Booking Through Thursday: OOP

Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again? (I have several…)

Again, I was going to pass on this one, and again, it was Karen! to the rescue.

Let’s stop and pretend, because we all know I prefer to pretend than be bored by real life. *grin*

Well, maybe we don’t have to pretend. Let’s dream, instead. Of a future that, when a book’s print rights expire, will include a way for those rights to be resold, maybe on a royalty-only basis (but a HIGH royalty basis. Like ridiculously high) to a system that is essentially digital and POD. Yes, I said the dirty word: Print-on-Demand.

Because let’s face it: for almost every book on the planet, there’s someone who’d like to have it. Maybe they can’t or won’t pay a collector’s price for it. Maybe they don’t want a collector’s edition in the first place. What they want is an old friend they can return to, time and again.

If it’s done digitally and with a POD format, people can have these books when they want them. Books can be available forever.

And authors can have the option to re-sell the rights to a publisher who might want to promote the book and make a really slick copy that would be sold through bookstores around the world. Yep, the POD option would go away … until the rights expire again.

Let’s face it: most of us readers may be willing to wait for it to come out in paperback. But how many times have you sat down to pick up a book you’ve really wanted and bought whatever you find at a used book site? I’ll admit, I do it all the time (that’s why I have this small trading problem).

This means I don’t think that people would wait for a book to return to its POD status. And who said it’d be cheaper that way, anyway? Not if an author would get the stupidly high royalty that I personally think we’re entitled to!

No, it’s not a perfect model I’m putting forth here. Remember, I’m dreaming here. Because let’s face it: most books go out of print because the demand’s dried up. Maybe one or two would sell on my imperfect model. But maybe enough would that a publisher would sit up, take notice, and buy the rights and promote the book and earn a few bucks.

And maybe publishers will promote all their mid-list and new authors, too. I know. I know.

Like I said, it’s only a dream.