John Updike

Random House and top literary agent Andrew Wylie have settled their fight over his plans to publish e-books of older works from big name authors he represents. But while the battle is over, the settlement announcement raises more questions than it answers about the future of e-publishing.

Random House is throwing down the gauntlet with an announcement that it will stop doing English-language business with a top literary agency, Wylie Agency, because the agency signed an exclusive deal to sell e-books to Amazon.

For more than 50 years, writer John Updike's exclusive U.S. publisher was Knopf, and he sold his writing without a literary agent. A year after his death, a particularly persistent agent has landed him as a client: Andrew Wylie, who may be signing up for a number of headaches.