Publishers' costs for making a work available in electronic formats are far lower than for traditional publishing. The optimal position for writers is to retain full electronic rights, thus protecting their creative investment and retaining the ability to control its future use completely. Fair compensation on the traditional advance and royalty basis, that is, payment per use or sale. When rights are licensed from another party, such as the print publisher, the writer should be compensated by the licensor on the traditional basis of a literary agent's commission, with the writer receiving 85 to 90 percent. No use of a work should be made without the writer's approval of medium, format, and content.
Electronic publishing is likely to undergo a series of rapid and radical transformations.
To respond to these changes, writers should carefully control the disposition of their electronic rights. Writers should strive to retain all of their electronic rights and negotiate to secure those rights up front, when they negotiate their advance. The simplest way for writers to control their electronic rights is to retain those rights. Writers are then free to evaluate specific electronic publishing opportunities that arise. Writers should bear in mind that electronic rights are valuable and should only be given up in exchange for substantial additional compensation.