some indeed is, as described, wrong:

I'm against restraint of trade. What's happened when authors did switch publishers for their second book? Have they been successfully sued by the first publisher?

Why is that wrong? The reason a publisher want a multibook contract is that the first book usually do not make any money, they need more books to build a readership.

We also have the lottery effect. Since it is impossible to predict a book that will become very popular the publisher need to publish a lot of book and need the income for a very popular series. It would be strange that one publisher pay a lot of money that causes a book to take off just to have another publisher buy the next book.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by gweeks

I think it's more likely he got the rights back or never sold the ebook rights and found a different publisher to do the ebooks. Macmillan has their own ebook offerings and wouldn't likely sub the ebook rights out.

Greg

Quite possibly as I said, but there seems to be thousands of authors both alive and dead whose books are being revived, or rejuvenated as ebooks by either their original publisher(s) or a small imprint like Hard Case Crime.


Not a month goes by that I don't find out of print paper books that were written by authors I admire, and I have been actively looking for, or by someone I have never heard of but my type of book, published as ebooks. I have been reading a couple of hundred books a year for more than 50 years and have at least 700 authors I really like. Since I started reading ebooks in 2010 I have wished that many of these authors books would come out in
ebook form and it seems that my wishes are coming true.

On the topic under discussion, it makes less and less sense for publishers to be dog in the manger with an author.

And thinking about it as I type, Peter Bowen and many others probably never sold ebook rights as they weren't a viable market in 2006. So I am probably spouting nonsense

Helen

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by tompe

Why is that wrong? The reason a publisher want a multibook contract is that the first book usually do not make any money, they need more books to build a readership.

We also have the lottery effect. Since it is impossible to predict a book that will become very popular the publisher need to publish a lot of book and need the income for a very popular series. It would be strange that one publisher pay a lot of money that causes a book to take off just to have another publisher buy the next book.

True

helen

[Barcey]

Teleread has an interesting interview with hybrid author Harry Bingham. A good balanced perspective from someone with a foot in both camps.

http://www.teleread.com/interview/in...achette-thing/

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Teleread has an interesting interview with hybrid author Harry Bingham. A good balanced perspective from someone with a foot in both camps.

http://www.teleread.com/interview/in...achette-thing/

Fabulous interview, if I read his type of book I'd definately look up his just on the basis of that interview alone.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

...

And thinking about it as I type, Peter Bowen and many others probably never sold ebook rights as they weren't a viable market in 2006. So I am probably spouting nonsense

Helen

My understanding is that most contracts didn't have explicit ebooks rights until fairly recently. Some publishers have asserted that the language in the contracts give them ebook rights, but I don't think it's something that has gone to court. I would suspect that an author with a good agent is probably better off in this regard than most. Also, my understanding is that most book contracts have rights reversion clauses which say that if the book goes out of print, then the rights revert back to the author. As with most matters of contract law, it comes down to the specific language in the contract.

I do remember that there was a bit of a dust up between Elizabeth Moon and Baen books over ebooks rights back when Jim Baen first started doing the websubscription and ebooks.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

My understanding is that most contracts didn't have explicit ebooks rights until fairly recently. Some publishers have asserted that the language in the contracts give them ebook rights, but I don't think it's something that has gone to court. I would suspect that an author with a good agent is probably better off in this regard than most. Also, my understanding is that most book contracts have rights reversion clauses which say that if the book goes out of print, then the rights revert back to the author. As with most matters of contract law, it comes down to the specific language in the contract.

Random House sued Rosetta and ended up settling on Rosetta terms, more or less, to keep the case from being openly decided.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/p...k-lawsuit.html

More recently, Open Road and HC have been fighting over JULIE OF THE WOLVES and contract language gratuitously inserted by the idiot agent back in the 70's. The outcome of that one is that basically neither side has the rights to the ebook. HC claims exclusive rights but only if the author agrees and their terms were so bad the author refused. Now the author is dead so the countdown to PD finally started. The title might make it to ebooks circa 2080...

Publishing contracts are a minefield and since there is no certification for agents nor any requirement they know a darn thing about contract or IP law, the best recommendation for any author thinking of tradpub these days is to hire a good IP lawyer out of their own pocket to fisk both the agent and publisher contracts.

(Because as bad as the publisher horror stories get, the agent stories are worse.)

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Now the author is dead so the countdown to PD finally started. The title might make it to ebooks circa 2080...

