Does self-publishing represent a threat to traditional publishers, or perhaps an opportunity? A number of people in the publishing industry seem dismissive of self-publishing writers or their numbers. But Philip Jones of FutureBook thinks that this is a mistake. He notes that readers who buy cheap self-published books will be spending time reading them that they might otherwise have spent reading more expensive works from traditional publishers. What strikes me most about indie writers, however, is not what they write, but how they publish it. Konrath may be a 'downmarket' writer for some, but he is...

Harper Collins’ takes a different approach from its competitors in its quest to ripoff Aussie readers.  Rather than massively overcharging Australians to prop up their foreign operations, they have gone for a more mixed, global price hike strategy.  This does, of course, involve over-charging Australians.  But hey, why not take a global stance by overcharging everyone.  Not that this should surprise anyone given HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s communications empire.   The price samples below come from an Amazon advanced ebook search by entering Voyager and eliminating the odd (not relevant titles) and books that did not have both Australian and...

Several days ago I wrote an article about the astonishing price hikes inflicted on Australians by French usurers Hachette Livre.  So large, in fact, that the average of the prices samples was: 164%.  Macmillan's hike? Much larger. Astoundingly, believe it or not, there are even bigger ripoff merchants at work.  Most ebook readers will easily be able to guess the villain here. In fact, Macmillan jacked up their prices not long before xmas – ONLY IN AUSTRALIA. Unlike Orbit, Macmillan's websites are absolutely terrible from a reader point of view, without even an obvious book list, except in the case of the...

From the press release: Pan Macmillan announced today a partnership between its new digital imprint, Macmillan Bello, and Curtis Brown, one of Europe’s largest and most prestigious literary agencies. Macmillan Bello was previously known as Macmillan Compass, the working title for the imprint when its forthcoming launch was first announced in June this year. Pan Macmillan’s Managing Director, Anthony Forbes Watson, says, “Why Bello? Because Bello is an African footballer, Spanish intellectual, Venezuelan poet and American bass guitarist as well as a big and beautiful modern font, and the way an Italian expresses admiration: Bello is hidden talent discovered – and admired!” From...

The following is the full press release issued by the law firm in this important lawsuit.  As a former corporate lawyer who used to teach antitrust law to my fellow employees, I must say that I'm surprised that it took so long for someone to do this.  On its face, the current arrangement seems to be a pretty clear violation of the antitrust laws related to price fixing and certainly also contains strong elements of conspiracy.  I would be pretty nervous if I were the publishers' lawyers. SAN FRANCISCO – Hagens Berman, a consumer rights class-action law firm, today announced it...

Received an email from Brian Ford of Lendle about this open letter.  Here it is in full: Hi, Sara. Lendle here. We’re a web-app devoted to creating a culture of reading around the ability to lend and borrow Kindle books. Maybe you’ve heard of us? You might be interested to know that thousands and thousands of Lendlers are super excited to purchase books (including books from MacMillan) in order to read them, yes, but also to share the experience with others who will, in turn, buy more books. We recently read an article on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) which, frankly, left us gobsmacked. Apparently,...

It’s right around the one year anniversary of the week that Amazon removed Macmillan books’ buy buttons in its snit-fit over the implementation of agency pricing, resulting in a lot of authors losing a week’s worth of royalties. And just in time to mark the anniversary, an interesting tidbit of information pops up on eReads. Richard Curtis reports that in a cover letter attached to the latest Macmillan semi-annual royalty statements authors have received, Macmillan CEO John Sargent makes note of an interesting adjustment to author royalties. Feeling that authors shouldn’t have to suffer on account of a battle...

Publishers who insisted on agency pricing are starting to be hoist by their own petards—but unfortunately, authors and agents are being hoisted right up there with them. This is the message that a Wall Street Journal article Paul mentioned a few days ago (from another publication) brings us, and it’s one worthy of revisiting. As most of the comments on Paul’s post point out, this article has a number of problems—most notably that literary fiction as a genre has already been in trouble for some time now, and the lower per-unit income from e-books may just be another...

From the press release: Ingram Content Group Inc. and Macmillan today announced a new distribution services model that will integrate Ingram’s print on demand (POD) and fulfillment capability with Macmillan’s publishing program. Macmillan will use Ingram’s print on demand and physical distribution infrastructure to manage traditional inventory and POD for “”long tail” titles. Macmillan will continue to fully service its customer relationships from its primary warehouse in Virginia. “Macmillan recognizes that during these times of change in the publishing industry, the traditional methods of solving the logistics and print business challenges cannot remain the same,” said Peter Garabedian, Senior Vice President and...

Okay, I admit I don’t know that 100% of publishers don’t read their own ebooks – heck, I can’t even swear with certainty that publishers even know how to read — but I am certain Tom Doherty Associates/TOR/Macmillan’s publisher didn’t read the ebook version of Brandon Sanderson’s new release The Way of Kings before releasing it on the unsuspecting public. Let’s set aside the little errors that are in the ebook. Those can be excused because they are little (e.g., a dropped “a” and “the”), they are few (at least in the first third of the book...

Publishing industry consultant Mike Shatzkin, whose columns are always worth reading even when I don’t mention them here, has a piece looking at new Random House CEO Markus Dohle’s contention that the publishing business (and Random House in particular) will be shifting from a B2B (“Business to Business”) emphasis to a more B2C (“Business to Consumer”) position. Shatzkin writes: Markus replied that he was fine being quoted because he was “convinced that publishers have to become more reader oriented in a marketing and trend finding/setting way rather than in a direct to consumer selling...

 + Baidu, Most Used Site in China Begins Selling e-Books (via Bloomberg News) Baidu also provides a popular search engine. Baidu info page in English. + China: The E-Reader Boom (by Yu Shujyun, Beijing Review) + OPDS [Open Publishing Distribution System Catalog] Primer on Feedbooks (by Paul Biba, TeleRead) + Video Notre Dame ereader study (by Paul Biba, TeleRead) + Macmillan Dictionaries Launches Apps (by Victoria Gallagher, The Bookseller) + Kobo Powering Samsung Galaxy Tab E-Book Reader (by David Pierce, PC Magazine) + Staples to Carry Kindles (by Eric Engleman, TechFlash) + Videos From Multiple Sources: Sony Launches Three New E-Readers (via Newsy) + New Kindles reinforce e-reader's...