The Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) announces a new understanding with Simon & Schuster over the latter’s latest boilerplate contract, which the Authors Guild claimed was an attempt to retain rights to books in perpetuity. Representatives of the AAR Board and the AAR Contracts and Electronic Committees met with Jack Romanos (president and CEO), Carolyn Reidy (president of the Adult Publishing Group), and Rick Richter (president of the Childrens Publishing Division) of S&S on 31 May. “The Simon and Schuster executives apologized for any early miscommunication on this issue, and appreciated the opportunity to clarify their position.
“They informed us that S&S is investing a lot of resources in its digital publishing initiative, and their expanded efforts in conventional and newtechnologies 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. 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.”
The Association of Authors’ Representatives is the literary agents’ organization.
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This article is a follow-up to our earlier stories about Simon & Schuster’s attempted rights grab (see “Simon and Schuster Attempts Rights Grab” and “Simon and Schuster Responds to Authors Guild”).