`The Color Purple' finally released as an e-book
NEW YORK (AP) - September 20, 2011
But not through a traditional publisher.
Open Road Integrated Media, the digital company co-founded two
years ago by former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, has reached an
agreement with Walker to release the electronic version of "The
Color Purple" and most of her other work.
New editions of "The Color Purple" and the novels "The Temple
of My Familiar" and "Possessing the Secret of Joy" were released
Tuesday. On Nov. 22, eight more books will be published. The
e-books will include author interviews, photographs and personal
documents.
"I love reading a good book while flying through the air,"
Walker said in a statement. "I've traveled all my life and have
visited many of the faraway places I dreamed of as a child: India,
Australia, Bali, South Africa, Iceland, etc. On each journey I've
carried books. Books that taught me a lot, while engaging my sense
of wonder, but that got heavier and heavier! Open Road promises to
be a way for my books to accompany travelers on their own journeys
of exploration and learning."
Open Road has previously acquired e-rights to such best-sellers
as Pat Conroy's "The Prince of Tides" and William Styron's
"Darkness Visible" by offering royalty rates of 50 percent,
double what traditional publishers usually offer, and by promising
aggressive promotion.
"Open Road has the best technical know-how and best
forward-moving energy. I love the way all the people I've worked
with express and carry themselves: with confidence and enthusiasm
but also with a sense of experience. They have a track record,"
Walker said.
"If this were not enough, there is a sense, lacking often in
publishing, of connectedness with the author, of all of us being in
this adventure together, wanting it to be the best."
Walker's agent, Wendy Weil, wrote in an email that "with e-book
publishing bursting into popularity during the last two years, this
seemed to be the perfect time and e-publisher to market her
backlist successfully." Walker is best known for "The Color
Purple," set in rural Georgia in the 1930s. It was adapted into a
1985 Steven Spielberg film of the same name and more recently into
a Broadway musical.
As the digital market rapidly grows, agents and publishers have
disagreed over older books, with agents saying that the contracts
did not cover e-books because the format didn't yet exist and
publishers saying such rights were implicit.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which originally published "The
Color Purple" and the other works being issued electronically by
Open Road, did not immediately return phone and email requests for
comment Monday.