The changing face of the industry

From Publisher's Weekly

Okay, this isn't news, in itself...except for... "Kensington, which hopes to release the first titles next summer, will have exclusive print rights and will also handle various sub-rights sales to e-books for which Samhain has rights."

Some people are also fixating on... "Many of our readers tell us they want the option of both e-published and traditional formats, and this is the perfect way to respond to that need," Brashear said.

It does show the changing face of the industry, though readers asking for both e-book and print really isn't news to me. Jeff Strand and I were discussing the strange irony that, when we both have more books coming out in print-only, readers are asking, "Where's the e-book?" But, in this case, I think Crissy was saying that the readers in e-book were saying, "Where's the print?" That situation is far older and more established a response.

That said, even the deal with Kensington isn't that Earth-shattering. Ellora's Cave did this with Simon and Schuster some time ago. In addition to owning their own press, EC puts out paper books with S&S. Now, I haven't heard anything about S&S having a hand in the e-book side, but seeing as how S&S doesn't even list EC on their "distributed lines" page at this link ... Let's just say it's a little difficult to figure out PRECISELY what their deal is. What we do know is that S&S has requested more anthologies from EC...and EC has announced it's intention to place more books with S&S for distribution. I would suppose they are selling well. Strange that everyone knows there is a business deal there, but there has been little information on the precise details of the deal.

This is becoming a big thing, of late. Since the NY conglomerates have failed to purchase the indie/e publishers (as Kensington failed to purchase Ellora's Cave), they are working diligently to pick out those they consider to be "cream of the crop" and make these sort of deals for distribution with them, thereby capitalizing on the strengths of indie/e without having to purchase them outright.