I don't know whether anyone here can help me with this, but I certainly hope so. I've just discovered that an American university is offering free ebook downloads of my book, Cash from Your Computer to its students and staff.

I've never been approached about this, and feel I should have been, if only as a courtesy, given that the book is out of print. Do I have any rights in the matter? I'll contact the publishers about it to see whether they know about it, but is there anything else I can do? I'm also surprised to see the same book for sale at Amazon.ca and Amazon in Germany, given that it is, as I said, supposedly out of print.

Thanks in anticipation.

Zoe

Yikes, Zoe, that must be very disconcerting, not to say infuriating. Are you a member of the Society of Authors? They should be able to help. And do you have an agent? They ought to be jumping up and down.

On the face of it, assuming you own the book's copyright, this is breach of it, and though your publisher had the right to publish it, when they make it OP all the rights revert to you. That it's free, and it's electronic is neither here nor there. The only way it could be legal, I imagine, is if whatever it says about digital rights in your contract with your publisher left a loophole for them to go on exploiting those rights even after the print version has been made OP. Is it the physical book or the ebook that's still on Amazon? If they've still got stock of the actual book, presumably they can go on selling it?

Best of luck with it all.

Emma

Thanks, Emma. I've now discovered that NetLibrary is actually selling it for $14.99 a copy so clearly someone has been up to something. I'll check the contract, but I don't remember anything being said about electronic rights. The version for sale on the two Amazon sites is paper, but Amazon.com and uk are saying it's not available, so the others must be old stock, which is fair enough.

I'm not a member of the Society of Authors, but clearly when something like this arises, I wish I'd joined. I've asked for advice from the Society of Women Writers & Journalists, of which I am a member, but obviously the Society of Authors has more clout.

This does make me wonder how many more books end up with NetLibrary!

Zoe

<Added>

I don't have an agent at the moment so no help there, but clearly I'm going to have to find some help from somewhere.

No reason you shouldn't join the S of Authors now, as far as I know: all you need is a publishing contract, and you've got one of them, even if it was a while ago.

Emma

I agree with Emma. Get joined and get it sorted out.

Really hope it's all sorted swiftly and painlessly.

Nik.

Thanks, Nik. I've joined, and they've already come back to me and suggested an approach. I'm extremely impressed. Thanks for the suggestion, Emma.

Zoe

Goodo!

Good to know you're getting somewhere. They are very quick and efficient about this kind of thing, and business in general, I find. Everyone very friendly and nice, too.

Emma