 All about publishing a book, and getting help to convert a PDF to ePub, Mobi and other e-book formats |
Member Login (My Account) |
| Book Pitches | Writers' Registry | Agency Directory | E-Book News & Reviews | Join | About Us | Contact Us | | Search Site | |
|
FAST LINKS Follow us! 
Discover the best thriller writers on the planet!  SSL WARNING! PLEASE READ ABOUT THIRD PARTY ADS: Authorlink encourages writers to thoroughly investigate third-party ads on this or any other site offering free and easy publishing help. We subscribe to the highest standards of the traditional publishing industry, and do not necessarily endorse any advertiser on our site. Also, Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our site enabling display of ads based on user visits to our site and to others on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy. Authorlink guidelines, #7 includes more on our own policies |
[ Search for Articles ] [ Visit Our Interviews Page ]
Random House's Electronic Pickle
| ||
|
Random House has its own self to blame for the electronic pickle they find themselves in today. When drafting the original, pre-internet, publishing contracts for Cheever, Nobokov and Updike, they left out the future technology clauses. To be clear, it's not that they didn't know how to draft future technology clauses. They left them out. As such, they just weren't thinking much about the future. Likely, they were doing what was expedient, i.e., signing up books in "book form." What Was Random House (Not) Thinking? As early as 1909, publishing attorneys have been thinking about e-books. In 1909, they even included a "future technologies" clause in Mark Twain's publishing contract for his soon-to-be published (as in 2010) autobiography. The "future technologies” clause, which acts as a catch-all for technologies and media not yet invented, has been around for a long while. Narrowly drafted (out of respect for the author's rights and the publisher's legitimate interests), such a clause would have snagged verbatim e-book reading rights. What the Publishing Industry Can Learn from Captain Trips & Captain Outrageous What once seemed trivial (i.e., drafting a contract clause), is now upsetting the balance of power in the publishing industry. It's a classic case of an ounce of prevention. Happily, America has a long history of entrepreneurs taking undervalued opportunities (e.g., Turner's purchase of the old -- much undervalued -- MGM/UA film library in 1986) and leveraging them to create great value. There's a Jerry Garcia lyric that neatly sums it up: "One man gathers what another man spills” That was Turner's modus operandi, when he acquired the pre-1986 MGM, and pre-1950 Warner movie libraries. He dusted them off, colorized them, and started profitable new media ventures. He looked for and found undervalued opportunities and created great value. That's the American way. Is Andrew Wylie a latter day Ted Turner? Is he creating value or merely nibbling away -- unfairly -- at Random's backlist? You be the judge. Lloyd Jassin is an attorney specializing in entertainment and publishing law. He is based in New York City. Visit his web site at www.copylaw.org |
Book Pitches | Writers' Registry | E-Book News & Reviews | Join | About Us | Contact Us | Feeds | Site Map | Search Site
Literary Agency Directory | Hook an Editor/Agent | Book Reviews | News | Online Writing Classes
Authorlink Literary Group | Articles on Writing and Publishing | Advertise | Interviews | Editorial Services