MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
June 7 – June 14, 2007 Edition
AAR Holds Talks
With S&S On Concerns
Over Digital Rights
NEW YORK, NY/6/2/07–Representatives of the AAR Board and the AAR Contracts and Electronic Committees met May 31 with Simon & Schuster CEO Jack Romanos, publisher Carolyn Reidy, and Rick Richter to discuss the ongoing issue of reversion of rights, publicly criticized by the AuthorsGuild during the previous week.
The AAR alerted its members that Simon and Schuster executives apologized for any early miscommunication on the issue, and appreciated the opportunity to clarify their position.
According to the AAR alert, S&S said it is investing a lot of resources in its digital publishing initiative, and their expanded efforts in conventional and new technologies will enable them to supply books to consumers in a variety of formats, including Print on Demand, electronic books, digital downloadable audio, online page views, et. al. The AAR memo said: Their goal is to keep books in print more effectively and to market frontlist and backlist titles more vibrantly. They have confirmed for us that they are agreeable to negotiating with agents a revenue-based threshold to determine the in-print status of a book.
In a planned program this fall, titled MAJOR PUBLISHERS TAKE US INTO OUR PUBLISHING FUTURE, AAR members will discuss the various ways the large houses are committed to marketing books aggressively, in digital and print formats.
