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Hachette Book Group and Amazon have established a new multi-year agreement. The two companies have been locked in a dispute since April 2014.

This contract will dictate the terms and conditions for eBook and print sales within the United States starting in early 2015. Henceforth, Hachette will oversee and manage the consumer pricing for its eBooks.

Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch had this statement in the press release: “This is great news for writers. The agreement will benefit Hachette authors for years to come. It gives Hachette enormous marketing capability with one of our most important bookselling partners.”

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Amazon has revealed their picks for Best Books of 2014, a list led by Celeste Ng, Stephen King, and Liane Moriarty. Follow this link to see the full list of 100 titles.

According to the press release, the editorial team chose the top 10 from a pool of 480 books. We’ve reprinted the top 10 books below.
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Amazon and Hachette have been locked in a feud over eBook pricing since May 2014. Many members of the publishing community have spoken out about this situation and some have even mobilized to form the Authors United group.

Earlier this year, several high profile authors including Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, and Ursula Le Guin agreed to join in Authors United’s fight against Amazon. Who convinced this illustrious group to take part? None other than Andrew Wylie.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the veteran literary agent shared his opinion on this dispute. For Wylie, “the issues at the heart of the conflict are both margin and price…Losing the fight over margins would be an immediate blow to the publishers’ profits, but losing control over pricing could be fatal.” Do you agree with Wylie?

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Over the past few years a lot of people have asked me where they could get a hold of my bedtime picture book Brave Little Monster. I would tell them that sometimes Scholastic makes it available through their book club in October, but that was hit and miss. Now I'm happy to say that you can purchase the paperback version of Brave Little Monster on Amazon. Yay!!!!

 To top it off, an ebook version should be available in a few days as well. Enjoy!

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Amazon and Simon & Schuster have established a new multi-year print and digital agreement. The previous contract was scheduled to expire in two months.

Here’s more from The Wall Street Journal: “Simon & Schuster, whose recently published works include Walter Isaacson’s The Innovators and Colm Toibin’s Nora Webster, will set the consumer prices of its digital books, and Amazon will be able to discount titles in certain situations, according to one person familiar with the agreement. Simon & Schuster titles also will be well promoted on Amazon’s website, the person said.”

Many speculate that this development will put more pressure on Hachette to wrap up the ongoing dispute. Several writers have publicly spoken about the situation including Stephen Colbert, John Green, and Malcolm Gladwell. Earlier this week, economist Paul Krugman wrote a New York Times article criticizing Amazon’s business practices. How do you predict this will affect the conflict between Amazon and Hachette?

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Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has written a New York Times op-ed criticizing Amazon. For book selling, he goes so far as to say that it has a “robber-baron-type market power.”

In his piece, Krugman (pictured, via) compares Amazon with Standard Oil and talks about the consequences that may ensue should the online retail giant continue its current standard of operations. He feels that Amazon has abused its powers to retaliate against Hachette throughout the dispute between the two companies. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“So far Amazon has not tried to exploit consumers. In fact, it has systematically kept prices low, to reinforce its dominance. What it has done, instead, is use its market power to put a squeeze on publishers, in effect driving down the prices it pays for books — hence the fight with Hachette. In economics jargon, Amazon is not, at least so far, acting like a monopolist, a dominant seller with the power to raise prices. Instead, it is acting as a monopsonist, a dominant buyer with the power to push prices down.”

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We all know that Amazon’s acquisition of Comixology changed the digital comics landscape. While the benefits that Amazon can bring for Comixology are evident, and still developing, it wasn’t without some steps backwards. When Comixology stopped making in-app purchases due to Amazon/Apple tensions, many publishers saw a drop in digital comics sales.

As we’ve noted before, other players are stepping in to promote their services.

So it should come as no surprise that ComicsPLUS, the digital comics app from iVerse that has long been the second player in the digital comics world, is getting a big makeover starting in November. iVerse CEO and owner Michael Murphey gave us a peek at the new app at New York Comic Con, and it has several shiny new features, including a new uView enhanced reading experience; enhanced search functions; a streamlined interface that offers comics series not only in chronological order but also a “Storyline” view that offers all the books in a given storyline. And the new app will also offer the ability to import any drm-free PDf, ebook or iTunes file into the service where it can be streamlined via uView and be searchable under its name.

uView is the ComicsPLUS version of “Guided View” and I’m told it does not conflict with the patent that Disney holds on that version of “enhanced viewing experience,” to give the non trademarked name for panels that zoom and flow on a tap. It’s entirely user controlled, and based on the preview Murphey gave me, it’s dead simple to use – you basically pinch and zoom to get panels moving in your preferred way. I’m not sure now many comics readers will want to go through all their comics and “uView them up” – but publishers or creators can also use this system themselves. In other words, yet another job for the intern.

