Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency

THE BOBIVERSE SIGNED COLLECTOR’S EDITION ADVENTURE

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THE BOBIVERSE SIGNED COLLECTOR’S EDITION ADVENTURE​ by Ethan Ellenberg

I’ve read that most people overestimate their abilities and our creation and publication of Dennis E. Taylor’s BOBIVERSE SIGNED COLLECTOR’S EDITION​ illustrates this quite beautifully.

When Dennis first suggested to me that there was an audience for a hardcover edition I wasn’t skeptical as much as I was wary. Despite my long years in publishing book production was way outside my area of expertise. I knew this would be a challenging project and would involve a substantial outlay of capital. Over a short period of time we decided to give it a go and so the wheels began to turn.

The project quickly went from a hardcover edition to a signed, boxed set, dramatically increasing the costs and the complexity but both Dennis and I felt that if we were going to create something truly special for the hardcore fan, this was it.

I contacted my illustrator designer Matt Forsyth who lives on the Great Barrier Island, a little place off of New Zealand. He’d never done anything like this before. We were all set. Next we began to search for a printer and after spending a day or two reading the quotes we had gotten I realized I was exactly NOT the man for the job. There are so many decisions that go into the production of a hardcover book that you do need expertise. Using my industry contacts I hired Cindy Tiger out of Colorado and she stepped into orchestrate the entire production. With Cindy on board things went
relatively smoothly. We hired a printer. We were waiting for news of the successful printing of the books when we got exciting news—the printer was closing—in 48 hours. I was convinced that all that work and all that money had gone up in smoke but luckily we received a true reprieve. The BOBIVERSE books had actually been printed before the drop dead date and were sitting in the printer’s warehouse. After a hectic 48 hours, the payment of our final bill, the hiring of a new fulfillment house and the shipment of the books, the BOBIVERSE trilogy was sitting sedately in its new home in Michigan.

We weren’t quite done yet. To West Virginia we headed for the printing of the slipcase and when that was done they were shipped to Michigan where the trilogy was assembled and shrink-wrapped.

So here is where we stand today and I’ve mainly written this piece to assure everyone who has bought the signed boxed set that they truly have a unique and high quality item. Only 989 copies of the boxed set exist. We have some extra stock and 11 unassembled boxes so the maximum number of copies of this signed first edition are 1003. We’ve got about 100 signed copies of each of the books but with no more than 11 unassembled boxes we don’t foresee any further books ending up in the a boxed set. 1003 should be the limit.

So that’s it. If you’ve bought a copy of the signed first edition boxed set it’s one of 1,003. If we ever do reprint it, the second edition will be clearly marked second edition. Most importantly, we could not be happier with the final product. The actual box is perfectly produced heavy paperboard with a 360-degree lacquered exterior, and it’s beautiful. The books are case bound and in pristine condition. Dennis has personally signed every single book. For Bobiverse fans it’s the one and only perfect collectible from this great science fiction odyssey and we went on quite a trip of our own to produce and publish it.

Life Plus 70

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I’m sure you recognize the provenance of that title—current Copyright law grants authors a term of the author’s life plus seventy years.

It’s an extraordinary grant by any measure and I can’t think of anything comparable in patents or any other system that governs intellectual property.

Copyright, however, is only part of what governs the working lives of authors. Far more consequential are the actual contracts and licenses authors enter into, which, as a practical matter, are the real governors of their creative and financial lives.

In ‘the old days’, when, for the most part, an author’s only recourse was a print book publishing contract with an established book publisher, there weren’t a lot of choices to make. Your income was tied to the success of your book that was in the hands of a traditional book publishing company. When it went out of print, its active life was essentially over.

More choices emerged as authors and their agents gained power and agents began selling translation and movie rights on the author’s behalf, in addition to negotiating the book publishing agreements seeking better terms and fostering competitive bidding.

Now we are in a whole new world. There are different ways to be published and author incomes are coming from a far wider range of sources. The standard book agreement that routinely grants the mainstream book publisher a license for the ‘term of copyright’ has to be re-considered. If an author can make more money, have more control, and work with many more customers, his/her career decisions are more attractive, but also more complex and consequential.

