First up are the reviews.  We posted our monthly recommended reads. We reviewed the following books:

In the eyebrow raising department, the pseudo regulatory arm of agenting in the UK is debating whether to remove the prohibit against agents as publishers. Andrew Wylie began publishing his client’s backlists.   Agent Sonia Land [...]]]> I confess that I thought about not doing these anymore but apparently the midday links are very popular so onward!

In the eyebrow raising department, the pseudo regulatory arm of agenting in the UK is debating whether to remove the prohibit against agents as publishers. Andrew Wylie began publishing his client’s backlists.   Agent Sonia Land digitally published Catherine Cookson’s backlist.   In the U.S. Richard Curtis publishes backlist titles and runs ereads.com.   Waxman Literary Agency runs Diversion Books, an epublishing arm.   Steve Axelrod is co publishing digital backlist titles with his clients like Julie Ann Long.   I view agents publishing their client’s books as a conflict of interest and believe that this activity by agents will culminate in a lawsuit in the near future.   However, until such time as there is a potential financial deterrent, I would not be surprised to see more and more of these ventures in the future, for not only backlist titles, but original digital fiction.

When all of the publishers have original digital fiction lines and agents do as well, I wonder what impartial party will be advising authors as to the best place for their works?

*****

Speaking of advice, Steve Axelrod and his client, Amanda Hocking, choose to turn down Amazon’s bid to be Hocking’s print publisher. Amazon offered the most money to Axelrod and Hocking but was turned down, presumably because Amazon’s deal required an exclusive provision (likely for the Kindle).   These are the types of decisions that would be questioned in an agency publishing matter and it would be difficult for an agent to prove that turning down more money for some other distribution deal was in the best interests of the client.

*****

Amazon is making moves to retail its print books and has signed an agreement with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. HMH will distribute Amazon’s books in brick and mortar retail stores around the U.S.   Can BN refuse to stock these?   I am guessing no.   Shatkzin points out that the interesting part of this deal is HMH’s statement that indicates print rights are a subsidiary now.

*****

HarperCollins says that its 26 lending limit cap is a “work in progress” and that it is committed to listening and learning from libraries about the digital lending process.

“We try to be intelligent about our policy,” he said. “And when we landed on 26, the information that we had was that most books don’t circulate 26 times. In terms of the long tail, this particular number probably works for a different part of the collection. We realize it doesn’t work for the best sellers.”

I guess the question is whether HC is more evil for the cap or MacMillan, the sponsor of the new romance website, Heroes and Heartbreakers, and Simon & Schuster for not allowing their books to be digitally lent at all.   Both Macmillan and S&S have said that the digital lending business model, as it currently exists, does not work for them.

*****

Big money is being paid out for dystopian YA books. I suppose the interest in that genre can be traced back to Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy.

oung adult fiction is big business. Between 2008 – when the last Twilight novel and the first Twilight film were released – and 2009, the market almost doubled in size. This year, despite sales having dropped slightly, the teenage fiction market is worth  £48m, according to industry analysts Nielsen BookScan. While the Twilight saga, which has sold more than five million copies in the UK, and the Vampire Diaries series still outsell dystopian titles, the market for “paranormal romance” appears saturated.

*****

I believe the YA market is glutted as well.   YA market, as I understand it, is largely driven by the retail buyers like Barnes and Noble and school buys.   With declining budgets, school buys will decrease and BN is already scaling back on the number of books it is putting on the shelves. Everywhere I turned at RWA, a romance author was hawking her YA book.   The rumor is that BN sales of YA PNR is down 25%.

*****

Also down are print sales.   And this is all the fault of digital book sales.

According to new sales data coming from the US and UK first quarter sales in the US are down a full 9% in volume on last year, from 178m in the first quarter of 2010 to just over 162m this year….marked drop in fiction sales on both sides of the Atlantic, with the UK down 9.8% on 2010 figures in the first quarter, and the US down a massive 19.3%. According to Nielsen figures, fiction is the dominant e-book genre, taking a share of 70% compared with its print share of 30%.

Said Nowell: "We can surmise that e-book sales may be affecting fiction more than other genres, and responsible for the steep downturns in the US and UK.”

*****

Maya Rodale has an interesting piece about the gentleman’s club known as White’s. It still exists today. It is still as exclusionary and likely as misogynistic as it was when it was founded. It’s like Augusta National, the home of the golf tournament called The Masters. No girls allowed.

****

The White House has come out with a strong statement in support of stricter copyright laws primarily focused on combatting live streaming. I understand that sports organizations are having a very difficult time with this.   Because of the money behind this endeavor (primarily funded by movie studios, [...]]]> Don’t forget to vote. http://dabwaha.com/!!!

