Having read some more on the subject, I’ve made a list of possible ramifications of the removal of the rights reversion clause from publishing contracts:
1) Legal teething problems: If the concern from the online writing community over the S&S move is to be taken seriously, then not all authors will accept such a revision of their contracts. This could cause authors to change publishing house rather than signing new contracts with their existing ones, causing a power shift away from innovators like S&S.
2) Publishers will publish more: Texts will no longer have to be highly market-oriented. Random House and others know that they will be able to turn a profit on an unpopular, or even a bad book if it’s only sold through POD or as an e-book, providing there is no, or a much smaller advance. If the feeling that aggregators of content are going to profit the most from the LT spreads, then this point may well prove true.
3) Self-publishing will grow: The reason publishing houses are holding onto these titles for longer is because they will be profitable for longer. This is true because they are under no compulsion to do anything difficult with them to get them sold. No advertising, bulk printing, or marketing. As a result, the writers will probably be able to do their own LT publishing, and will prove more and more successful as the public gets more used to buying books POD and online due to the large publishers’ activity.
4) Writers’ Union: As more and more writers with less influence get signed up to publishers, they will need to band together in order to stop being exploited. As was the case back in the old days of publishing, many of these ‘alternative ‘writers will not be able to afford an agent to represent their rights, leaving them open to exploitation like so many writers pre-1980’s. The logic of aggregation under the LT may lead small hobbyist writers to form associations to hire an agent between them, or maybe to use the clout of the more successful ones to gain them respect from publishers.
5) Personalised books: One of the advantages of POD is that people could in theory be able to ask for a personalised copy. That is to say, as their single copy is being printed for them alone, they might ask for a different cover, or font.
6) A dip in the quality of writing: If an author can expect to get a deal from a publisher who doesn’t expect to sell more than 2 copies of his book a year, then why would he try to make it successful? Surely instead he would rush on to write another rotten novel and pass it on to the next aggregator.
