Business author Stephen R. Covey has given the e-book rights for two of his most best-selling books to Amazon.com instead of his print publisher Simon & Schuster. The Amazon Kindle will have exclusive e-book formats of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership for one year.
The books will be e-published through RosettaBooks, the same company that we mentioned in yesterday’s blog post regarding Random House’s 2001 lawsuit over e-book rights. A spokesman for Simon & Schuster, Adam Rothberg, did not comment specifically on Covey’s deal, but did say, “Our position is that electronic editions of our backlist titles belong in the Simon & Schuster catalog, and we intend to protect our interests in those publications.”
The New York Times reported:
Arthur Klebanoff, chief executive of RosettaBooks, said that Mr. Covey would receive more than half of the net proceeds that RosettaBooks took in from Amazon on these e-book sales. In contrast, the standard digital royalty from mainstream publishers is 25 percent of net proceeds.
“There are superstars, and superstars are entitled to more,” Mr. Klebanoff said.
Covey’s son, Sean Covey, said the higher royalty rate was a factor in deciding to work with RosettaBooks, and not because of dissatisfaction with Simon & Schuster, whom he and his father will still continue to publish with in the future. The younger Covey did say, however, that his father is experimenting with self-publishing some books, including some other exclusive Kindle editions.
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According to a survey conducted by The Bookseller, a relatively unknown man named Richard Parsons is one of the most successful authors of the past decade. He is fifth on the list of Top 10 Authors By Revenue, ranked below more famous writers such as JK Rowling, Dan Brown, Roger Hargreaves, and Jacqueline Wilson.
Parsons has sold over £48,293,826 (roughly $78 million USD) in books since 2000 by publishing over 600 study guides through his company CGP Books. Although many of the books are actually written by other people, Parsons’ name appears on the inside cover of each guide and is therefore attributed as the author for sales figures.
The Sunday Telegraph reports:
He has no Wikipedia entry, and facts about his life are hard to come by. A picture of him on his bicycle during a race and a portrait provided to this paper are believed to be the only public photographs of him in existence.
[…]
Despite requests for an interview Mr Parsons refused to speak to The Sunday Telegraph. CGP’s managing director […] would only say the firm was ’slightly embarrassed’ about the list and that Mr Parsons ‘valued his privacy’.
