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Joel Rickett's latest news from the publishing industry in the Guardian today, includes an item thay should be a warning to us all in future- what happens in the US can happen here.
The row over rights "reversions" continues to rage. A couple of weeks ago, the pre-eminent US writers' association accused Simon & Schuster of changing the basic publishing rules by stealth, because it wanted to discard the minimum sales thresholds below which rights to a book can be claimed back by the author. S&S's argument is that digital and print-on-demand technology means that books are now permanently "in print" and available to order. But it insists that it will continue to sell and market backlist books, regardless of how they are produced. The publisher's much smaller UK division was caught in the crossfire, with novelist Tracy Chevalier, president of the Society of Authors, saying: "The great worry is that once you sign . . . on these terms, you're stuck with [the publisher] for life, whether they do a good or a bad job." It's a thorny nettle, but one suspects other publishers will be grabbing it before long.
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The row over rights "reversions" continues to rage. A couple of weeks ago, the pre-eminent US writers' association accused Simon & Schuster of changing the basic publishing rules by stealth, because it wanted to discard the minimum sales thresholds below which rights to a book can be claimed back by the author. S&S's argument is that digital and print-on-demand technology means that books are now permanently "in print" and available to order. But it insists that it will continue to sell and market backlist books, regardless of how they are produced. The publisher's much smaller UK division was caught in the crossfire, with novelist Tracy Chevalier, president of the Society of Authors, saying: "The great worry is that once you sign . . . on these terms, you're stuck with [the publisher] for life, whether they do a good or a bad job." It's a thorny nettle, but one suspects other publishers will be grabbing it before long.