Many publishing insiders and authors have been discussing Random House over the past week. The company might wish it had stayed out of the news as criticisms came down over its digital imprints, especially Hydra, which handles science fiction. In case you missed the news, here’s the basic version: Contract specifications for Hydra were made public, and many realized the terms were not ideal for authors. The digital imprints offered a publishing package with no advance, and with net proceeds that would be split 50/50. In addition, the author would have to pay a one-time fee for set-up costs such as...

TeleRead has earlier covered two stories about some bad publishing experiments: The first was about the scammy contracts Random House was offering authors who signed with their digital-only imprint. The second was about a Canadian newspaper, the National Post, which was trying to extract 'licensing' payments from readers who were trying to quote from their stories in a legal way under fair use rules. In both these stories, I pointed out that neither business was being illegal, per se—but that they were being fishy, and would learn their lesson if people raised a loud enough hue and cry. Well, it's happened! I...

One hurdle down. Several more to go with the EU, Canadian Competition Bureau and various other antitrust authorities around the world still needing to weigh in on this. Penguin's settlement with the Justice Department was a move to smooth the way for this merger, and it looks like that move worked. Note that Random House, not included in the price-fixing case, will be bound by the terms of the Penguin settlement. Who owns how much of what? For those who are keeping score, according to the announcement: Following completion, Bertelsmann will own 53% and Pearson 47% of Penguin Random House. It will encompass...

So two of the largest publishers in the world are merging their book arms entirely to deal with "this exciting, fast-moving world of digital books and digital readers," to quote Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino. Could there be any clearer proof that e-books are where the action is, and that the print-only model is truly over? What price print Luddism now? What does everyone else think?...

Last week we carried a story about a claim that Random House was going to let libraries “own” its e-books. However, it turns out that “own” may have been an optimistic oversimplification. Peter Brantley, Director of the Bookserver Project at the Internet Archive, writes at Publishers Weekly that he's had some follow-up discussion with Skip Dye, Random House’s VP of Library and Academic Sales, to get clarification on exactly what “own” meant in that context. (Found via TechDirt.) What Random House actually meant was that it would assist libraries in moving e-books from one “authorized library wholesaler” to another. The publisher...

I try to keep my Kindle spending to $10 or less per book—partly for budgetary reasons, and partly because I find most e-books so error-filled that I resent paying so much money just to copy-edit them myself. When I wrote about the errors in JK Rowling's new hardback-priced bestseller, I made the point that if publishers want to make the argument that e-books are worth full retail paper price, they need to put out a product that merits that price. My experience in the last year or two has been that they are not putting out such a product. But every...

Hot on the heels of the filing I mentioned yesterday, the judge in the publisher/Apple price-fixing class action has issued a 56-page ruling (PDF). It’s important to note that this is only a preliminary ruling on Apple and the publishers’ motion to have the case thrown out. It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily guilty. As such, it used a simplified set of criteria—rather than questioning the plaintiffs’ facts, as would be done in a full trial, the judge took them at face value for the purpose of determining whether there was enough of an issue to move to full trial about....

The hits just keep on coming. On PaidContent, Laura Hazard Owen writes about a new filing in a class-action lawsuit against the agency pricing publishers that reveals some previously redacted evidence in the case shedding light on the agency pricing negotiations. This is the suit in which a number of states (now up to 31 including DC and Puerto Rico) seek monetary damages, in addition to the DoJ’s class action settlement. In one case, Macmillan CEO John Sargent asked Apple if they might consider relaxing their 30% take for new-release “hardcover” e-books to help ease the pain of their...

The name is Zon. Ama Zon. In 2010, the Fleming estate chose not to renew its publishing contract with Penguin for the James Bond novels, and proceeded to release them electronically in the UK via Amazon, Waterstones, and other e-book retailers. In March of this year, Random imprint Vintage Books acquired the world publishing rights for ten years to the 14 Fleming Bond novels and two nonfiction titles, but not the US or Canadian rights. It wasn’t clear who would be the North American publisher. But now we know: the books are back with Amazon again, but this...

Salon Magazine has an extremely lengthy story looking at Amazon, and bringing up a couple of points I hadn’t heard about before. In main, the article looks at Amazon’s habit of making quiet but substantial grants to various small independent publishing organizations, totaling about $1 million per year. Is it done to support indie publishing, or silence Amazon’s most strident critics? The Salon piece is more even-handed than the last article I covered on this theme. But the really interesting part is actually buried in the second section of the article, which mentions something I hadn’t heard elsewhere: Salon claims that...

The Wall Street Journal has some further news on the putative e-book pricing settlement in the US Justice Department and European Commission joint anti-trust investigation of the “Agency Five” publishers plus Apple. Anonymous sources have told the Journal that three publishers are inclined to settle and two others (plus Apple) are holding out. HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster reportedly favor settling, while Penguin and Macmillan (plus Apple) do not. (Random House, who waited a year to implement agency pricing, was not part of the investigation.) "The companies involved know very well under which conditions we...

CBC News reports that some Nova Scotia libraries have begun boycotting Random House over a change to Random House’s e-book pricing for libraries. Earlier this year, Random House announced its plans to raise the prices on e-books bought for library loans, and despite an ALA statement asking the publisher not to do so, put it into effect last month. Under the new rates, libraries have seen Random House e-book prices almost triple. Troy Myers, CEO and chief librarian of Nova Scotia’s South Shore Public Libraries, said that he hopes the boycott will make a statement, and that publishers should...