The first issue to consider is whether mainstream book publishers will consider altering their traditional demand for a license that exists for the term of copyright. There’s no reason for optimism here, but Authors should start thinking about this. It won’t change without awareness and effort. I don’t like to use the word fair, but is it in an author’s interest to license their work for the rest of their life plus 70 years? Wouldn’t a change in this contractual term be hugely significant?

Beyond the term of license itself, one has to consider the Out of Print clause and the behavior of the publishers adjudicating it. I won’t explore all the intricacies at this time, and there has been good progress in this area, but more needs to be done. When small quantities of ebooks or a translation license are the only things keeping a book ‘in print’ and hence not eligible for reversion to the author per the terms of the agreement, things need to change. Publishers have to be more responsive to Out of Print requests. They also need to be more flexible in application of the rules. Books that are no longer performing for them should not go through long periods of decay as they age out, but should be reverted to their authors.

Additionally, as a traditional book contract ages, the original subsidiary rights granted to the publisher should be eligible for reversion, even if the book itself is in print. Whatever the subsidiary rights are, if they are moribund in the publisher’s hands, they should be eligible for reversion to the author.

Beyond what I believe are healthy, necessary changes in the basic terms offered by traditional book publishers, authors need to continue to evaluate the new paradigms that are available to them. These paradigms are already successful and there is reason to believe they will be even more so in the future.

Authors can self publish and having retained all the subsidiary rights, license rights to their books to audio publishers, foreign publishers and film/t.v. companies. There are challenges here to be sure, but the self publishing paradigm has been proven successful and the most successful self published authors have sold their rights in all these other formats. Here is where there is a radical change in the legal status of an author’s rights.

If they publish an ebook there is often no term of license and the author can change his/her plans at will. Audio licenses vary in length, with licenses of 3, 5, 7 and 10 years being common. Translation licenses also vary in length, with licenses also of 3, 5, 7 and 10 years. With talent available world wide, authors can commission their own audio books and translations. Breakthroughs in print on demand technology may someday soon see printed books available inexpensively at all kinds of locations including coffee shops and salons.

To recap, there are a number of key ideas here that every author should be cognizant of in all of his/her dealings:

–Copyright is life + 70. Your work is protected, its value will last longer than your lifetime. Plan for it.

–Non-traditional publishing, retained rights, re-sale of reverted rights, and monitoring your publisher are essential. The active life of your book is no longer a year or two and you are key to managing this part of your career, whether you work with an agent or not

Authors need to organize all their contracts and licenses and realize they are in the intellectual property business, and not just book authors. With ebooks easy to publish and Audio rights in demand, the opportunities are ongoing and inheritable.

AGENCY NEWS AUGUST 2018

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Agency News August 2018:

Lots of exciting news.

John Scalzi won the Locus Award for Best Novel for THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE and the sequel, THE CONSUMING FIRE will be published by Tor and Audible this October. We have sold translation rights to the series in 11 territories including Germany, France, Japan, Czech and Korea.

Dennis E. Taylor’s new book, THE SINGULARITY TRAP, has debuted on Audible to a tremendous reception. It is #4 on The New York Times Audio Bestseller list for the month of August, a truly stunning achievement.  

On behalf of Gail Martin we’ve licensed a number of titles to Recorded Books, including the audio edition of her new fantasy novel VENGEANCE.

On behalf of Sharon Shinn we’ve licensed her new fantasy series UNCOMMON ECHOES to Audible.

We’re very excited about publication of next MARGOT HUNT suspense novel FOR BETTER OR WORSE which is getting tremendous word of mouth on NetGalley.

Marc Costanzo’s PERSISTENCE is just out as an Audible original, a great thriller with a great main character.

On behalf of Marthe Jocelyn we’ve sold a great new YA mystery series to Tundra.

We continue to sell actively in foreign markets. We have sold rights to WORKING IT by Christine d’Abo and MAGIC RUNS DEEP by Alex Whitehall on behalf of RIPTIDE PUBLISHING to Thailand.

We’ve also sold four more books from the FRONTLINES series to Fabryka Slow in Poland as well as sold ANGLES OF ATTACK (Frontlines #3) to Agave in Hungary.

