In the book world, the shoeboxes are legendary. They are where so many authors’ contracts and other legal instruments often ended up – an ad hoc filing system that worked reliably well, at least in the days before digital.
Rights and permissions staff long struggled with cast-off cartons because they had little choice. Other areas of a publishing house, from editorial to publicity, were devoted to new product and got all the attention and resources. In 2015, though, opportunities to monetize rights and permissions are mushrooming, and they no longer can be managed out of a shoebox.
At the London Book Fair this month, Randy Petway, executive vice president with Publishing Technology, will speak on “Rights on the Money: Are You Fully Monetizing Your IP?” Given the rising pressure to identify new revenue sources, it amounts to a call to action for publishers around the world.
“Publishers are being squeezed and, all of a sudden, need to increase revenue sources. Rights are an optimal place to start, but an investment needs to be made in a place where publishers have not traditionally invested,” Petway says.
“Rights and licensing has become a matrix with an impossible number of points to manage,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “The rise of digital publishing and subscription models have only expanded the matrix exponentially, offering more ways of licensing, more rules, and more complexity.”
Publishing Technology was formed in 2007 following the merger of Ingenta, VISTA, and Publishers Communication Group. Randy Petway leads the strategic development for the company’s enterprise and digital publishing solutions.
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