"Kobo's decision to enter into competition with its own suppliers further complicates relations already strained by the decision of its part-owner, Indigo Books and Music, to promote Kobo e-readers aggressively in stores formerly dedicated exclusively to selling traditional books.
Thousands of bookstores across North America have closed in the course of the digital revolution, falling prey first to online book sales and more recently to e-books that can be delivered automatically to such devices as the Kobo and Amazon’s market-leading Kindle. Some fear that traditional publishers will be the next to suffer as online operators move onto their turf.
But Writers’ Union of Canada chair Greg Hollingshead welcomed the news, saying the new competition could encourage traditional publishers to pay more for electronic rights and to stop forcing authors to do 'what publishers are supposed to do – editing and promotion.'
Traditional publishers generally remit 25 per cent of a book’s cover price as a royalty to authors, while Amazon pays as much as 70 per cent, according to Hollingshead. If the new e-publishers make good on their promise, he added, 'conventional publishers will need to look hard at how they treat authors and how they compete in the digital market.' " — John Barber, THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Read more...
Read more about Kobo here...
No comments:
Post a Comment