Why e-books?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by barryem

One more recent author that I especially like was Lee Gruenfeld. He was pretty popular 10 or 15 years ago and wrote some excellent novels. Today they're unavailable. I emailed him to let him know there's at least a little interest and I got a reply that it's not up to him. His publisher owns the rights and has no interest in making them available.

Assuming he has anything like a standard contract on those books then there should be a reversion clause where he can get his rights back once the books are out of print for a given time, which they appear to be. He may be, like many authors, assuming that it's up to the publisher without actually looking into it.

I've been surprised by the number of authors I've talked to that have no interest in getting their rights reverted. (because what would they do with them? ) They have no interest on doing any kind of work with their titles other than writing (& editing) them. Once a title is done they don't want to have to do anything with it and feel that's what publishers and agents are for. They would never want to do the work involved with seeing their backlist titles self-published which is why houses like Open Road exist. Unfortunately their are tons of lesser titles that will never get picked up by someone like OpenRoad. One author, whos name I can't remember now, posted a few years back that his older books weren't ebooks because no publisher wanted to give him a large advance like he'd gotten on the titles back when they were originally written years ago. There was interest in putting them out, but not for the up front money he wanted.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by jhowell

No. Those books were sold with the condition that the could be re-sold, giving added value to the buyer.

Anyone trying to legitimately sell used copies of out-of-print books is harmed (slightly) by the pirating of those books.

Not precisely. First sale doctrine (which is what we are talking about) was actually put into US copyright law in 1978, though the courts had carved out that distinction well before then. It's application varies from country to country. Some authors still hold that selling used books is the equivalent of stealing.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Not precisely. First sale doctrine (which is what we are talking about) was actually put into US copyright law in 1978, though the courts had carved out that distinction well before then. It's application varies from country to country. Some authors still hold that selling used books is the equivalent of stealing.

Some authors think libraries and Kindle Unlimited are stealing too.
It should be noted most of those authors are not well known nor will they ever be well known because their books are not that good by pretty much any reader's standards.
Most of those authors have an MSDS attitude or in prettier terms, "the greatest gift to writing ever".

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Some authors think libraries and Kindle Unlimited are stealing too.
It should be noted most of those authors are not well known nor will they ever be well known because their books are not that good by pretty much any reader's standards.
Most of those authors have an MSDS attitude or in prettier terms, "the greatest gift to writing ever".

Not that you're making an ad hominem attack or anything...

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Not that you're making an ad hominem attack or anything...

Nope, wasn't attacking anyone, simply making an observation.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Not precisely. First sale doctrine (which is what we are talking about) was actually put into US copyright law in 1978, though the courts had carved out that distinction well before then. It's application varies from country to country.

Are there any other countries that have a first sale doctrine? I've not come across it anywhere other than the US.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by radius

The thing is though, that publishers aren't doing this out of spite. It costs them money to make and market ebook editions and they need to recoup that somehow. With modern publishing workflows, where there is an existing electronic compy of a work, this is mitigated somewhat, but for older works they need to scan, proof, "typeset", possibly commission more modern cover and so on before they even market. I think it is mostly worth it for authours that have a large-ish body of work so that they can spread the marketing costs over multiple books or over a series.

I agree that this isn't a question of spite or even of what authors or publishers should or shouldn't do. They all act generally in their own self interest within the existing system. That's how Capitalism works and I'm glad it does.

This problem a flaw in the system that can be fixed. Copyright should end if it's not used. Copyright should be the right to profit from distribution and not the right to withhold it whether out of spite or lack of interest.

By it's nature copyright is a very artificial thing in which people agree that nobody is allowed to do certain things that are easy and natural to do and even seem generous and fair. We agree not to do them in order to protect the rights of creators to encourage them to continue to create. We should fine tune that agreement as our culture evolves so that it only encourages creativity.

Barry

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Are there any other countries that have a first sale doctrine? I've not come across it anywhere other than the US.

New Zealand at least; subsequent distribution and sale of copyrighted works is specifically excluded from control by rights holders. It is also specifically stated to apply to works produced in both NZ and overseas (including if parallel imported, such imports since at least 1998; I don't recall what the legislation for P/Imports was prior to that).

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by radius

The thing is though, that publishers aren't doing this out of spite. It costs them money to make and market ebook editions and they need to recoup that somehow. With modern publishing workflows, where there is an existing electronic compy of a work, this is mitigated somewhat, but for older works they need to scan, proof, "typeset", possibly commission more modern cover and so on before they even market...

I think that if they cared to look the publishers would find that most books of any worth have been scanned and edited already, for free. Furthermore it is much less complicated to access and use these copies than it is to buy an electronic book through the likes of Amazon or Kobo.

So that I do not draw any angst here by mentioning sources of such books, I'll mention the parallel example with respect to music instead. In its day it is reputed that Oink (and then its briefly lived successor what.cd) tracked copies of virtually every musical recording ever made, in multiple versions including redacted, very rare and officially lost copies, plus detailed discographies of virtually every artist that had existed; and all available free (although donations were substantial).

I won't get into any further discussion on book rights here, that because people are being accused of "stealing" books and their having misguided senses of entitlement, such claims just being emotive and of no worth countering. But it seems to me that the industry is living in a rights holder focussed delirium; it is well passed time for it to graduate to a customer focussed model else one should be forced upon them.

It must be one of the few industries around that has bamboozled its customers into believing that it is the rights holders that come first and the customers come last.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

It must be one of the few industries around that has bamboozled its customers into believing that it is the rights holders that come first and the customers come last.

Can you name any industry where the rights of the person who want's something are put before the rights of the person who owns it?

Ignoring anything government regulated / paid for by taxes of course.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Can you name any industry where the rights of the person who want's something are put before the rights of the person who owns it?

Precisely, Mike. I certainly don't consider it "emotive" to state that someone who feels that they have a god-given right to an ebook has a misguided sense of entitlement.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Once a title is done they don't want to have to do anything with it and feel that's what publishers and agents are for.

It's certainly what agents are for! A good agent should be chasing publishers to either get backlists in print, or revert the rights.

The publishers don't care. They're happy to hang on to rights to out of print books, just in case the title or author should become popular again and they can make big money from a reissue.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The publishers don't care. They're happy to hang on to rights to out of print books, just in case the title or author should become popular again and they can make big money from a reissue.

Yep. TV adaptations can work wonders for sales - eg for Winston Graham's "Poldark" series.

[spindlegirl]

There's "entitlement" and then there's disappointment that there's no way possible to procure something that you want. I just acknowledge the disappointment and then move on. So I don't get to read it. Clearly the publisher or author doesn't have increased exposure on their radar. Makes no difference to my life.

With regard to the original question of "Why Ebooks?":

I'm just happy that there are digital resources at my public library! While I do have a modest Kindle balance, I cannot afford to rent purchase every book that crosses my mind to read, and it's a pleasure to be able to borrow materials that I don't have to remember to return.

My brother in law recently published a book and we have a print copy. I'm still buying the Kindle copy because I prefer to read it on my device.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yep. TV adaptations can work wonders for sales - eg for Winston Graham's "Poldark" series.

Indeed! I snapped them up on a special deal myself.