The New York Times
Book publisher Random House has won a dispute that had literary agent Andrew Wylie distributing 13 of his client’s classic book titles directly through Amazon.com.
Julie Bosman reports that the controversy centered on books written before e-book rights were included in publishing contracts. Wylie, representing a group of authors that include Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Vladimir Nabokov, Hunter S. Thompson, John Updike, William S. Burroughs and Saul Bellow, had disputed Random House’s rights to the electronic editions of 13 “backlist titles” and agreed to sell the e-books exclusively for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader.
Bosman writes that the terms of the agreement between Random House and Wylie were not disclosed:
“[Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House] said they were consistent with agreements that Random House had reached with other literary agencies on backlist e-book rights. … Mr. Applebaum said that all 13 titles would be available in electronic editions from Amazon, and other e-book retailers.”
