A question about publishing right

[Yukinara]

I just finished my book and am thinking about getting it out to the world. I have been reading a lot about traditional vs self publishing, pros and cons, etc So I have this question: when I get a deal with a publisher, can I just give them the right to publish my book in print while I will do the digital publishing myself? I know publishers are capable of getting my book online but they are notorious for pricing the book at high price (like 4.99 or something). I prefer to set my own price and work on my own marketing.

So, is that possible?

 

[sashamerideth]

I suspect probably not, the publisher will be calling the shots. If you were an established author then you could have more negotiating power.

 

[Kelise]

There would be no reason for a publisher to allow this - what's in it for them? It wouldn't be possible at all, sadly.

 

[zizban]

Sure you can. A publishing contract should always be negotiable. If a publisher is not willing to negotiate, walk away. A book publishable by one is publishable by many. Generally a reputable publishing house won't take rights it can't exploit. Thus is if your potential publisher doesn't do ebooks, it wont take those rights.

 

[Devor]

Hypothetically, if they agreed to that arrangement, then the bookstores would complain about having their prices undercut and refuse to sell your book.

 

[TWErvin2]

As was said, it all depends on the contract, but very few publishers are going to sign a book for print only, and leave the ebook rights to the author. Why would they desire to do this? They do the editing and secure cover art and some marketing? If the author does all that on his/her own, would the work be substandard, in their view and reflect badly on the publishing house? Why would they want to sign an author that is going to be competing with them with respect to the same book? There is some overlap in the readership of print/ebooks.

Maybe target publishers that you feel have ebooks in the price range you're comfortable with?

 

[zizban]

Some publisher don't do ebooks. Most do, but some don't but a publishing contract can and should be negotiable. My publisher, Booktrope, lets me keep the print rights but I have a non-compete clause for a year after the ebook is released.

 

[gerald.parson]

I personally have never heard of a publisher allowing some one to publish on their own. Business wise it creates a competitive marker within their own product. Not saying it hasn't, can't, or won't ever be done, I just have never heard of it. Why would a publisher want to compete against you on the very same book ( that is yours) they are publishing?

 

[zizban]

It happens all the time. Let's take Lawrence Watt-Evans. Wildside has the print rights for The Vondish Ambassador, he kept the ebook rights. It's because some publishers can't exploit some rights. It isn't really competition because there is always a demand for a certain format and despite the explosion of ebooks they still make up less 10% of all book sales.

 

[Devor]

It happens all the time. Let's take Lawrence Watt-Evans. Wildside has the print rights for The Vondish Ambassador, he kept the ebook rights.

Do you happen to know whether any limitations were placed on his epublishing rights as part of the print contract? I mean technically he could still have the rights, and they could still have pricing restrictions on them. Otherwise, to be blunt, I would take it more as a lack of confidence on the publisher's part than anything.

Don't publishers have contracts with the bookstores they sell to? I don't know, but knowing a little about business in general, I would expect they do, and I would expect they include agreements about having the print prices significantly undercut online. At least, I would expect so with the big publishers and the big bookstores. But I don't know, maybe they don't always see self-publishing as a threat, so maybe some independent publishers do make that arrangement.

For the OP, you can always ask, but I at least wouldn't expect that arrangement to be available on demand.

 

[JCFarnham]

If they let you "keep the ebook rights" I would be VERY surprised if the publisher didn't write a non-competion clause into your contract stating that the prices need to be set just so.

Lets put this in perspective for a moment. I would hesitate hugely in doing a deal with a publisher who would be happy to have me undercutting them. Simply, in the world of business any one who allows themselves to be undercut is effectively sealing their fate to fail. They would be giving away the chance to make money, which doesn't make much if any sense. I personally would be wondering if the publisher would go out of business from poor choices before getting my work out there.

If my marketing degree taught me anything it's that you need to judge every case as it comes and not apply too much a general blanket approach to business. There are too many variables in any given market to say anything for certain, so easily the best risk aversion strategy in my opinion is to weigh the pros and cons of each issues as it comes. As people have said, its nearly always a game of negotiation, so you can and probably should try and work on the publisher for a deal thats more suited to you.

Of course, if the publisher thinks they can get enough money out of you without having exclusive rights across all media then fair play, you have your ebook rights intact. I would never advise you to give up the idea, so try it and see. Maybe you'll get lucky?


One little addition: I would also hope that a publisher would see the value of the Theory of Economies of Scale/Price (that being - price something low you'll move more units and have more of a chance at higher profit than if you sold high and moved fewer units. There is a mid point where this is most effective, too low and no one will buy and vice versa). It's a fact that at least one author has made more money on selling £0.99 ebooks than if they were dearer. Cheaper is more attractive at the moment.

If you quote that kind of theory to a publisher, while they may not give you ebook rights, they may let you have a low price regardless. If I were a publisher I would strongly consider this. With the same quantity and quality of advertising you'd hopefully shift more units for certain (if not then your publisher isn't doing their job right. sooooo.

