The last royalty statement from one of my publishers (I edit engineering handbooks for three major publishers - Wiley, McGraw-Hill, and Elsevier) was something of an eye-opener, although I should have been prepared for it. Royalties for my three titles, published in 2005,2009, and 2011, were up overall, but welcome as that news was, it wasn't the big news. What caught my attention was that for the first time, royalties from electronic sales had surged ahead of print royalties. I allowed myself to contemplate the notion that strength in electronic sales hinted at a robust life for the current editions of these books, right up to the moment, I hoped, that the publisher issued new editions.
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