Over at SFWA.org, Jeff VanderMeer stresses the importance of writers establishing clear instructions for their literary estates and the obstacles, as an anthology editor, he sees too often:
To a least some extent, the ease with which an anthologist can contact a writer’s representative and obtain rights to a story speaks to how often that writer will be reprinted. A nonresponsive agent, publisher, or literary estate is just one of an anthologist’s worries. Another is, believe it or not, active hostility toward the request. A third is a misunderstanding of the marketplace wherein a writer’s representative asks for such an exorbitant fee that the anthologist cannot reprint the story, or a desire to treat the rights as if they were shares in a company, and to not allow any reprinting, hoping the value goes up.
Hmm. Numbers two and three sound familiar…
Meantime, Donald M. Grant Publisher, Inc. has announced their 17-year-old Averoigne collection has “an expected release in the Spring of 2012”:
We are not taking orders at this time, do not have prices and have not set a release date. Please do not call or email us asking for more information than is posted here.
Oh boy! Sounds like it will be available any day now! Considering such excellent customer relations and Grant’s clearly rock-solid business model, I’m sure this news is trustworthy and sincere.
