There were reports yesterday that bestselling author Jon Krakauer sued his publisher, Houghton Mifflin Co, and a printing company. His suit alleges the companies ”made more than 1.2 million ‘unauthorized and impermissible’ reproductions of Into Thin Air‘ in a textbook.”
What’s interesting to me about this is that it illustrates all the various mechanisms in which a story can be “published.” We generally think of basic hardback and paperback rights when we think of a book contract. Maybe audio right and film rights. But you rarely hear about excerpt rights.
It’ll be interesting to see how this case plays out.