BEA 2011 Day Three

The big news today is that Barry Eisler isn't self publishing his next John Rain book.

Barry Eisler announced today during his presentation at Publishers Launch Conference, an event held alongside BEA, that he has signed "within the hour" a deal with Thomas and Mercer, the new crime imprint at Amazon.

In response to the moderator's question, Eisler also revealed he was receiving an advance "comparable to the one offered by Minotaur" which is widely rumored to be near $500,000.

Eisler said the print royalties were commensurate with what he'd have received in his contract at Minotaur and the ebook royalty rates were much higher, near 70% (a percentage of what exactly was not specified.)

I'm sure there will be more complete reports in trades tonight.  Keep an eye out for scheduled pub date: one thing Eisler was dissatisfied with was how long it took "traditional publishers" to publish a book.

I'm keeping a very close eye on a couple things: the reaction from Minotaur; the reaction from Dan Conaway; and what term Eisler will now use to describe Amazon since "legacy publisher" appears to describe everyone else.