I asked Murphey if this would lead to an iVerse version of Comixology’s “Submit” program and he pointed out that “we don’t turn people away.” Although they occasionally reject material that has problematic content, anyone can sell their comics via ComicsPLUS, and uView will offer a way for creators to take control over the viewing experience.

The “Storyline” feature is perfect for people who follow mainstream comics events. The revamped iVerse interface offers a very streamlines view of issues in a series, with the newest one on top. You can also see all the issues that tie in to a storyline—in reading order. Like I said, this is very useful if you’re catching up on Final Crisis or any Big Two event from the last 15 years. It would also be useful for something like Love and Rockets which has a twisting storylines that even experts have a hard time following. (Note, Fantagraphics books aren’t available on iVerse, I’m just spitballing here.)

The search function is basically a smoother application, and the goal is eventually to have a more “Netflix-like” interface. So if you read Punisher, for instance, you could be offered “more comics featuring amoral hitmen.”

Finally, there’s the import function, which for a digital hoarder such as myself could be useful. Basically any legally purchased book you own in epub or pdf format (possibly others, my notes are a bit hazy here) can be imported into the ComicsPLUS app and indexed along with your purchases in the app.

iVerse is definitely putting some muscle into this update, which will roll out starting in November. Some of the features will go live in early 2015. Of course, there is still the matter of publishers: iVerse offers Dynamite, Valiant, Marvel trades and many other publishers. But not DC at this point. Valiant has the biggest parnership with iVerse thus far, having put their entire library on the platform.

Is there room for another digital comics platform? I’m told that Apple would be thrilled to have their piece of the digital comics pie again: Comixology was frequently the top grossing app for iPad, and it firmly put digital comics on Apple’s radar. It was Amazon’s dislike of giving Apple their 30% cut of in-app purchases that led to them being removed from Comixology’s app. (You can still buy comics directly on the CX website, however.) So yeah, there are some pennies to be made there. If digital comics become some kind of status symbol in a tug of war between Apple and Amazon, it means more money thrown into the pot.

I’m also told several publishers are considering being available on multiple platforms for obvious reasons. Amazon’s feuds, price wars and heavy handed tactics are all well and good when you want to buy cheap pants, but you don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of the equation.

iVerse has developed into a player in the library market so it will be interesting to see where this goes.

 

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Amazon plans to open a pop-up retail shop in two California cities, San Francisco and Sacramento, on October 22nd. Visitors will be able to test out the latest Kindle projects.

Here’s more from GeekWire: “While Amazon gets a lot of credit for dominating e-commerce sales, the store openings show that it can’t ignore that a vast majority of retail revenues today still occur in the offline world. The struggle between the two is often depicted as a war between online and offline, and if that’s true, then Amazon’s move into stores is the highest compliment the e-commerce giant can pay to physical retail.”

The San Francisco location will be inside the Westfield San Francisco Centre. At this time, Amazon has not revealed the whereabouts of the Sacramento location. If this brick-and-mortar venture proves successful, the company may install more storefronts in the future.

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Several high profile writers have agreed to join in Authors United’s fight against Amazon. The new members include Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul, Milan Kundera, and Ursula Le Guin.

The organization aims to convince the online retail conglomerate to end its dispute with Hachette Book Group USA. Last month, Authors United publicly posted a letter addressed to Amazon’s board members asking them to take a stand on this issue.

When asked about her participation in the group, Le Guin submitted this statement to The New York Times: “We’re talking about censorship: deliberately making a book hard or impossible to get, ‘disappearing’ an author. Governments use censorship for moral and political ends, justifiable or not. Amazon is using censorship to gain total market control so they can dictate to publishers what they can publish, to authors what they can write, to readers what they can buy. This is more than unjustifiable, it is intolerable.”

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Many members of the literary community have shown great concern about the Amazon vs. Hachette dispute. In an interview with the Financial Times weekend magazine, Malcolm Gladwell spoke out in disapproval of the online retail giant’s retaliatory actions.

