TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics » agency pricing

Baen soon coming to iBooks, finally posts announcements of changes to web site

Chris Meadows — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:13:53 +0000

A month and a half since Baen made the jump to Amazon availability, the publisher is about to add another feather to its cap. On her forum on the Baen Bar, publisher Toni Weisskopf has mentioned that Baen e-books will soon be available DRM-free in Apple’s iBooks store. A formal announcement will be made when [...]

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TeleRead’s E-Book Market Predictions for 2013

Joanna Cabot — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 03:13:48 +0000

It’s that time of year! Everyone from fellow bloggers to publishers themselves are coming out with predictions for what the coming year will bring the e-book world. So what do we at TeleRead predict? Here are some trends to keep an eye on. 1. The international market will rise significantly Amazon and Barnes & Noble may dominate [...]

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Antitrust experts say publishing is not a special case

Chris Meadows — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:30:57 +0000

Do publishers deserve special treatment from anti-trust courts? Paid Content reports on antitrust experts who said no at a New York book event this week: “There’s never been a defendant sued for antitrust who didn’t think their market was special,” said Chris Sagers of Cleveland State University, adding that “agency pricing” (a commission-style pricing system [...]

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RoyaltyShare founder Bob Kohn appeals denial of his right to appeal DoJ agency pricing settlement

Chris Meadows — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:52:21 +0000

I’m a little late, but I wanted to bring up just one story that popped up between the times I was at The Digital Reader and here. I’ve been following the saga of RoyaltyShare founder Bob Kohn at length with some interest and more than a little amusement. (That’s Kohn in the photo to the [...]

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The public outcry over J.K. Rowling’s first adult novel, and the important lesson publishers can learn from it

Joanna Cabot — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 23:22:26 +0000

J.K. Rowling’s first adult novel hit stores (and e-book readers) today, and almost immediately, the lukewarm reviews trickled in—not for the content of the book itself, but for the Kindle formatting: a glitch on the tech end (which this article attributes to an unspecified ‘issue’ on the end of Hachette, the publisher) made it impossible for [...]

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Barnes & Noble, American Booksellers Association to file amicus curae brief in DoJ anti-trust case

Chris Meadows — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:03:11 +0000

Well, that didn’t take long. In the wake of the Department of Justice’s response to the hundreds of comments it received regarding its proposed anti-trust settlement with three alleged agency pricing conspirator publishers, PaidContent reports that the American Booksellers Association and Barnes & Noble have sought permission from Judge Denise Cote to file an amicus [...]

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Steve Jobs biographer does not have to turn over unpublished material to agency pricing class-action plaintiffs

Chris Meadows — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:25:23 +0000

If you’re interested in any new tidbit of information about the legal matters surrounding the publishers’ and Apple’s implementation of agency pricing, here’s an interesting one for you. Publishers Weekly reports that Denise Cote, the judge in the class-action suit against Apple and the publishers, has ruled that Walter Isaacson, the the author of the [...]

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Agency pricing was boon to self-publishing, blogger contends

Chris Meadows — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 21:22:27 +0000

Was agency pricing hugely beneficial to self-publishers? In a response to a DoJ public comment by David Gaughran (claiming that professional publishers did it to try to kill off Amazon’s self-publishing), self-publishing blogger Aaron Shepard makes a pretty convincing argument that it amounted to a great big sloppy kiss from publishers, who were unwittingly handicapping [...]

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Mike Shatzkin ponders near-future of publishing under DoJ settlement

Chris Meadows — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:43:39 +0000

Publishing industry consultant Mike Shatzkin has posted a look on his blog at what the settlement terms could mean for the near future of publishing as the publishers who’ve settled put the required contract changes into effect. Assuming things move forward at all speed, the terms could be in effect as soon as mid-September, well [...]

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Department of Justice responds to comments, will not change its settlement terms

Chris Meadows — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 04:03:25 +0000

Today the Department of Justice finally got around to posting over 850 comments it received on its proposed anti-trust settlement with three agency pricing publishers—along with its own response (PDF) to the concerns and issues raised by the comments it received. In summary, the Department of Justice considered all the relevant issues raised by the [...]

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Consumer payout in e-book pricing class-action still some distance away

Chris Meadows — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 00:31:33 +0000

The Justice Department suit against the publishers and Apple for introducing agency pricing is not seeking damages—just a change in the way publishers price. However, the competing class-action lawsuits filed by various law firms and a number of state attorney generals are seeking damages, and therein lies a bit of a snarl-up. PaidContent has an [...]

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Senator Charles Schumer fears DoJ antitrust suit could bring about end of publishing industry

Chris Meadows — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:25:01 +0000

Senator Charles Schumer (D, New York) has an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal calling upon the Department of Justice to drop its lawsuit against the agency price publishers and Apple. Schumer seems to have bought into the Author’s Guild’s rationale, which he quotes and references, painting Amazon as the evil monopolist and publishers [...]

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Nine major independent publishers object to DoJ price-fixing settlement

Chris Meadows — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 01:00:00 +0000

The Atlantic reports on a new 20-page legal brief objecting to the terms of the Department of Justice settlement, filed by nine major independent publishers: Abrams Books, Chronicle Books, Grove/Atlantic Inc. Chicago Review Press, Inc, New Directions Publishing Corp., W.W. Norton & Company, Perseus Books Group, the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, and Workman Publishing. [...]

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Authors Guild letter to DoJ complains agency pricing settlement will harm publishers, readers

Chris Meadows — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:15:00 +0000

The time to submit comments to the DoJ about the proposed price-fixing settlement has ended, and the Authors Guild filed its own comments on Monday. Publishers Weekly has a post containing the full text of the rather lengthy open letter from Executive Director Paul Aiken, as well as some commentary. There’s not a whole lot [...]

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Antitrust suit update: DoJ wants discovery from settling publishers; court date set for those who did not settle

Chris Meadows — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 17:19:23 +0000

Here are a couple of updates on the DoJ vs. publishers + Apple antitrust suit. From CNet comes the story of a small legal tiff between the DoJ and the publishers who did agree to settle. Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster—publishers who accepted the DoJ’s proposed terms—have filed papers asking a court to declare [...]

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