bought back rights

Digital publishing revolution

April 26th, 2011

There’s an interesting article on e-publishing in the Irish Times by Declan Burke who recently bought back the rights to his own conventionally published debut novel and then re-published it on Kindle.

Burke argues convincingly that the arrival of the ebook won’t make printed books obsolete, but it will have a fundamental impact on the way mainstream publishers operate in the future. He quotes Stephen Leather, a best-selling author of conventionally published crime thrillers who has recently begun publishing his backlist in electronic form: “Publishers will [..] have to take back the role that they relinquished to agents over the years,” he says, “and start to look for new talent again. In America, Amanda Hocking has gone from selling more than a million self-published vampire and zombie ebooks to signing a $2 million deal with a leading publisher. I think the smart publishers will all now be looking for the next Amanda Hocking. And the best place for that is to take a look at the ebook bestseller list.”

Read the full article here: Irish Times