While Gladwell did not voice an opinion about the actual feud, he objects to Amazon’s practice of making Hachette’s books unavailable for purchase and delaying order shipments. Gladwell “thought Amazon wanted to be nice to me. I thought their endgame was to woo authors. So, then why are they sabotaging us?”

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In this post, Publisher Jason Low shares his feelings on the Amazon vs. Hachette battle, the future of publishing, and the view from here as a small publisher.

Since the great Amazon-Hachette feud of 2014 started this summer, many people have asked where we stand. It is no secret that we do business with Amazon—almost every publisher does. At the same time, what I see from Amazon, and where I see the book industry heading as a result, worries me.

To me, Amazon is a different animal. It is unlike any other corporation out there because of the way it treats the bottom line. The problem is, Amazon’s bottom line is growth, not profits. In sacrificing profits they have made a conscious decision to sell books at unsustainable prices, undercutting any and all competitors who are still operating under the profit model, which is everyone.

The consequences of this are twofold. First, it puts other companies out of business, straight and simple. We have seen the continual decrease in the number of independent and even chain bookstores over the last several years as Amazon increases its market share.

Second, selling books cheaply exacts a considerable price from the entire publishing industry. Books still require substantial capital to create, print, and ship. While the cost of doing business goes up, any price increases to help offset these costs are compromised by a major player who is not concerned with making money. Publishers are being squeezed for all they are worth, in a business that already operates with a great deal of risk and razor-thin margins.

Before Amazon, publishers and distributors had a symbiotic relationship. The distributors needed the books to sell and publishers relied on distributors to sell the books. Amazon is looking to upend this entire system.

Here is where I see the publishing industry in the next couple of years: Amazon will control the majority of retail bookselling. Currently, Amazon has 65% of all online book orders, which includes print and digital. As a result, they will have a say as to what gets published and will dictate book pricing. Can you tell me another industry where a distributor has this kind of control over content creators?

The Amazon-Hachette battle is a pivotal moment in our industry. If you are not familiar with this issue you should bring yourselves up to speed because this concerns everyone who cares about books. You should consider carefully the impact that rock bottom prices and free shipping will have on the publishing ecosystem in the near and long term. Here are a few good articles to start, which offer arguments on both sides:

As Publishers Fight Amazon, Books Vanish (NY Times)

Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon (NY Times)

Amazon vs. Hachette: What Would Orwell Think? (New Yorker)

In Defense of Amazon: An Author’s Dissent (Salon)

My Week as an Amazon Insider (The Guardian)

In Defense of Amazon (The New Republic)

Agree? Disagree? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Filed under: Publishing 101 Tagged: Amazon, ebooks, Jason Low

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Did they stay or did they go? You might never know if your fave authors were feted at Jeff Bezos’ annual super-secret Campfire this past weekend. Word is the elite attendees are cautioned that what plays at Campfire, stays at Campfire.

In 2011, Bezos “flew in Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Alice Walker, Neil Gaiman, and Khaled Hosseini, among others, to a think tanky event he called ‘Amazon Campfire,’” Dennis Johnson noted in his Melville House blog. Since then, radio silence.

The Renaissance Weekend-like event of fabulous meals, fascinating formal talks led by folks like Neil Armstrong, horseback riding and skeet shooting, and sweet swag (down vests, fleeces) continued for the most part under the radar, until The New York Times reported Sunday on the fifth autumn weekend soiree under the headline, “A Writerly Chill at Bezos’ Fire.”

Seems a bit of the bonhomie has been siphoned off the warm, cozy atmosphere by the it’s-not-personal-it’s-business Amazon/Hachette dispute. The Times’ David Streitfeld wrote: “Some repeat Campfire attendees who have supported Hachette in the dispute say they were not invited this year…The event has become as divisive as the fight.” (more…)

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The prevalence of violence, especially domestic violence with Caribbean families, has been one of the themes in my two short story collections, Uncle Obadiah and the Alien and Who's Your Daddy? 

In the short story, "Cry to Me," from Who's Your Daddy, which I've republished as an eBook, I've combined domestic violence with fatherhood in the story of David Hamilton, a respected professor, whose life is disrupted when his daughter become a victim of domestic violence.




I think "Cry to Me" is a precursor to a darker story that I am currently working on in which fatherhood turns ugly. Stay tuned.

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Authors United, a group of more than 900 authors including Stephen King, Malcolm Gladwell and Suzanne Collins, which has been pushing Amazon to end its dispute with Hachette, has sent a letter to Amazon board of directors asking them: “Do you as an Amazon director approve of this policy of sanctioning books?”

