Off-topic on publishing (was: Re: Signature book)

["R Tennenbaum"]

Olson, Timothy wrote:

>Also relating to this topic is an article that appeared in Nov. 23
>Newsweek--"Books Caught in the Web." The article is about B&N's buyout of
>Ingram. The following especially caught my eye: "[B&N] plans to stock
>every book in print and to revive thousands of out-of-print books using
>Ingram's Lightning Print, the industry leader in print-on-demand
>technology. 'No book will ever go out of print again,' says B&N vice
>chairman Steve Riggio."

Not necessarily welcome news for writers, btw. (Sorry for going far
afield, but there are a number of us here.) Authors and putatives
should be aware that it's apparently becoming harder and harder to get
back the rights to one's book from a publisher: "out of print" no
longer has any connotation. Instead, the deal with electronic book
publishing is apparently to offer royalties at the same percentage as
hard books -- even though, of course, the overhead is a mere fraction
of book printing and distribution.


--Rafe Tennenbaum
raphaelt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.ray-field.com