Friday, August 27, 2010

Wylie Update

I have a follow-up post to my Wylie article up at the RE:Print Blog at Popmatters.com. The Wylie Agency and Random House have reached an agreement and 13 of Odyssey Edition's titles have been removed from Amazon's online store. They are apparently going to be re-released non-exclusively through RH shortly.

While the agreement could be interpreted as proof that Wylie didn't have a legal leg to stand on if the dispute was brought to court, it would be an overreach to declare Random House the winner. There was a lot of speculation in the publishing world that Wylie's plans were more of a publicity stunt then a serious move into the direct market. From that perspective Wylie was able to bring a lot of attention on the issue of author's digital royalties in a world where e-publishing is taking over traditional print. Furthermore, he set a precedent for other authors and agents whose deals may have similar ambiguities concerning e-rights to follow if they feel that they are being mistreated. 

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