The letter, which is published on the group’s site, calls on these 10 board members to take a side in the Amazon/Hachette dispute. Here is an excerpt:

We are confident that you, as an Amazon board member, prize books and freedom of expression as much as we do. Since its founding, Amazon has been a highly regarded and progressive brand. But if this is how Amazon continues to treat the literary community, how long will the company’s fine reputation last? We appeal to you, with hope and goodwill, to exercise your governance and put an end to the sanctioning of books, which are the very foundation of our culture and democracy.

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Peter Carey did not mince words in a rather juicy interview to Bookseller today where the two-time Booker-winning novelist discussed his forthcoming novel Amnesia, along with an alliterative list of other topics currently on his mind: Amazon, Assange and Americans up for Bookers.

On Julian Assange, Carey said that he was approached by his American editor Sonny Mehta and asked if he would like to co-write the book. “But I thought, no. Two control freaks? It wouldn’t work.”

Probably a wise move since we all know what happened to the unlucky fellow who did take up the offer, novelist Andrew O’Hagan.

Instead, Carey tapped his fellow Aussie for his own inspiration:  (more…)

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So this is new. I left Marvel. Today was my first day as Creative Director for Amazon Publishing. I'm pretty excited about the whole thing.

— Perazza (@Perazza) September 9, 2014

So I'll be working with the excellent teams behind Thomas & Mercer, 47 North, Jet City, Two Lions, Montlake, Skyscape and the rest!

— Perazza (@Perazza) September 9, 2014

Via tweets last night, industry veteran Ron Perazza announced that he’s left Marvel, where he served most recently as Director of Digital Publishing starting last year, and joined Amazon to as Creative Director of all of their digital publishing efforts. Perazza’s multi faceted career includes stints at Fleer, Marvel, DC (where he ran creative services and then rose to VP of Online and oversaw the Zuda webcomics launch), Marvel again and now Amazon. Perazza has relocated to Seattle for the position.

Amazon’s publishing includes a multitude of imprints, which cover mystery, SF, self-help, teens, and comics, under the Jet City Imprint, which has thus far concentrated on adaptations and extensions of best selling authors like Hugh Howey, George RR Martin and Neal Stephenson. Of course, one would expect Perazza to leave his mark on this area, but he has a wide portfolio where his expertise with digital formats and distribution will doubtless come in handy.

And we haven’t even mentioned Comixology, which comes is still in the process of adapting to Amazon’s systems.

All of this reminds me, what ever happened to Amazon’s licensed fanfic program, Kindle Worlds? Valiant signed up for this, but other comics publishers haven’t raced to allow approved fan fiction through the program, despite the obvious mountain of material.

While Amazon’s battle with Hachette and other publishers over pricing show no sign of being solved anytime soon, original publishing is also an important part of their product mix. Obviously, Perazza is going to be a busy guy. Congrats!

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Last month more than 900 authors including Stephen King, Malcolm Gladwell and Suzanne Collins signed a letter  which ran as a full page ad in The New York Times, calling readers to email Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and ask him to end the company’s dispute with Hachette. Now the group is planning its next move.

Author Doug Preston, who is leading the group, sent out an email this week to authors that signed the petition letting them know that the group is planning their next move. In the email, he also warns that  Simon & Schuster authors could suffer the same fate as Hachette authors, as the publisher is reportedly in negotiations with Amazon.

Publishers Weekly has republished the email. Here is an excerpt: (more…)

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Amazon has introduced a new tool for children’s book creators to self-publish their works to the Kindle Store called KDP Kids.

The Kindle Kids’ Book Creator tool is designed to help kids book authors, publishers and illustrators build both illustrated books and chapter books and then publish them to the Kindle store. The tool allows makers to build in features such as text pop-ups. Once the files are ready, an author can categorize their work by age and grade range filters.

Authors will earn royalties from Amazon on book sales. Check it out: “Authors can earn royalties of up to 70%, while keeping their rights and maintaining control of their content. Authors can also choose to enroll their books in KDP Select for additional royalty opportunities like Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and access to marketing tools like Kindle Countdown Deals and Free Book Promotions.”

