The Authors Guild of America responds to Wylie: publishers brought this on themselves:

To a large extent, publishers have brought this on themselves. This storm has long been gathering. Literary agencies have refused to sign e-rights deals for countless backlist books with traditional publishers, even though they and their clients, no doubt, see real benefits in having a single publisher handle the print and electronic rights to a book. Knowledgeable authors and agents, however, are well aware that e-book royalty rates of 25% of net proceeds are exceedingly low and contrary to the long-standing practice of authors and publishers to, effectively, split evenly the net proceeds of book sales.

HC UK latest publisher to bitch about Wylie/be laughed at by Bookninja

FT calls the Wylie split “a bad omen”… Time to consult the chicken bones and tea leaves, methinks:

It is not the first omen about the potential end of the publisher’s role as middle man in the books business. The role of the music label, in much the same way, has been threatened by the internet.

Stephen King released his most recent novel Blockade Billy as an e-book a month before the hardcover version in North America. Ryu Murakami, the popular Japanese author of Coin Locker Babies, plans to publish his next novel on Apple’s iPad digital tablet, with music composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Academy Award-winning composer.

But Mr Wylie’s action struck a deeper chord: His agency represents a roster of 700 clients including Martin Amis and the estates of Norman Mailer and Hunter S. Thompson.

Meanwhile, as the hysterics flail in the streets, pointing fingers, tearing their hair, and cracking open each others’ skulls to feast on the goo inside, Penguin opts for some perspective (maybe this is why Penguin is doing so well?)

However Makinson said Penguin was taking a different stance. “On principle we will not acquire physical rights to new books unless we have e-book rights. And it’s very important that the work of our authors is made available in as many channels as possible,” he said. “Wylie’s Odyssey venture strikes at those two principles because it separates the exploitation of digital and physical rights and enters into an exclusive relationship with Amazon.

“Are we comfortable with it? No. At the same time, we need to keep it in perspective. We are talking about a very small number of backlist authors where the ownership of those digital rights is either ambiguous or owned by the author or the estate.”