Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Just saw some news of a kerfuffle that has broken out between NY agent Andrew Wylie and Random House. Random House is one of the publishers trying to make a "rights grab" by claiming retroactive ebook rights. Wylie has announced he and his clients are going to take their backlists direct to Amazon. Law suits are expected to ensue.

I have been expecting this to happen - bigger and bigger names jumping ship from publishers who are too slow to get the nature of the new world order. But I did not expect it to happen this fast.

(And Konrath has just posted his take on the Wiley/Random House Situation.)

We live in interesting times. I think it's time to fasten our safety belts. It is the start of a bumpy night.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ve-r-y interesting! As you say, publishers do need to be aware of what's happening in today's world...

The Daring Novelist said...

The UKs Guardian newspaper is declaring this the end of publishing as we know it.

I suppose book publishers should have been paying attention to what was happening to newspapers, but denial is strong.

And frankly, although I've been predicting that this would happen, I never thought it would be happening so fast.