More on the Wylie Deal

So I mentioned how I didn’t really like the recent move by Wylie, but my reasons were because I didn’t want to see exclusivity deals starting to creep up. Imagine if each of the big six publishers picked an e-reader as their distributor of choice. Where would readers be then?

However, the publishers are crying foul over the deal for an entirely different reason. Check out the article over at The Guardian. Publishers don’t like the deal because…well, because it flat out cuts them right out of the picture. Wylie has become, in essence, an e-publisher, completely going around the traditional publishers.

Random House has questioned if Amazon or Wylie has the rights to do this, and has severed their ties with Wylie.

A key question from the article: 

“At issue is who holds digital rights in older titles published before the advent of ebooks. Publishers argue that the ebook rights belong to them, and authors and agents respond that, if not specifically granted, the digital rights remain with the author.”

And a bit later in the article:

“Macmillan’s US chief executive, John Sargent, hit out at Wylie’s move, saying he was “appalled” by the two-year deal with Amazon, which he felt “empowers the dominant player in the market to the detriment of their competitors and creates an unbalanced retail marketplace”.

“It is an extraordinarily bad deal for writers, illustrators, publishers, other booksellers, and for anyone who believes that books should be as widely available as possible. This deal advantages Amazon, which already has the dominant share in this market,” Sargent wrote on his blog.

“Independent booksellers across the country are making plans to launch their e-bookstores this fall. Now they will not have these books available and Amazon will.”