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My current novel-in-progress will fit a loosely defined literary genre of historical fiction.  That is, it will be fiction artistically grounded in a period of American history--an era in the mid-1870s--when an organized labor movement began its contest with the laissez-faire business interests of the period.  The story moves through the violent birth and tragic demise of the Molly Maguires, a secret society of Irish immigrant mine workers who struck back at the railroad magnots who owned the mines and the lives of the mineworkers.  The railroad owners, often called the 'robber-barons' in American history, also owned the justice system of Pennsylvania at the time, a state where the deep underground anthracite coal mines were fueling American industry.  After the robber barons crushed an early attempt by the miners to form a labor union, they embarked on a campaign to exterminate a continued, violent resistance of the Mollies to the desperate wages and deplorable working conditions in the mines.

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Amazon has introduced a scholarship program to help American college students fund their way through school. The Amazon Student Scholarship is a merit-based contribution that will supply 50 undergrads with $5,000 in tuition money and $500 for textbooks.

Applicants must be members of Amazon Student and be enrolled in an accredited, nonprofit two- or four-year university in the U.S. Students can apply for the award now through November 20 for a Fall 2015 scholarship. Follow this link to apply.

Here is more about what the company is looking for: “Finalists will be selected based on GPA, community involvement, and leadership experience, and then invited to complete an essay to advance to the final round. Winners will be notified in April 2015 and the scholarship awarded in July 2015.”

 

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Feel like your novel is getting lost in a sea of other titles in Amazon’s Kindle store? It’s not surprising, as the store’s inventory is growing at an incredibly  rapid pace.

Just how fast? Author Claude Nougat has pegged it at 12 books an hour or about one new book every five minutes. He watched the collection grow from 3,376,174 results to 3,376,186 in an hour, in order to come to this conclusion. Here is more from his blog:

In 24 hours, the number had climbed to 3,378,960, that’s 2786 more books – let’s say, 2,800 a day, that’s over one million books per year – and probably growing at an exponential rate that I cannot calculate for the moment; I haven’t got the data though Amazon does (I wonder whether they are as scared as I am).

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German-language writers have joined their English-language counterparts and organized a protest against Amazon.

More than 1,000 authors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland have come together to challenge Amazon for hurting authors in its negotiations with the Bonnier Group. In a letter addressed to readers and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, writers have accused Amazon of not carrying popular books as a result of dispute. In addition, they claim that Amazon has manipulated recommendation lists at the expense of their books.

“We authors are of the opinion that no book seller hinder or even customers should discourage the purchase of books selling books,” reads the letter (translated in Google). “Amazon has no right,  to take ‘into jail,’ a group of authors, which is not involved in the conflict. On top of that a book seller should not inform its own clients incorrectly or hinder their purchases by artificially extended delivery times.” (Via The New York Times).

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Russ Grandinetti, senior vice president at Amazon & head of Kindle, thinks that the publishing industry is experiencing a major shift.

In an interview with The Guardian published over the weekend, the Amazon exec said: ”The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader. Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity.”

This interview was published a week after more than 900 authors ran a letter to Amazon chief Jeff Bezos as a full page ad in The New York Times yesterday. The letter, which included signatures from bestselling authors Stephen King, Malcolm Gladwell and Suzanne Collins, asked Bezos to end the company’s dispute with Hachette. Amazon responded with an email to readers, calling readers to email the president of Hachette and demand lower eBook prices.

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Amazon has teamed up with Purdue University in Indiana to sell discounted textbooks to college students.The Purdue Student Store on Amazon will offer textbooks for up to 30 percent off.

students can use the site to rent or  buy new and used print textbooks, as well as to purchase and rent digital textbooks from Kindle. Students can order books online and pick them up at locations on Purdue’s campus. They can also have the books shipped to them directly.

“This relationship is another step in Purdue’s efforts to make a college education more affordable for our students,” explained Mitch Daniels, president of Purdue University, in a statement. “With the pressure on college campuses to reduce costs, this new way of doing business has the potential to change the book-buying landscape for students and their families.”

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Earlier this week, Amazon sent out a letter to Kindle readers defending the low price of its eBooks, quoting George Orwell’s perception of paperbacks in its defense.

However, as The New York Times pointed out, the company took Orwell’s ironic comments out of context and failed to share his true point of view on the subject.

Bill Hamilton, the literary executor for the Orwell estate, responded to the story with a letter to the editor published in The New York Times. Check it out:

I’m both appalled and wryly amused that Amazon’s tactics should come straight out of Orwell’s own nightmare dystopia, “1984.” It doesn’t say much for Amazon’s regard for truth, or its powers of literary understanding. Or perhaps Amazon just doesn’t care about the authors it is selling. If that’s the case, why should we listen to a word it says about the value of books?

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