Query about EBOOKs ...

[rajam]

Dear Colleagues,

(sorry for the cross posting if you're a member on these lists)


I'm trying to understand Amazon's policy of EBOOKs.


Questions:
---------------

1. Has any of your published books been converted into an EBOOK (by  
Amazon or a third-party seller) and sold by Amazon?


2. If so, how did the process go? Did Amazon or the original  
Publisher of the book contact you about it or ask for your permission  
to do so?


3. Does Amazon send you a royalty for the EBOOK?


4. What is the Copyright agreement for EBOOKs? Original, printed,  
book may have some Copyright deals. When a seller like Amazon sells  
that book as an EBOOK, how does the Copyright law work? The EBOOK  
technology is new. Did the original copyright laws cover the upcoming  
and new technology services for eternity?


5. Does Amazon have any policy on their selection of the books to be  
sold as EBOOKs? How do they select which books to be sold as EBOOKs?

Their policy may be a "Google Play" for them as well as for freelance  
non-academics on the Internet to get scholarly books for a cheap  
price or for free. But it certainly raises serious questions,  
especially for upcoming young academic scholars -- why write  
scholarly books, especially when the Internet is infested with  
freelance arm-chair analysts and plagiarists?  Does academic  
scholarship mean anything?


6. Does Amazon spend that much time to scan a book (in my case a 1000 
+ pages book) in order to convert it into an EBOOK? Amazing!!


There may be similar questions that I can't think of at the moment.  
However, I was shocked to see my book ("A Reference Grammar of  
Classical Tamil Poetry") being sold by Amazon as an EBOOK. I never  
knew about it until recently since someone asked me where to purchase  
my book.


See:
http://books.google.com/books/about/ 
A_Reference_Grammar_of_Classical_Tamil_P.html?id=n6VhXLdmdKkC


https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=n6VhXLdmdKkC&rdid=book- 
n6VhXLdmdKkC&rdot=1&source=gbs_atb


I'm not dead yet! Amazon (or whoever converted my book into an EBOOK  
and sold it to Amazon) could have had the courtesy to let me know  
what's going on!


I would appreciate any help from you in figuring out what's going on  
in the "e-publishing" world.

Thanks and regards,
V. S. Rajam












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