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Who Owns the E-Book Rights for Your Favorite Novel?

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Last December I bookmarked an article on the New York Times website that I found very interesting. The article talked about Stephen Covey (you know, the guy whose book I reviewed on this website) and how he has granted exclusive e-book rights to two of his books to Amazon.com. Well, in reality he’s granted exclusive rights to a separate company who will then sell the books to Amazon.com, but there’s no need to get bogged down in the details. From the article:

Arthur Klebanoff, chief executive of RosettaBooks, said that Mr. Covey would receive more than half of the net proceeds that RosettaBooks took in from Amazon on these e-book sales. In contrast, the standard digital royalty from mainstream publishers is 25 percent of net proceeds.

“There are superstars, and superstars are entitled to more,” Mr. Klebanoff said.

Sean Covey, a son of Mr. Covey and chief innovation officer for Franklin Covey, a training and consulting firm that also publishes business books, said that the higher royalty rate was “a factor” in the decision to switch to RosettaBooks.

The elder Mr. Covey was also particularly attracted by Amazon’s plans to heavily promote the e-book editions of both “7 Habits” and “Principle-Centered Leadership.”

There are a lot of interesting tidbits in that piece from the article. First, name me any successful author that isn’t going to jump at the opportunity to make more money off of their hard work. If the path that Covey is walking down proves to be more profitable for him, personally, then I have to imagine that other contemporary authors will be enticed to grant exclusive e-book rights to certain publishers in the future.

Second, apparently the publishing industry should seriously consider this as the Coveys are stating outright that the higher royalties were a factor in their decision. Memo to the bosses at the publishing companies – time to give more revenue to the authors!

Of course there are other publishing companies that are taking a more proactive stance towards protecting rights which they believe belong to them – including e-book rights.

Other publishers have moved to stake their claim on e-book rights for older titles. On Friday, Random House sent a letter to dozens of literary agents stating that on all backlist books, it retained “the exclusive right to publish in electronic book publishing formats.”

You know, I’m not sure how these contracts are structured, but I wonder if Random House has a case here. It doesn’t seem to be the most outlandish claim that publishers would retain the rights to publishing their authors’ content in all its forms, does it? I don’t know.

What this article makes apparent to me is that authors are taking an active role in ensuring their content gets delivered to their audiences at affordable rates. On top of that, authors want to make sure that they are paid a fair compensation for content that is distributed electronically. And finally, the big publishing houses need to seriously consider a different royalty structure when it comes to the sale of a paper book versus an electronic book.

Book Review: The 8th Habit

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Generally, I’m not one of these people who read the personal empowerment series of books that you can find littered throughout the business section of your local Barnes & Noble. However, Stephen R. Covey’s The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness happened to be on sale for a dollar and a half because the book was damaged, so I made the purchase. And it was a decent purchase, too, as the book was a good read while I was on the treadmill at the gym. This is a book that focuses on positive leadership strategies to both life and the business world – a good book to read while sweating away the calories.

First things first – I didn’t read Covey’s related book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People so I cannot really offer much in the way of comparing one book to the other. I have the 7 Habits audio book, but I haven’t had the chance to sit down and listen to it yet.

The first book aside, though, I definitely recommend The 8th Habit for the young professional who may have little prior leadership experience and is trying to find a way to break through to the next level in his or her career. For those who are already overflowing with leadership experience, this book might be a nice refresher course and serve to remind you of some aspects of success that you might have overlooked. In either event, using the link above you can purchase this book for only a few bucks so if you’re interested, it’s definitely worth the purchase.

Covey breaks this book into a variety of sections and makes excellent use of charts and graphs throughout. He also intersperses the text with quotes from famous leaders, which I found very enjoyable (I’ll be lifting some of those quotes for the random quote generator located on the right hand side of this page). Chapters include topics like finding your voice, empowering those around you (which is essentially the “core” of the 8th Habit), and aligning basic strategies. One theme that is consistently brought up in the book is the idea that we – as a society – are leaving the industrial age and entering an information age.

Or, as Covey calls it, the Age of Wisdom. This is an interesting and yet obvious insight to those in the working world. The Age of Wisdom presents a fundamental change to employers and employees as the contributions of the masses will no longer be blood, sweat, and tears, but instead information. In other words, where the economy once thrived off of the backs of industrial age workers, the new economy is being built off of the minds of wisdom age workers. Interesting insight once you start to study the job market and notice how many highly physical jobs are being taken over by automated processes.

And the introduction of automated processes isn’t a bad thing at all! In fact, it’s great because it will force many people to begin studying and researching new ways to contribute to their employer. Sure, it won’t happen on a mass scale, but I agree with Covey that one day we’ll look around and find ourselves immersed in an information age society. Could be faster than you think…

For those of you who are into these types of books, I suggest picking up (an inexpensive copy of) this book and giving it a read. You’ll find it to be a fast read with nice messages that you can take away throughout. Enjoy!