“Rage, rage against the dying of the light!” Publishers Random House and Macmillan are criticizing an eBook deal by one of America’s leading literary agents.
Home to 700 authors and estates, from Philip Roth to John Updike, Jorge Luis Borges and Saul Bellow, the Wylie Agency shocked the publishing world yesterday when it announced the launch of Odyssey Editions. The new initiative is selling ebook editions of modern classics, including Lolita, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy, exclusively via Amazon.com’s Kindle store, leaving conventional publishers out of the picture.
Publishers are citing active contracts on these works and Amazon’s dominance in the market as reasons against this deal. Agent Andrew Wylie doesn’t know how to respond, according to the NY Times.
I’m a lousy prognosticator, but I think this will quietly be shelved (har!) as soon as contractually permissible. Locking yourself in with a single retailer, however big, is dangerous.
B&N seems to have a better product at the moment with the Nook, too, although that could be Betamaxed.
heh, heh. I think you have a good point.