More than a few self-published authors, of course, have found serious success through various channels over the years—selling a vast amount of books on their own, for instance, or having their previously self-published book picked up by a big publishing concern. And yet, contrary to popular belief, not every self-published author actually wants to be picked up by a mainstream publishing house. Some are more than happy working independently, and pocketing as much money from their DIY publishing project as possible. This topic was brought up last Sunday, March 10, during the Self-Publishing in the Age of E panel at the SXSW in Austin, Texas. The...

Not everything always goes smoothly over at Amazon. PaidContent reports that, for a few hours Thursday night, it seems Amazon inadvertently disabled the Kindle e-book buy buttons on Big Six publishers (and who knows what other publishers?) for a few hours. The company reported it was a “technical issue”. It also affected users’ ability to buy Kindle e-books or download titles they’d already bought. The funny thing to me is that this little glitch wouldn’t even be a news item if it weren’t for Amazon’s habit of turning off buy buttons to punish publishers who won’t give it the...

Michael W. Perry's political rant about the cause and ramifications of the DoJ price-fixing case definitely touched a nerve this week with a good number of readers. Some of you found Perry's thought-process and logic to be a bit twisted, while others didn't think the essay had any place being published on TeleRead at all, given its rather over-the-top political overtone. Perry has since responded with a 2,200-word comment, and it's nothing if not a doozy. Click here to give it a read....

It's been my experience that avid readers tend to be the sorts of people who take great pride in their intelligence. And intelligent people, for reasons that are obvious enough, aren't always forthcoming when they encounter complicated subjects they don't entirely understand. I mention this because I suspect that a decent portion of the e-reading community is having a hard time wrapping its collective head around the now-approved e-book pricing settlement situation. And that's a shame, because this particular case offers anyone who's interested a fantastic opportunity to observe the process of free-market capitalism in all its exquisite absurdity. I'll be the first to admit that all the...

I can't even begin to explain how incredibly proud I felt of my native San Francisco after stumbling across a San Francisco Chronicle article from mid-August titled "Libraries to try buying e-books directly." If you're not familiar with the struggles public libraries throughout the U.S. are dealing with in regards to e-books, this is a story you should probably read. And if you are familiar with the situation but just don't find yourself caring all that much, well ... this is a story you should absolutely read; it might get you pumped up enough to change your attitude. Here's the takeaway: "Popular demand isn't determining...

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 themselves in competing against self-publishers’ lower prices—and that Amazon isn’t necessarily as big a friend to self-publishers as they might believe. Here are only a couple of his numerous points: • The agency model helped self publishers by creating a...

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 in time for the holiday season. Although Shatzkin was a fairly vocal critic of the settlement in past columns, he doesn’t waste any time complaining about the DoJ’s decision to let it remain unchanged. Instead, he talks about the business models publishers might consider...

Legacy publishers: dinosaurs who are having trouble adapting to the new digital climate, or here to stay and planning for the future? As with any such question, the answer you get largely depends on who you ask. On the “dinosaur” side, The Guardian ran a piece last week looking at how publishers were comporting themselves at the London Book Fair. The article included the viewpoints of publishers who said the publishing industry was in trouble. Simon Potter, of Fast-Print Publishing, said: "The book industry – and I think most people in the industry would admit...

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...

In a recent column, publishing analyst Mike Shatzkin looked at how rich with irony the current publishing situation is. A large chunk of the column was devoted to explaining the current agency pricing situation to anyone who hasn’t been paying attention. He points out that one unintended consequence of Amazon’s policy restricting the use of agency pricing to the Big Six publishers might be to make the Big Six publishers more attractive to best-selling authors than self-publishing through Amazon. Amazon wants to compete for those authors and can offer a better royalty on Amazon sales to...

Sharp-eyed TeleReader Aaron Pressman noticed this article yesterday, though it didn’t show up in my Google Reader until today. Though he mentioned it in his comment, and we did link a video earlier today, we never actually linked this rather informative article from the Wall Street Journal which sets the issues down in print. The Connecticut Attorney General has followed in the footsteps of the Texas Attorney General in investigating the possible anticompetitive ramifications of Apple’s and five of the Big Six publishers’ agency pricing scheme, which they have forced on Amazon and every other e-book seller. ...