> I'm not sure how else you'd want to handle it.

By having a minimum amount of foresight and putting into the initial contract an agreement which lets the parties maintain the online availability in a mutualy agreeable way.

Why do you think it's a problem of foresight and not simple motivation? Perhaps none of the parties cares about the availability of a book that doesn't make enough money to stay in print. Perhaps having the book become unavailable for some time is perceived as a benefit to the rights holder, allowing them to do a re-launch.

The question wasn’t what is the problem, but “how else you'd want to handle it”.

My point is that it's quite possible that both parties are perfectly happy with the current solution of having the ebook disappear from stores.

It's just us as fans who are not happy.