Book publishing is at the threshold of a new era.
Although the electronic book publishing industry is young and still very much in flux, it is not too early to try to establish some standards for the writer-publisher relationship in this field. This document represents an attempt by a major writers' organization to come up with some general principles that we hope will be adopted in contracts between writers and electronic publishers, primarily for works distributed in disc form. In all four categories the writer's traditional role is altered. Electronic books, by their nature, involve elements beyond the stringing together of words. The skills of programmers, computer- graphic designers, musicians, videographers and others are also required.