Electronic Rights Means More Money for Authors

It sure do, honey. Check out NYT story on how upset Simon& Schuster is that one of their biggest authors (Stephen R. Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) & sequelae) has sold his electronic book rights to a company that'll give him 50 percent when people buy electronic versions of his books. You think Amazon.com taking 50 percent is outrageous? Well, Simon & Schuster would have taken 75 percent.

"Ever since electronic books emerged as a major growth market, New York’s largest publishing houses have worried that big-name authors might sign deals directly with e-book retailers or other new ventures, bypassing traditional publishers entirely." (Poor publishers; now they suffer they way WE did when THEY bypassed fairness to writers!)

I specifically claimed all electronic rights to the text of Meet Me just for that reason; and when you sign book contracts -- be a highly effective person and do the same!

Free Software To "Kindle" on Your PC

This just in: Now you don't need "to buy a Kindle" to read e-books. Fire up Kindle on your PC or iPhone with free software. If you have an amazon.com account already it is a breeze. The software took only 5.2 MB of space:

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE, Nov. 10)--Amazon.com, Inc. today announced the availability of "Kindle for PC," a free application that lets readers around the world enjoy Kindle books on their personal computers (PC). Kindle for PC is now available as a free download to readers in over 100 countries at www.amazon.com/KindleforPC.

The U.S. Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) currently offers more than 360,000 books, including New Releases and 101 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers, which are typically $9.99 or less. . .

Source: amazon.com press release as appearing on BusinessWire.

Shame on You for Selling Your Books

If any empire deserves to crumble, it's publishing as we have known it. This good New York Times article discusses online amateur book dealing. When you sell your used books on Amazon it bothers publishers no end because they get paid for the book only once. Maybe like their writers they should get used to being paid only once.

By comparison, a publisher of eBooks can charge for every download, although texts must be priced more affordably. But easy and instantaneous transactions mean the publisher sells more -- even when downloaded books get passed around. More sales and no middlemen mean a bigger chunk of the profits can go to the writers -- not the current lousy 10 to 15 percent.

According to the article, brick-and-mortar bookstores must go down with the ship, and that's sad. But the best ones will adapt, mostly the smaller independent ones. They've been pulling for the writers all along, and we will pull for them. Don't confuse the demise of traditional NYC-centered publishing with the demise of books or reading.