Think about it

 

[Steerpike]

This is going to depend largely on who you publish with. If you go with an "alternative" publishing approach there may be these sorts of provisions in place. Going with an alternative publisher that does only ebooks, for example - it makes sense they're not going to take print rights. But you're not going to make much money through those guys in all likelihood, and you've likely hamstrung yourself if you want a traditional publisher of any note to take on the print form of the book.

If you're an unknown author and your goal is to go with a publishing house that can get your book on the shelf at the local Barnes & Noble, I'd be surprised if any of them would let you hold back electronic rights. If you insisted on "negotiating" that point, they'd probably just drop the project.

If you're dealing with POD, or the numerous ebook-only publishers, or any publishers with little resources and little chance of actually doing much to promote your book (i.e. leaving that all on the author), then you're going to have more leverage to negotiate points, or at the very least you haven't lost much if you tell them 'no' and move on to the next such publisher.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

Sure you can. A publishing contract should always be negotiable. If a publisher is not willing to negotiate, walk away. A book publishable by one is publishable by many. Generally a reputable publishing house won't take rights it can't exploit. Thus is if your potential publisher doesn't do ebooks, it wont take those rights.

While technically correct -in reality this is not so. Any publisher worth signing with are not going to "walk away" from the ebook rights. No "reputable" publisher won't be doing ebooks. If you found a publisher only interested in print rights -they are too out of touch with the industry to be worthy of signing any rights over to.

 

[sashamerideth]

While technically correct -in reality this is not so. Any publisher worth signing with are not going to "walk away" from the ebook rights. No "reputable" publisher won't be doing ebooks. If you found a publisher only interested in print rights -they are too out of touch with the industry to be worthy of signing any rights over to.

Hear hear, I certainly won't be signing with a publisher that hasn't already jumped on the eBook bandwagon with a sensible strategy.

 

[gerald.parson]

Correct me if I am wrong, but aside from Kindle which has a special file type, and their is an app to convert PDF's to this file type, do not the majority of ebooks come in a PDF format? If this is correct, than why wouldnt any publisher not handle this? Anyone can make a PDF, there for anyone can publish an ebook...

 

[MichaelSullivan]

It happens all the time. Let's take Lawrence Watt-Evans. Wildside has the print rights for The Vondish Ambassador, he kept the ebook rights. It's because some publishers can't exploit some rights. It isn't really competition because there is always a demand for a certain format and despite the explosion of ebooks they still make up less 10% of all book sales.

I would ask that you clarify "all the time" - I think you may find some very few isolated incidents Wildside press is a VERY small indie press and I would venture even with them it was an "exception not the rule.

The "less than 10% of all book sales" is also not true. USA Today indicates "which" version sells the most: Paperback, Ebook, or Print and there are a large number of titles where the ebook is selling "the most" - including 8 of the top 10.

For instance:

#2 Catching Fire
#3 MockingJay
#5 The Help
#6 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
#7 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
#8 Heaven is for Real
#9 The Girl who played with fire
#10 Private

I think your data on ebook %'s and publishers who consider ebooks "important" might be out of date. It could have been true as little as a year ago but things are changing quickly and nowadays it is the print rights that are becoming the subsidary rights and ebooks being the rights most publishers are the most interested in.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

Correct me if I am wrong, but aside from Kindle which has a special file type, and their is an app to convert PDF's to this file type, do not the majority of ebooks come in a PDF format? If this is correct, than why wouldnt any publisher not handle this? Anyone can make a PDF, there for anyone can publish an ebook...

kindle - is just .mobi format which is a standard. Most ebooks are best to start out as a simplified .html from which virutally any format can be generated. The most popular are .mobi and .epub.

Creating an "ebook" from a manuscript file format (such as word) is a VERY simple process and can be done in a few hours by someone who knows what they are doing.

 

[sashamerideth]

Correct me if I am wrong, but aside from Kindle which has a special file type, and their is an app to convert PDF's to this file type, do not the majority of ebooks come in a PDF format? If this is correct, than why wouldnt any publisher not handle this? Anyone can make a PDF, there for anyone can publish an ebook...

ePub is the de-facto format. Unless it is a specially created reflowable PDF, then ereaders will not be able to reformat the PDF to user preference. Formatting for kindle is a different kettle of fish than print formatting and a publisher needs ebook formatting specialists to target that platform reliably and with good output.

 

[gerald.parson]

is there software that allows the average joe to format to a ePub file type? In this day in age I would find it hard to believe that such software is exclusive just to publishers. But nothing would surprise me really.

 

[MichaelSullivan]

ePub is the de-facto format. Unless it is a specially created reflowable PDF, then ereaders will not be able to reformat the PDF to user preference. Formatting for kindle is a different kettle of fish than print formatting and a publisher needs ebook formatting specialists to target that platform reliably and with good output.

I'll disagree with "ebook formatting specialists" requirements. To do an ebook "well" is a VERY simple process. Doing ebook formatting is much easier than most realize and can be done easily with some global search/replace in word and using standard notepad editor. Once you get the base .html file created a free program like Calibre can make every format imaginable.... .epub, .mobi (kindle), .lrf, .lit, in a matter of seconds.