Authors are very strange folk indeed. I can say that because I am one.
But some are stranger -- by far -- than most, and therein lies a tale.
An author [who shall remain nameless] of my acquaintance had a book published with a publisher [who shall remain nameless] of my acquaintance in JULY. [Note the date, please; it is relevant] Not the author's first book, by any means, but the first with this particular publisher.
And the ink was barely dry when this author, for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend, not only stuck up an $8.99 version of the book on Kindle, but then went on to put -- and promote the hell out of -- a FREE version of the book on the author's website. The author did this--it had nothing to do with the publisher.
Which leaves us, gentle reader, with an author giving away a free version of his/her own book to compete with an $8.99 Kindle version, to compete with the $20+ hardcover version that the author's *new* publisher is trying to sell!
Let it be clear: the author hadn't sold the ebook rights, much less the *give it away for free* rights, so the author broke no laws except perhaps the law of simple common sense. But still ...
It sounds to me like a lesson plan for "HOW TO SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FOOT - FOR DUMMIES," or "HOW TO ALIENATE YOUR NEW PUBLISHER IN ONE EASY LESSON."
But another element of the woeful tale is that it illustrates how pervasive/persuasive modern technology hath become, and how much more complicated the *business* of writing has become.
All sorts of authors are busy putting up their backlists on Kindle, for example ... or trying to ... and running into all manner of complications with regards to the various rights which may or may not have been tied up in their original contracts, and it gets even more tricky for books existing in print under contracts that never involved ebook rights at all.
And then there is the COVER issue, because it seems many, many authors who scream blue murder about *their* rights seem only too happy to ignore the fact that COVER ARTISTS have rights too! Not only that, but many cover artists KNOW their rights, and have farmed them out in myriads of complicated contracts that ultimately affect the authors who think [often erroneously] that the author owns the rights to the author's book cover. Often -- VERY OFTEN -- the author does not!
Which gets tricky indeed if an author plans to put up a book on Kindle or some other ebook medium using a cover paid for by the publisher, under contract with the cover artist, and for which specific rights for the cover illustration might be involved. Sometimes, indeed, authors are rightly expected to pay for covers they think they already own!
