Simon & Schuster cannot be at all pleased that Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Successful People and Principle Centered Leadership, has signed on with Amazon.com for the publishing of the e-book edition of his bestsellers on the Amazon Kindle. The obvious reason for Covey's decision is that Amazon is offering 50 percent royalties on his e-book sales while Simon & Schuster is offering only 25 percent.

Traditional publishers are concerned that this phenomenon will occur frequently with more of the most popular and bestselling authors. They may hold on to digital rights while negotiating contracts for new books. Furthermore in older book contracts, digital rights were not normally delineated. Therefore authors are claiming they hold those rights.

To make matters worse, as I reported earlier in this blog, traditional publishers are delaying in publishing books in e-book format because they want to sell as many copies of the hardback version as they can, and they fear e-books, which carry a lower retail prices, will cut into sales and profits of hardback, more expensive book sales. It would seem traditional publishers continue to hold on to an outdated model. Print on demand and e-book publishing is much more in sync with today's technology and Internet marketing. By clinging to outdated models, the traditional book publishing industry is following the path of the music industry into oblivion. There was a time when there used to be music stores that sold cd albums for recording industry giants. But now Apple has the rights, and the i-pod makes is possible for customers to download the songs they want to hear and then play them through computer speakers, stereo systems, portable speaker systems, ear plugs, or whatever form that consumer desires. E-readers, by making use of the various software applications available, are the vessels that will allow the content of books to flow as the i pod has allowed music to flow. Traditional publishers cannot stop it, or hold it back.

Authors who publish their books with Dorrance enjoy the advantage of having their books available in just about every currently used e-reader format. it is important  to keep in mind that the goal is distribution of desired content in whatever form consumers want to receive it. Do that, and success will follow.