That’s what The Bookseller is reporting:
The estate of the romance writer Barbara Cartland has fallen to the embrace of digital, in a move that sees her print publisher suffering a painful rejection. About a quarter of Cartland’s extensive ouevre is to be published digitally in e-book format by her estate for the first time on Valentine’s Day.
The deal has echoes of the decision by Ian Fleming Publications to release the writer’s James Bond books as digital editions, but not through his current publisher Penguin. The works, part of the Pink Collection, comprise 160 titles and are being made available through a partnership between Barbaracartland.com and M-Y Ebooks.Ten books will go live on Monday, though some appear to already be available on the Kindle, and will be sold in a number of formats and devices. A range of Cartland’s physical books are available in print through Random House.
More info in the article.
A no-brainer, really.
Cartland’s name is a brand unto itself and with a catalog 760 titles deep it’ll take 12 years to get them out doing 5 titles a month. They ought to try a Webscription-type bundling system. Her fans would probably jump at a $10-12 a month bundle deal.
Expect plenty more of these disintermediation moves from established writers and their estates. 70% of retail (Thanks, Agency model! Thanks, retailer consolidation.) is a great inducement to bypass traditional publishers for established authors. Plus, the more it is done successfully, the more attractive it becomes to the fence-sitters.
No putting *this* djinn back in the bottle.