TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

S&S and HarperCollins in U.S. refusing to sell e-book rights to British houses: Time to be more multilateral than the guy in the photo?

By David Rothman

Sounds pretty arcane, no? Simon & Schuster and the U.S. arm of HarperCollins want to keep global digital rights even when they sell paper rights to U.K. houses. That’s the word from TheBookseller.com, across The Pond. Boringly “Inside baseball”? Nope, read on—especially if you’re a discerning reader who hates globally commoditized books.

I’ll unpatriotically side with the Brits. What about localized e-covers? Not to mention payback for promoting the book in U.K. media? Jeeze, the downsides of globalization.

No need to colonize the Brits in retaliation

Here’s to national differences! British and U.S. book-buyers have separate tastes despite overlaps. For example, many British readers are more partial to character-driven books than Americans tend to be, and many Brits go for quieter, less busy covers. Below, look at the examples of the same hardback as sold by different arms of HarperCollins in the U.K. (left) and in the U.S. (right), as dug up by Carol Pinchefsky for Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show.  No need for Americans to colonize the Brits just because they did it to us even after we lost our fondness for it, and I speak with a little authority in this case, being a native of Virginia, “Give me liberty or give me death” country. Don’t impose American editions on the entire planet, at least not in place where local publishers are willing to promote the books and charge fair prices.

One U.K. publisher, reports TheBookseller.com, “described HC US’ position as ‘crazy,’ saying: ‘To reduce our publishing companies to mere distribution centres is not something I would like to see.’” I agree. Moreover, what happens when a U.K. publisher wants to bundle a free e-book download with a hardback edition?

Ironically, in the end, by keeping their mitts off the U.K. publishing trade, the American publishers may fare better since Brits are better at selling to Brits, and it isn’t as if the Yanks will be giving away rights for free. Keep in mind, too, that people in the U.K. with U.S. tastes in covers and the rest can still buy from American editions from U.S.-based companies such as Fictionwise.

Even some format and DRM angles here

On top of everything else, the U.K. houses seem a bit of ahead of the American publishers on format and DRM issue—which actually has international implications. Remember the big stake that Adobe, Amazon-owned Mobipocket and other U.S. controlled operations have in e-books as they exist now. While the ePub standard comes out of a predominantly U.S. organization, keep in mind what the IDPF supposedly stands for: The International Digital Publishing Forum. And ePub levels the playing field, opening up more competition, globally, especially if the U.K. houses and others are wise enough to back off from DRM, which is so proprietary in nature.

Please, S&S and HC U.S. How about a more multilateral ‘tude? No need to be the digital equivalents of lone-cowboy George Bush thumbing his finger at the rest of world in letting the Iraq War go on and on. If other U.S. houses can come around on this issue, can’t you?

Update, 5:35 p.m.: Yes, Sony is a Japanese company and is cluttering up the works with the BBeB format, but at least, as far as we know—up-to-the-minute info welcome—it will allow ePub on there its reader gizmos via Adobe Digital Editions. I’m aware of other eBabelers, too, outside the States. But when it comes to Western nations, at least, America is eBabel Central.