Only if Mickey agrees

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Random House sued Rosetta and ended up settling on Rosetta terms, more or less, to keep the case from being openly decided.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/p...k-lawsuit.html

More recently, Open Road and HC have been fighting over JULIE OF THE WOLVES and contract language gratuitously inserted by the idiot agent back in the 70's. The outcome of that one is that basically neither side has the rights to the ebook. HC claims exclusive rights but only if the author agrees and their terms were so bad the author refused. Now the author is dead so the countdown to PD finally started. The title might make it to ebooks circa 2080...

Publishing contracts are a minefield and since there is no certification for agents nor any requirement they know a darn thing about contract or IP law, the best recommendation for any author thinking of tradpub these days is to hire a good IP lawyer out of their own pocket to fisk both the agent and publisher contracts.

(Because as bad as the publisher horror stories get, the agent stories are worse.)

yep, you have to have a good lawyer who specializes in contract law.

One strategy of litigation when you don't have a very good case but have deep pockets (or a team of lawyers on staff) is to drag out the case trying to make it so expensive that the other side settles simply to end the expense.

Just as a note, it's not true that neither has the ebooks rights. One of them does, it's just unclear which and apparently the rights aren't worth enough to spend the money on a trial.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Just as a note, it's not true that neither has the ebooks rights. One of them does, it's just unclear which and apparently the rights aren't worth enough to spend the money on a trial.

Oh, the court ruled that the wacky (overbroad and vague) clause does cover ebooks as we understand them. What they're still litigating is court costs and "damages".

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...k-dispute.html

HC has exclusive negotiation rights, but not ebook publication rights.

HarperCollins argued that its contract with George included both a standard subsidiary rights grant (paragraph 23), which taken with another clause (paragraph 20), which referenced electronic usage, gave HarperCollins the exclusive right to license e-book rights.

They're the only ones that can license the rights but don't own them.

And given the grief they caused the old lady it may be a long time before the family agrees to anything.

Signature quote:

The message seems clear: rather than negotiate a higher royalty and make money on a digital edition with an author who has already sold nearly four million books, HarperCollins chose to stand on principle and spend the money to litigate.

"Principle" in this case meaning, "We'd rather not earn a thing and even spend money in court to keep from paying fair ebook royalties."

Pretty high minded, that.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Oh, the court ruled that the wacky (overbroad and vague) clause does cover ebooks as we understand them. What they're still litigating is court costs and "damages".

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...k-dispute.html

HC has exclusive negotiation rights, but not ebook publication rights.



They're the only ones that can license the rights but don't own them.

And given the grief they caused the old lady it may be a long time before the family agrees to anything.

Signature quote:



"Principle" in this case meaning, "We'd rather not earn a thing and even spend money in court to keep from paying fair ebook royalties."

Pretty high minded, that.

Interesting article.

Some greed on both sides I think if neither refused to budge on royalties.

I have no idea what constitutes 'fair' ebook royalties? Has a standard been set?

I am not being facetious. 25% seems reasonable coming from a company that has contributed to the author's success and 50% seems reasonable for a backlist title if it is not being sold widely in other formats and costs the publisher little to distribute, but my knowledge is limited.

Harper Collins had several choices. Litigate, pay the 50%, or let Open Road publish and not litigate.

Paying the 50% or allowing the Open Road publications would have set precedents that could be potentially very expensive. It is not all about this one book IMO.

A couple of links I came across while trying to find the 'grief they caused the old lady and the signature quote.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...53142705735660
http://rogerpacker.com/blog/authors-...cklist-battle/

Seems to me that all three parties made decisions based on profit/loss and the major fault was in not trying harder to reach a compromise. Not clear cut villains victimizing one poor old lady.

Helen

[crossi]

I'm just glad there is now a viable option for authors who are offered a really bad contract to just walk away and publish it themselves. With only 6 (5 now) main publishers the authors previously had no power to shop around for a better deal. It was take what we are willing to give you or not get published at all. The balance of power was weighted way too much on the publishers' side.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by crossi

I'm just glad there is now a viable option for authors who are offered a really bad contract to just walk away and publish it themselves. With only 6 (5 now) main publishers the authors previously had no power to shop around for a better deal. It was take what we are willing to give you or not get published at all. The balance of power was weighted way too much on the publishers' side.

While there may be the big 5, there are a lot of small independent publishers. It's not that different than the music industry.