Wow.\u00a0 Just absolutely - Wow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the last couple of weeks someone hit the fast forward button on the ebook revolution.\u00a0\u00a0Changes that bespeak of major industry shifts have\u00a0occurred like a landslide. One rock goes, and then another and before you know it, at the foot of a mountain, there's a new road you can follow that will take you to the unexplored territory of the future.<\/p>\n
First came the deal of the Jackal<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Andrew Wylie is a superagent whose \"feral pursuit of clients and their interests earned him the nickname of 'The Jackal.'\"\u00a0 The Jackal's roster of clients reads like a who's who of publishing and includes Mailer, Updike, Nabokov,\u00a0and Cheever.\u00a0The Jackal apparently saw what many authors saw - publishers have been screwing authors out of\u00a0their fair share of royalties for\u00a0years.\u00a0 The old book numbers were set in stone, the system likely crafted when books began to be mass produced.\u00a0 But at the dawn of a new day in publishing\u00a0power shifted to the hands of the creators who wrote the\u00a0work. The Jackal was smart enough\u00a0NOT to let history repeat itself.\u00a0 This time he, on behalf of his clients, would craft a system that would be fair to the folks who made the system possible.\u00a0 So The Jackal created a digital only imprint, Odyssey Editions<\/a> (gotta love the name) and inked a deal with Amazon to sell electronic versions of work of 20\u00a0amazing authors.<\/p>\n To do the deal Wylie exploited a hole in older\u00a0publishing contracts written before the era of e-books<\/a>.\u00a0 Writers and Wylie believe that the contracts leave those authors and\/or their estates free to negotiate separate deals for the ebook versions.\u00a0 The publishing royals read the contracts differently<\/a> and believe the older deals should include the\u00a0ebook rights - because they're the publishers and they've always had the power to set the terms.\u00a0\u00a0Publishers have decided to punish The Jackal\u00a0where it hurts - the pocketbook.\u00a0 Random House held the print rights to many of the works in question and it's announced it won't do business with Wylie until the issue is resolved.\u00a0 I'm hoping that the Jackal's clients are sending him champagne and telling\u00a0him that they never liked Random House anyway.\u00a0 After all, Wylie is\u00a0trying to craft the terms for the new ebook industry at the dawn of the era, so that when they get set in stone, it'll be in the authors' favor.\u00a0\u00a0In my opinion, Wylie is to be lauded, revered and much - much imitated.\u00a0 The biggest literary award for the new e-book industry should be named for him - the Jackal or the Wylie.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the Author's Guild noted<\/a>, publishers have brought this on themselves.\u00a0 But the next bit of news shows that some publishers are actually looking to the future, instead of\u00a0behaving like the playground bully.\u00a0\u00a0 Dorchester Publishing, a mass market romance company, has dropped its old framework<\/a> in favor of POD (print on demand like Lulu or Createspace) AND epublishing.\u00a0\u00a0Starting in September, paper versions of its book will on be available only on demand.\u00a0 All of its future books will be ebooks.\u00a0 In announcing the move, company president Jim Prebich noted that \"These are like pioneer times in publishing. We felt like we needed to take some chances and make a bold move.\"\u00a0\u00a0So hurrah to Dorchester too.\u00a0 It's the first Royal to make such a move. The company hasn't, to my knowledge, vacated the castle yet though.\u00a0 I'm waiting for Dorchester to announce a program\u00a0of open equerying or better yet - that Dorchester will have its\u00a0editors reading ebooks\u00a0and inviting e-authors to submit the full e-manuscript for review and consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the wake of\u00a0Wylie's E-Jackal gambit and Dorchester's Epic E-Shift, Amazon's donning\u00a0its Nostradamus cap doesn't seem so strange.\u00a0 Amazon earlier announced<\/a> that sales of ebooks had passed hardcovers.\u00a0 This month, Amazon's Prez Jeff Bezos was interviewed for USA\u00a0Today<\/a>\u00a0and said that\u00a0in a year or less he expects SALES OF EBOOKS TO PASS THE SALES OF PAPERBACKS.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Lots of\u00a0indie authors saw the E-Revolution coming, but I don't know that any of us foresaw it happening so fast.\u00a0 But it is, at this point, inevitable.\u00a0 Technology never marches backward.\u00a0 No one ever said - let's forget this whole\u00a0moving vehicle\u00a0thing and go back to horses.\u00a0 Ebooks are fast to instant and there is a MUCH, MUCH larger variety of ebooks out there than ever did or ever will exist in paper form.\u00a0 And more ebooks are coming every day.\u00a0 Now there are even great programs - like the one offered by Sony<\/a> (my reader, which I love) which gives ereader owners the ability to check out an ebook from their local library without ever leaving home.\u00a0 How great is that, reader friends?\u00a0<\/p>\n As much as anything else, programs like Sony's will allow readers to read anything - including the newest releases - with no effort or trouble.\u00a0 I also expect that it will be a huge incentive for the stubborn and wrong past the point of idiotic royals of publishing to lower their ebook prices.\u00a0 Now eowners can say - No I won't pay $12.99 for that hot new book.\u00a0 I'll read it for free\u00a0thanks to my Sony and my public library.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many\u00a0ereader owners will now begin to buy the less expensive books and read those pricey ones for free.\u00a0 It's another big ole' boost to indie authors everywhere and to smart companies like Harlequin who price their work to sell.\u00a0 The E-Revolution is the Indie Revolution.\u00a0 They are one and the same.\u00a0 Only a few very\u00a0courageous and bold companies have boarded the E-Train, but they'll all\u00a0soon leave their competitors in the dirt.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Revolution is the great E-qualizer.\u00a0 My book sits side by side with the Avon book, the Random House book, the Harper Collins book.\u00a0 Which one will a reader buy?\u00a0 The one that gives them the most of what they want at the moment for\u00a0the best price.\u00a0 And my price will beat Avon's, Harper Collins', and Random House's by a wide, wide margin.\u00a0 It doesn't mean I'll get the sale, but it does mean I've got as good a shot as any of the royals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Every agent should study Wylie.\u00a0 Every publisher should\u00a0follow Dorchester.\u00a0 You know why?\u00a0 Because Nostradamazon is right.\u00a0 Ebooks are gonna leave the old order and the agents and publishers that follow it, far, far behind.\u00a0 The royals and their favored agents will be looking for a horse while Dorchester and The Jackal speed by in their\u00a0Rolls\u00a0or their Benz.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vive la revolution..........maybe Wylie will give 'em all a wave as he passes them by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wow.\u00a0 Just absolutely - Wow.\u00a0 In the last couple of weeks someone hit the fast forward button on the ebook revolution.\u00a0\u00a0Changes that bespeak of major industry shifts have\u00a0occurred like a landslide. One rock goes, and then another and before you know it, at the foot of a mountain, there's a new road you can follow ...continue reading \"The Jackal, A Pioneering Royal & Nostradamus A La Amazon\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1137,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions\/1137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}