Crawford County Vo-Tech student Ryan
Mark Helprin thinks copyright should last forever. Idiot.
Speaking of idiots, Simon and Schuster wants to eliminate the concept of "out of print" and has begun buying rights, well, forever.
What makes both of these interesting is that they seem to be response to the popularity of Publish on Demand. I'm working on a critical edition of a regional text, now in the public domain, that has been largely forgotten but is highly marketable. So, I contacted a press and, yes, they were interested in the book, but with an advance so small that it would have been like losing money, so I'll probably use lulu.com . Why not? There's still a stigma in some places, but at the Festival of Mystery, everyone I talked to said that if they had the time and the energy, they'd go POD rather than working with the big presses.
Pragmatically, the truth is, I'll make a bigger amount of money going with POD, even after hiring a copyeditor. Scholarly books like this project don't get pushed very hard anyway -- no big tours or lavish receptions. I'll send out some notices, do a lecture in the region and send out some highly targeted review copies. The book will be sold on amazon, B&N, everywhere and I don't have to deal with a middleman. I guess if I were a big slowly moving press or an author dependant on those presses, I'd be nervous and shrill too.
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2 comments:
there is no way anyone will be able to bring me back, but good luck.
my last name is spelled Riegner
thanks, and i like the blog
Careful! That's what I said before boarding the Lake Shore Limited 15 years ago :) !
Regardless, I'm really sorry about the misspelling.
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