Gunnarshús, headquarters of the Writer’s Union of Iceland

Members of the Writer’s Union of Iceland this evening green-lighted the country’s first e-book publishing agreement. The agreement is between authors and the Icelandic Publishers Association, and guarantees 25-30% of the wholesale price of each book sold.

The corresponding commission for printed books currently stands at 23% of wholesale price. Aðalsteinn Ásberg Sigurðsson, chairman of the committee who oversaw the composition of the agreement, said that up until now, people thought that authors could get a higher percentage of the proceeds from e-book sales, but it has now become clear that the cost to the publisher of copyright protection is quite significant.

Such protection is intended to ensure that it is not possible to copy the books and distribute them illegally. Aðalsteinn reckons that two or three e-books will be published before Christmas, and that publishing of e-books will begin in earnest early next year.

The website Lestu.is currently has a very limited selection of e-books in Icelandic available for purchase online, and also offers a print-on-demand service. The selection mainly consists of out-of-copyright books.  The only other e-book offering is from the bookseller Eymundsson, which currently operates an online e-bookstore selling exclusively foreign books, mostly in English.

Source: RÚV
Image: Writer’s Union of Iceland

Labels: Culture, Literature, Technology