Various folks mentions authors being tied to pre-existing contracts that would prevent the author taking direct control and doing e-publishing: I had the pleasure of interviewing George R. R. Martin this past winter, and he made a comment that was pretty telling. For most of his career, he wrote novels before selling them. This worked pretty well, letting him pick and choose what he wanted to write and giving him a lot of flexibility in dealing with publishers. Then 'The Armageddon Rag' took far more time and money to produce than he expected. It sold to a publisher without problem, but it sank like a stone in the market. He suddenly found himself with debts, no reserve fund, and no novel ready to sell. His solution was to take the Hollywood route, where he did 'Beauty and the Beast' and a few other odds and ends. It paid the bills, but he grew to hate both the place and the business. When time allowed, he worked on a few short pieces and eventually finished 'A Game of Thrones'. It sold, and sold, and sold, and now he's back in a position of controlling his destiny. Gordy Dickson told a similar story -- he felt he was doing his best work when *not* under contract, and eventually wound up owning most of his own backlog. I don't know if he actually did his best work in that period (IMHO, there was no net changed), but he was certianly *happier*. Steve -- "In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal." -- author unknown