The Beat: Preiss Assets Go to Auction

Heidi MacDonald has a nice, concise report that assets from Byron Preiss Visual Publications/iBooks are to go to auction October 19. This supposedly includes a great number of book contracts. I'm suprised that with some of the big names involved that more of the contracts didn't include provisions for return if the publishing company went bankrupt. I'm also intrigued that with how quickly things went to Chapter 7 in early 2006, less than 10 months after the unfortunate 2005 death of Byron Preiss, that more authors didn't see the writing on the wall and negotiate for a release, which I believe is something I've read about authors doing. Of course, it's entirely possible with the speed of the move into bankruptcy that no one knew how bad things had become.

I would imagine with the prestige enjoyed by comics in the book market at this moment that someone out there will try to buy the line in an attempt to get into that business, maybe with a previously-known name involved, and MacDonald reports one company making a bid already. What should be interesting to watch is that I believe there's legal precedent that companies can't just treat contracts as a straight-up assets, and that a buyer has to at least make good on advances and royalties owed before they assume control of each contract. If a company is willing to make good in that way, then more power to them.
 
posted 11:38 pm PST | Permalink
 

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