The Authors Guild views agreements currently being offered by NuvoMedia, whose Rocket e-Book is an early leader in the electronic book industry, to be against the business interests of publishers and especially of authors.
Electronic books hold enormous potential for the literary and educational communities.
Given these savings, readers should benefit from cheaper prices for E-books, publishers should benefit from higher profit margins, and royalty rates for authors should soar. Even worse, unlike traditional licensing agreements,NuvoMedia pays the publisher or author no advance against future earnings, thus acquiring a no-cost right to sell books electronically. The Guild is particularly wary because this low-pay model is being backed by the dominant publisher and the dominant retail book chain in the United States. The Authors Guild views this development with great concern. If NuvoMedia secures a dominant position in this emerging market and its payment scheme prevails, authors and publishers will lose out on many of the rewards of the Information Age.