Nowadays, there is a publishing landscape changing and it is pretty advisable to look into it to understand why this is happening, and what our real options are as authors. Technology and the traditional publishing process problems have motivated new strategies and interesting modifications to renew the conventional mechanism.
The traditional publishing is about a three link chain: author, agent and publisher. However, it seems to be lots of troubles when it comes to traditional publishing. On one hand, there is no point for authors to sign away rights. On the other hand, agents complain about publishers because some of them seem to be really interested in rights but they do nothing to exploit the book market.
In the middle of this huge and complicated issue, things are changing and bringing some modifications and benefits for authors. Of course, agents and publishers may come up with all sorts of snags putting up resistance, but at the end of the day, authors and books are what really matters. So, the point here is finding proper strategies that work better for them. Which are your choices as an author?
Limited licenses? Yes. This is definitely an option. If authors decide to go through traditional channels, they may ask for limited licenses. A ten years license could be pretty reasonable. There is no point in signing away rights. Publishers and agents won’t certainly agree, but 10 years to recover the investment they made is definitely more than enough and fair.
On the other hand, authors can also find some kind of arrangement to add some modifications to contracts. They can sign some kind of revenue generating agreement and set a period of time. After that period if the publisher has not generated that threshold, authors can cancel the contract and move on.
Tired of not having the control? This is the age of technology and authors should always consider print-on-demand platforms to publish and print their books. This is the perfect tool to become independent from publishers, to release e-books and print with no need to sign rights. Actually, many times, authors can play different roles during the book publishing and promoting process. They can act as agents, publishers and booksellers by themselves, having a total control of the process. Print-on-demand platforms allow authors total freedom when it comes to publishing, promoting, printing and selling their own books.
It is time to change and make new rules. Check these advices above, get well-informed and plan a new strategy to publish your book.
Limited Licenses – A New Strategy To Publish Your Book