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The White House has come out with a strong statement in support of stricter copyright laws primarily focused on combatting live streaming. I understand that sports organizations are having a very difficult time with this.   Because of the money behind this endeavor (primarily funded by movie studios, record labels, the porn industry, and sports entities), this is a largely bi partisan issue.   I wouldn’t be surprised that we see stricter copyright laws including felony convictions of those involved in web streaming of sporting events or pornography.   Of course, the by product of these stricter copyright laws will likely result in a stifling of creativity but I’ve become sanguine about this.   I figure that the copyright laws have to become so strict as to foment revolt much like what is happening in the patent arena.   In the meantime, I await the opportunity to start copyrighting ideas so I can start my litigation business of suing copyright infringers for using my ideas. I plan to copyright angel books, demon books, marriages of convenience, bands of brothers (whether human or paranormal), second chance lovers, and any other trope I can think of. (These last two sentences are snark but it is what goes on currently in the patent world).

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Thanks to Laura V and Sarah T, comes this article in the Guardian UK about how publishers are losing a PR battle over ebooks, according to the author.   Sam Jordison states that the unpleasant whingeing of customers bleating about how prices are too high and that readers ignore the complications and costs of digitizing books. This is true. I don’t think readers pay much attention to the publishers’ costs or the rights’ issues when looking at whether they can actually buy a book or buy a book that the reader thinks is a fair price.   Jordison also points to the influx of $.99 self published books which drive a consumer’s perception about value and cost of a digital book.   Jordison is hopeful that Agency pricing will be deemed legal and publishers can return to the net book agreement of limiting discounts and establishing a price floor.

****

Globe & Mail wonders whether   mid list authors are endangered by digital books.

An e-book market cluttered with the self-published but unedited, and a beleaguered professional publishing arena where only a few bestselling writers can make a living is a particularly unfriendly scenario for Canada, a nation that has produced few bestselling genre writers but many mid-list literary writers.

 

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Rich Adin over at The Digital Reader posts about the appalling lack of quality amongst self published books. Rich finds that the reviews out there on indie published books are sparse and unhelpful and that he has been burned too many times by poor quality work from Smashwords.   (Excerpts! use the Excerpt feature) Overall, though, I agree and I wondered as I read about 5 $.99 self published books whether existing traditionally published authors were actually hurting their brands by putting out shoddy work in order to take advantage of the self publishing bandwagon.

Ms Banks blogged about her experience and it’s pretty moving:

But my speech had gone out of my [...]]]> Author LA Banks introduces President Obama at a Healthcare Summit in Philadelphia. Banks writes the popular The Vampire Huntress series published by St. Martin’s Press and a new angel based series for Pocket. H/t to Rose Fox.

Ms Banks blogged about her experience and it’s pretty moving:

But my speech had gone out of my head! Things I'd wanted to say-’like telling the President how I took my father's tie and my mother's ring into the voting booth with me because they didn't live to see him get elected- or how my daughter had just turned 18 years old and how she and I went together early in the morning to vote for her first time by pulling the lever for him. I didn't get to say any of that. It was an amazing, ephemeral moment that went by in a flash like a dream.

Also? I found it quite endearing that she refers to Facebook as “Face Book.”

I guest blogged at The New Sleekness about how editors and publishers could participate at a greater level in reader communities. Have you got some other tips?

Sarah Weinman writes about Borders financial troubles. It laid off over 164 employees a month ago and is continuing cutting its workforce:

According to multiple sources, on March 4 — a date employees are already referring to on internal message boards as “Black Thursday” — Borders instituted a company-wide layoff of all inventory supervisors, and also let go an unspecified number of part-time employees.

Is there anyone left? A $42.5 million loan is due in April. If this loan cannot be refinanced, it might doom Borders.

The good news is that Amazon is looking to develop a good browser for the Kindle. The bad news is that Amazon’s desire to build a warehouse in Canada (thus making fulfillment of Canadian orders easier and less costly) is being opposed. More states are seeking to tax affiliate programs causing Amazon to withdraw those affiliate programs. Will this mean less sales for Amazon? More from Shelf Awareness and Daily Finance.

Not content with the nook or the Plastic Logic Que or the partnership with Iliad, Barnes and Noble opens up its bookstore platform to yet another eink reader. This time it is Samsung and it’s a stylus based touchscreen with a pull out navigation system. A year ago, I may have been excited about this but at the $299 price point, it’s a complete yawner to me.

Entertainment Weekly takes a look at self publishing and suggests that if a number of big name authors validate this alternative publishing model, the landscape of publishing could change a great deal.

Courtney Milan is doing a three part series on copyright and authors. It’s instructive for readers too. Parts 1 and 2 can be read now. We are awaiting Part 3.

