Caught in the middle: Amazon vs. IPG, Part II

Three months ago, I wrote a blog post detailing the contract battle between Amazon and IPG, book distributor for Medallion Press, publisher of my thriller, FINAL VECTOR. In that post I detailed the reasons why I found Medallion's support of IPG unacceptable. You can read the entire post here, if you're interested.

In the intervening three months, I asked for and received a reversion of rights letter from Medallion for FINAL VECTOR, leaving me free to pursue another publisher for the book or even, as was my intention, to publish the book myself.

I was just about at the point where I was ready to re-release FINAL VECTOR - I mean, literally, a week or so away - when I discovered IPG and Amazon have reached agreement on a new contract. This means Medallion's electronic titles (of which FINAL VECTOR was one) will once again be available for purchase at Amazon.

As I stated in my post back in February, the inability for readers to purchase my book at the world's largest ebook retailer was the reason why I wanted my rights to FINAL VECTOR back. Now that it will once again be available in that venue, I have withdrawn my request for a reversion of rights and plan to leave the book with Medallion Press.

Why would I do that? Why voluntarily stay with a publisher when I could release the book on my own and get a bigger cut of the royalties?

Here's why: Medallion Press showed faith in one of my novels when, to that point, no one else had. They believed in an unknown writer enough to offer me an advance and a path to publication at a time when self-publishing was still considered basically career suicide for a novelist.

I wanted all along to justify the faith they showed in me by earning out that advance through sales and then by making both of us - gasp! - money. I was well on my way to doing so when the rug was pulled out from under both myself and Medallion Press thanks to a contract dispute they had nothing to do with.

Am I crazy? Maybe. I have in my possession a letter enabling me to make more money from, and have more control over, a book that I wrote, and I am going to completely disregard that letter. If that makes me crazy, then so be it.

But some things are more valuable than the almighty dollar. Not many, I freely admit, but there are some. One of those is integrity. I like to think I have some. And I want to show Helen Rosburg and everyone at Medallion Press that they knew what they were doing when they signed me.

This is not to say I won't ever request my rights to FINAL VECTOR back from Medallion, but if I did it before earning out that advance I would always feel like I had walked away from a job before it was finished. My folks raised me better than that.

P.S. - Now that the book is available again, it is priced exactly where I was planning on pricing it - a very reasonable $3.99. If you've read and enjoyed my Amazon bestseller THE LONELY MILE, I think you might like to give this one a try as well...