Audio rights to Rhett C. Bruno’s four book TITANBORN series have been licensed to Audible for simultaneous release with his e-books beginning this fall.
Rights to Yahtzee Croshaw’s untitled sequel to WILL SAVE THE GALAXY FOR FOOD have been licensed to Audible for publication through their Audible Originals program. His first Audible Original, DIFFERENTLY MORPHOUS, was released in April and will be followed by print and e-book editions in the fall.

AGENCY NEWS FEBRUARY 2018

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Agency News February 2018:

John Scalzi’s HEAD ON, the long-anticipated follow-up to LOCK IN, will be out in April. We’ve sold rights to Audible, Germany, and France.

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER by Margot Hunt has been released by Mira to spectactular reviews on Amazon, welcomed as one of the most exciting suspense novels of the season. The second book FOR BETTER AND WORSE will be published in December 2018.

Baen will be publishing ARKAD’S WORLD by James L. Cambias, date forthcoming.

The second book in Kay Kenyon’s DARK TALENTS series, SERPENT IN THE HEATHER, will be out in April with Saga Press, the third book NEST OF THE MONARCH is coming Fall 2018.

Melissa F. Olson has signed a deal with 47North for the fourth and fifth books in the BOUNDARY MAGIC series, the fourth expected May 2019.

We’ve sold a science fiction novel by Tony Peak titled ADRIFT as an Audible Original.

G.A. Aiken will be writing two new books: FARMER’S DAUGHTER #1 and #2 with Kensington.

We sold a third book in the BULLDOZER children’s series by Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann.

Also in children’s books, we licensed Marthe Jocelyn’s ONE PATCH OF BLUE and ONE RED STRING, two new board books, to Orca.

We remain active in foreign markets with the recent sale of the five books by Shelly Laurenston to Piper in Germany–the MAGNUS PACK trilogy as well as the first two books in the HONEY BADGER series (out in March in the US).

We’ve added Brazil and Thailand to the list of countries where RIPTIDE PUBLISHING titles will be sold! Rights for ADULTING 101 by Lisa Henry were sold to Vergara and Riba. FOR REAL by Alexis Hall and CATCH A GHOST by SE Jakes will both be published by Kaewkarn.

Ukrainian rights to the classic WITCH WORLD by Andre Norton were recently sold to Hemiro.

Agency News October 2017

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AGENCY NEWS OCTOBER 2017

With the publication of ALL THESE WORLDS in August, Dennis E. Taylor’s ‘Bobiverse’ trilogy is now complete with spectacular results. ALL THESE WORLDS hit #1 in the entire Audible store shortly after release and all 3 books, WE ARE LEGION (WE ARE BOB), FOR WE ARE MANY, and ALL THESE WORLDS continue to be Audible bestsellers.

We’re also seeing great results for the Bobiverse in our agent-supported publishing arm with the trilogy selling over 80,000 copies in ebook.

Likewise the Bobiverse is turning into an international hit and we’ve now sold rights for Japan, France, Germany, China, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.

For IAN DOUGLAS we’ve licensed a new three-book series to HarperCollins, SOLAR WARDEN.

For Kay Kenyon we’ve sold audio rights to her new series with Saga, AT THE TABLE OF WOLVES (July 2017) and SERPENT IN THE HEATHER (April, 2018) to Audible.

For GAIL Z. MARTIN we’ve just licensed an audio original, the third volume of DEADLY CURIOSITIES, to Recorded Books.

For new author MARC COSTANZO we’ve licensed his great UNTITLED suspense novel starring Patrol Office Celia Miller to Audible.

For SHELLY LAURENSTON we’ve licensed her new 3 book HONEY BADGER CHRONICLES series to Tantor for audio. The first book HOT AND BADGERED will be published March 2018 with Kensington.

We’ve licensed T.V. rights to MaryJanice Davidson’s DÉJÀ VU to
ENTERTAINMENT ONE.

For Candace Fleming we’ve licensed the second volume in her History Pals series, ELEANOR ROOSEVELT’S IN MY CLOSET to Schwartz and Wade. The first book BEN FRANKLIN’S IN THE MY BATHROOM debuted September 2017.

We continue to license translation rights for RIPTIDE PUBLISHING and have concluded new deals in Italy, France, Germany and Brazil.

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