Trident Media Group has become the latest--and by far the
largest--literary agency to announce an initiative to help their clients
epublish, often independently of established publishing houses. The new
initiative, called Trident E-Book Operations, will "create, manage and
implement innovative e-book strategies for its authors, including the
distribution of a variety of e-books directly" to major etailers.
(Though they also see establishing "new business relationships with
traditional and non-traditional publishers.") Lyuba DiFalco and Nicole
Robson will serve in the new position of co-directors of E-Book
Operations, supervised by Trident's top executives.
Chairman Robert Gottlieb, who has been outspoken in the past about
agents who establish publishing operations, says in the announcement,
"Trident will devise strategies to maximize value for its authors in the
new and complex e-book publishing field. Trident will not become a
publisher, but will instead continue in its new e-book operations to
have itself aligned with its clients whose interests we serve as an
agent and manager." Trident intends to charge its standard agency
commission on revenues generated for authors through the new unit.
The announcement indicates Trident will provide a "comprehensive
suite of services" comprising much of what authors need in order to
bring works to market electronically, from copy-editing, marketing and
cover design to digital conversion. They foresee covering properties of
all types (out-of-print, backlist, frontlist and unpublished short-form)
in multiple formats (ebook; enhanced ebook; print-on-demand).
The move seems designed to serve authors in the alternate channels
that epublishing provides as well as potentially strengthen the agency's
hand in negotiating with traditional publishers. Asked if this would
affect their approach to the standard ebook royalty terms from major
publishers, Gottlieb said, "We are always looking to improve these terms
where possible under all circumstances." And he responded affirmatively
when we asked if developing robust epublishing capabilities was a
prelude to seeking to split electronic and print rights for some
clients.
Gottlieb will appear on an agents panel this afternoon at our eBooks
for Everyone Else conference, where he said he would address some
additional details.
*From today's Publisher's Lunch
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