Bloomsbury Reader Is Digitally Refreshing

The easiest way to deal with orphan works is to adopt them digitally, but do so legitimately. This should not be achieved via the back door and by ‘snatching’ them off the street, but by establishing the owner, or agent and working with them to give them a second digital life. Forget what the pro Google Book Settlement advocates have long claimed, there is life in many of these works and there are lots of them out there worth adopting and that’s why Google wanted them so badly..

We have seen literary agents start to consider their back list and make bold steps to publish them. We have seen academic publishers, such as CUP and Taylor and Francis, build a significant business by keeping titles in print using on demand services. We have seen previously published authors dust down long overlooked titles and self publish them. We have seen the likes of Barnes and Noble launch Pubit and Amazon open its doors wide to publishing. We have seen Jane Friedman secure additional funding for her growing ‘Open Road‘ venture.

Now publishers are starting to waken up and realise that there is a wealth of material out there waiting to be rediscovered and adopted.

Bloomsbury has now joined forces with the Rights House to establish a new venture ‘Bloomsbury Reader’ that will publish digital versions of out-of-print titles and the service will not be exclusive but open to other literary services. Initially some 500 out-of-print titles from authors such as, Alan Clark , Roy Jenkins, Bernice Rubens, Edith Sitwell, Monica Dickens, VS Pritchett will be made available as ebooks and on print on demand.

Bloomsbury Reader is clearly aimed at addressing both that huge treasure trove of forgotten works that have long been forgotten in the trade’s obsession with its ‘grail’ quest to find that new bestseller and focus on cluster bombing front list titles onto the market. Bloomsbury have taken a logical step to work with those people who know what they have, what has been forgotten and what sold, the literary agent.

Ask any publisher what rights they are merely sitting on and are locked away in a cupboard and why these aren’t digital today and the answer will probably be somewhat muffled and the eyes adverted. We have long believed that these works should be made available and this initiative is tackling reverted rights works and those where the ownership is well established. We hope others will follow and trade publishers will unlock those rights that they are merely sitting on and give them a fresh digital start. However, publishing is not just about throwing books out into the market it is about refreshing them and promoting and distributing and the Bloomsbury Reader initiative has recognised this and built these steps into their programme. No doubt the titles will now also be built into the growing Bloomsbury Library Online service and be available to millions of library patrons.

It’s ironic that at a time when the Google Book Settlement looks thankfully lost, the trade is now starting to look hard at the orphan works and by adopting these forgotten heroes they are in fact addressing some of the issues that legislation and the Google settlement failed to come close to resolving.

Sharing Digital Revenues

Digital books are not just about ebooks podcasts, online, they are merely the delivery formats. It’s about how we acquire, develop, market, promote and sell rights. We have long argued that ‘digital publishing is publishing’ and the need to look not just at the end format but at all aspects of the life-cycle from the author to the reader. Today we see many grappling with some these wider aspects of digital publishing and an environment, which for many sectors, will have to support both physical and digital side by side for as far as we can envisage.

Last week The Bookseller reported on the issue of royalty rates on ebooks and the apparent impasse that Random have with many in the over their claimed lower rates.

The question is not whether the rate should be ‘x’ or ‘y’, but what is the appropriate model to be adopted today for digital rights and how is it likely to change over time. There are a number of points we should also acknowledge:

First, a royalty deal struck today may not pay out for maybe two years yet in that time the digital market may have shifted significantly. The digital market is not stable and out of the control of any one party. Best intension and what appears a good or fair deal today is vulnerable to outside forces.

Secondly, digital pricing is all over the floor, a true dog’s dinner! Some want to align ebook pricing to the physical, others use them a promotional leaders, others such as Amazon are trying to create a price point independent of RRP. In a world where the net receipts are vulnerable, many will opt for royalties based on them, but for the author a percentage of net can mean a percentage of little.

Thirdly, the new retail entrants are often trading on fixed ‘value share’ terms, so a percentage share on royalty makes sense, but in these cases the percentage should often rise not fall.

What is clear is that we have a timeline issue which means what we know, or can predict today, is almost certain to change tomorrow. This surely demands, that digital rights should be at least revisited on an agreed schedule and not fall into a perpetual licence contract. Should a term time right on digital align to a term time right on physical or even visa versa? In a world of Print and digital on demand some would suggest that rights don’t revert, but given that precise shift surely its time to ensure that licences are term based and not dependant on inventory movements and ‘reprint under consideration’.

We see no real alternative to individual digital licences based on channels and revenues. The alternative could be digital falling into the special sales route where the deal may be more important than the royalty earned by the author. The physical world has different channels and it is fair to envisage the digital one will be no different. However, the channels and revenue models will be different and aligning these to the physical may be at best, unwise.

Finally, we would like to throw in what some may regard as totally inappropriate. In a digital world where stock is effectively on consignment and every sale is a real cash generating sale why not pay the author their royalty in real time? Some will argue that advances etc need to be covered before royalty trip in but should that apply to digital and is it so sacrosanct?

Double Agents?

This last couple of weeks has shown us how easy it is to forget or pay token gestures to authors. Nobody would be as bold as to stand and say a bad word about them in public but often actions speak louder than words.

We wrote last week about the ‘landgrab’ by a literary agency to revert rights and secure them in ‘safe keeping’ in the long tail print on demand channel. No marketing fees or promotion incurred here, just a one off conversion cost and every sale results in an additional bonus. Will authors and their estates get 90% of any revenues earned, or will they end up with a lot smaller percentage and the usual babble about investment and risk and the cost of redesigning the jacket! Will they get a second publication opportunity - highly unlikely - as to many, this is in fact their last publishing opportunity! They may well have done it themselves and in doing so also colected all the revenues raised. Mind you the agent may still have wanted their cut!

The question of who offers authors what advice, is interesting. Some may agrue that an agent who offers backlist print on demand under their label, a clear conflict of interest. They may say that it is may be praying on the vulnerability of some in this new uncertain world and obviously betraying their position of trust. You would not expect your account or tax advisor to recommend you to invest in their own company or schemes, so why accept this ‘bad’ advice.

We must always remember that there are only two players that count, the author who creates the work and the reader who pays for it. All the rest are intermediaries who should add value and invariably also cost. If value is not seen then just like in other sectors no one’s position is safe, agents, publishers, printers, distributors, retailers etc.

Authors deserve guidance and good advice and they afer all are the ones that create the content that is publibishing.