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Authors, Agents and Publishers Seek to Carve Out Their Rights in Electronic-Book Formats
Three recent announcements involving electronic publishing sent ripples through the publishing industry. The first was Amazon's announcement that its sales of e-book units exceeded its sales of hardcovers by the second quarter of 2010, a trend that has reportedly continued. Although comparative sales figures do not present a complete picture, it is clear that gateway companies ' such as Amazon, Apple, Sony and Barnes & Noble that sell both e-books and proprietary e-book reading devices ' are enlarging their share of the publishing marketplace. (This article refers to them as “Digital Distributors,” even though “distributor” can be a misnomer; see below.)
The second recent announcement was that Odyssey Books, the new publishing arm of The Wylie Agency, agreed to make 20 titles available in electronic form, including modern classics by A-list authors and their estates that The Wylie Agency represents, exclusively for a two-year term through Amazon's Kindle Store. This approach bypassed not only the traditional conduits of literary works ' book publishers ' but also every Digital Distributor but one. Even physical bookstores reportedly were excluded from selling some of the books, which would only be available in Odyssey electronic editions. (See, “Celebrated Authors Bypass Publishing House to Sell ebooks via Amazon” by Alison Flood, guardian.co.uk, July 22, 2010.)
Outraged responses followed from Digital Distributors (other than Amazon) and book publishers, including Random House, which asserted e-book rights in most of the titles in question through earlier print publishing contracts. The Authors Guild also expressed concern over the grant of exclusivity to Amazon, even though the authors' shares of e-book revenues under the Wylie arrangement would be much larger than the current norm.
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