Saturday, June 02, 2007

Still More on Simon & Schuster

The Authors Guild website includes this notice, which was sent to agents who belong to the Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR)

ALERT TO AAR MEMBERS
May 31, 2007

Representatives of the AAR Board and the AAR Contracts and Electronic Committees had a successful meeting this morning with Jack Romanos, Carolyn Reidy, and Rick Richter to discuss the ongoing issue of reversion of rights. The Simon and Schuster executives apologized for any early miscommunication on this issue, and appreciated the opportunity to clarify their position.

They informed us that S&S is investing a lot of resources in its digital publishing initiative, and their expanded efforts in conventional and newtechnologies will enable them to supply books to consumers in a variety of formats, including Print on Demand, electronic books, digital downloadable audio, online page views, et. al. Their goal is to keep books in print more effectively and to market frontlist and backlist titles more vibrantly.

They have confirmed for us that they are agreeable to negotiating with agents a revenue-based threshold to determine the in-print status of a book.

1 comment:

poetica in silentium said...

Or as someone else from your neck of the woods said, "And that's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

Kinda figured S&S would back down some. Something to do with those Greenstamps, I think.