Pat Conroy and the E-Book Future - AP

Hillel Italie:

Conroy is a good example of the divided state of electronic books. With standard contracts now including digital rights, e-editions of his recent works — from "South of Broad" to a memoir out this fall, "My Reading Life" — are handled by Random House, Inc., which also releases the bound versions. Meanwhile, rights to his older books have shifted among outside companies.

The Open Road releases were first published by Houghton Mifflin (now Harcourt Houghton Mifflin), but came out before the rise of e-books, when many contracts did not specifically cover rights to electronic editions. ...

Conroy and his agent, Marlee Rusoff, both say the major appeal of Open Road was not royalties, although Open Road almost surely is offering more than the 25 percent most publishers give, but how the books would be packaged and promoted.

For several years, "Prince of Tides" was released through a licensing agreement with rival digital publisher, Rosetta Books. But after the Rosetta contract expired, Rusoff thought it better to try a new company.

"Nothing had been done to promote the books; they were languishing, I felt," Rusoff says. "What made me introduce Pat to the people at Open Road was the visual element of their books. I think that can enhance the experience. None of that was happening at Rosetta."

"Did I want to renew this license? The answer is 'Yes,' says Rosetta founder Arthur Klebanoff, who has fought with Random House over rights to older titles. "But until the arrival of the Kindle, you had a tiny, tiny marketplace. That has changed dramatically over the last 12 years, but if you're an agent looking for results and you were hanging around with Rosetta for nine years, it looks like there's no action." ...