Electronic rights in book publishing contracts used to be a 50-50 split at worst. Sometimes the author could get up to 90%. But that was when electronic rights were only a minor part of the income stream. Digital Windfall Then along came the windfall provided by the digital age. Instead of sharing it with the authors, publishers decided they wanted it all. Here’s an example of what happened: Around the turn of the millennium, netLibrary became the first ebook publisher of any consequence when they began negotiating with academic publishers to scan back copies of their catalogs to turn into exact digital reproductions. The cost to publishers to participate was two books: one for netLibrary to tear apart and scan one for netLibrary to display in their hard-copy library of […]
Daily Archives: February 28, 2022
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