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...

If you needed proof that the earthquake of Andrew Wylie’s Amazon publishing deal continues to send aftershocks through the publishing industry, you need look no further than this post by “Agent Kristin” on her blog “Pub Rants”: Several agent friends have confirmed that Macmillan sent a letter over the weekend asking authors to sign amendments that gave them electronic rights to backlist titles. Kristin points out that these letters went directly to the authors in question—not the agents or agencies that represent them—and reminds authors not to sign them without checking with their...

That's the title of an article by Meredith Greene in the Sacramento Book Review. Here's a couple of paragraphs to start you out: ‘Antitrust’ is an emotionally packed word capable of stirring up and smelting public suspicion into a vaguely sharp foil; this weapon is often used for little more than lashing out at shadowy figures in the mist, simply for the sake of ‘looking really busy.’ As much as we like the idea of making certain that the ‘big’ companies stay on the lesser side of Greedy, we must remember that pulling out the Antitrust Card tends to lead...

Publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin weighs in with his (lengthy) thoughts on the Wylie/Amazon book deal, which has quickly become the nine day wonder of the e-publishing world. He summarizes the issue of movement toward e-books as having three key components for publishers: e-book pricing, dominance of sales by a monopoly or oligarchy of big stores, and royalties. Shatzkin notes that the questions of pricing and monopoly have been at the center of attention for the last year, most notably at the beginning of 2010 when Amazon and Macmillan faced off over the Agency Pricing model. But now it’s...

Macmillan CEO says of the Wylie deal, in his blog: I am appalled, however, that Andrew has chosen to give his list exclusively to a single retailer. A basic tenet of publishing is that our function is to reach as many readers as we can. We disseminate our books and the ideas within them as broadly as possible. I understand why Amazon wants an exclusive deal with Andrew. They have asked us too for exclusive product, as has every major retailer we deal with. This is smart retailing, and a great deal for Amazon. But it is an extraordinarily bad...

Publishing professional Brett Sandusky had an epiphany last month, brought on by a panelist at a publishing conference who kept repeating the phrase, “The reader is the consumer who is your customer.” Up to this point, the publishing industry has been strictly business-to-business (“B-to-B”)—not dealing directly with consumers, but with intermediaries such as agents and bookstores. It’s as if we are an industry of ninjas, or a group of faceless factory workers buying, creating, selling, and promoting products without one genuine interaction with the people for whom we are making these products. This, of...

April 2011 is the month to prepare for armageddon in ebookdom. It is when the 2010 agency model pricing scheme will be buried by publishing’s 2010 savior, Steve Jobs and Apple. You read it here first. All the stars and moons and planets will align and the caterwaul of panic will be heard throughout ebookdom, because that is when the Agency 5 — Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin, and Hachette – will realize they have been snookered by the snooker master. “Why is April 2011 so important,” you ask? Because it turns out that Steve Jobs did the Apple version of...

The New Yorker has a great in-depth piece on the three-way power struggle involving Amazon, Apple, and Google around the “big six” publishers. There may not be much new to people who closely followed the last several months of e-book news, but there is a certain value in seeing all that history together in one place. It makes a good primer for those who might not have been paying that much attention. The article covers publishers’ discomfiture with Amazon’s $9.99 price point, the institution of agency pricing and Amazon’s temper tantrum, and the launch of the iPod and...