Overzealous copyright enforcement results in harmful and crazy results. First example is OK Go. EMI, the record label of [...]]]> This week has been bereft of news links because of our giveaways like “Save the Contemporary” and the “ACE/ROC Giveaway”.   This does not mean that news hasn’t been happening so here’s my two bit summary:

Overzealous copyright enforcement results in harmful and crazy results. First example is OK Go. EMI, the record label of OK Go, disabled the embed ability for OK Go’s famous treadmill music video, much to the dismay of OK Go. For OK Go’s next video, they partnered with State Farm to produce it, allowing for embedding. Yes, they had to get away from their record label to allow for embedding.

In another example of how bad it would be for ISPs to be required to police content is the chilling account of the silencing of Laurence Lessig.

But, really, the fact that Lessig has had two separate videos — both of which clearly are fair use — neutered due to bogus copyright infringement risks suggests a serious problem. I’m guessing that, once again, this video was likely caught by the fingerprinting, rather than a direct claim by Warner Music.

John Sargeant wrote a blog post about pricing.   I asked a question and he answered.

The high mass market pricing is a legacy of the old model. Under the agency model trade paperbacks will be $9.99 and lower. Mass markets will probably be at the price of the physical book or lower. We may do some experimenting on price here since digtal will be paperback format agnostic. Some books exsist in both formats-

What his answer means, I am not entirely sure.   He says that at the end of March, the new pricing models will engage and all the books published in print will be available digitally.   It is the beginning of March a) still books not in ebook format (i.e. Louisa Edwards’ On the Steamy Side) and books that have the super premium pricing (Julia Spencer Fleming’s entire backlist is priced at $14.00 even though there are mass market print editions selling for $7.99).   Hopefully, at the end of March, books will show up and at equal to or lower than print prices.   No discounting will be available, however, through retailers.

The definition of the book itself, as far as we can see, is up for grabs. We don’t understand at the moment what the consumer is prepared to pay for them. We have opportunities to do more product marketing, by including a sales message at the end of every e-book for example.

We’ve recommended in book upselling for some time here at DA.   I suggest these CEOs hang around the readers at MobileRead.com and other like places if they want to know what readers want.

Shares in Pearson hit an eight-year high yesterday after the publisher of the Financial Times and Penguin books announced a 13 per cent increase in pre-tax profits.

Part of its success was driven by the huge number of bestsellers:

Bestseller success across the Group: Penguin enjoyed bestseller success around the world with a record number of New York Times bestsellers (243 with 30 hitting number one) in the US and, in the UK, Penguin had 46 Top Ten bestsellers. Bestsellers came from across a wide range of imprints highlighting the depth and breadth of Penguin’s publishing around the world and included titles from debut authors such as The Help by Kathryn Stockett, which was named the USA Today Book of the Year and now has more than 1.7m copies in print, and The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee in the US, and Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson in the UK, plus well-established author brands such as Charlaine Harris, Nora Roberts, Jamie Oliver, Jeremy Clarkson and Marian Keyes.

Ebooks sales in 2009 were 4 times the number in 2008.

Harlequin closed the year very well. Including favourable exchange impact, Harlequin achieved annual growth in EBITDA of $15.7 million or 22% versus prior year despite the difficult global economic environment. This represents Harlequin’s third consecutive year of growth.”

Driving the demand is the country’s continuing economic boom – 6.7% growth in 2009 despite the global crisis – and the tastes of the new Indian middle class.

“It is a forward looking generation,” said Singh. “The low hanging fruit for us is the single working woman who has money in her hands, the liberty to read, no responsibilities yet, no husband, children and so on.”

I mentioned to other readers on Twitter that I can’t wait to read the four novels from India Mills & Boon writers and would love to see Russia Mills & Boon writers, Korean Mills & Boon writers, Turkish Mills & Boon writers. Maybe this globalization will lead to the diversity that some of us readers hunger for or maybe we’ll realize we are much more alike than different.

"Like most artists I am inspired by work I admire. There are certain similarities between some of my work and the work of others. This was simply meant as an homage to artists I respect, and I definitely want to apologize to any Manga fans or fellow Manga artists who feel I went too far. My inspirations reflect the fact that certain fundamental imagery is common to all Manga. This is the nature of the medium.

I am a big fan of Bleach, as well as other Manga titles. And I am certainly sorry if anyone was offended or upset by what they perceive to be the similarity between my work and the work of artists that I admire and who inspire me."

In true irony, Nick Simmon’s livejournal starts with this entry:

If you steal my artwork, you will pay. In cash.

NY Times has another reporter who has admitted to lifting text from other journalists, specifically from the Wall Street Journal. He apologized and said he thought it was his own material. Slate made up its own list of excuses by plagiarists.

But apologies might be a thing of [...]]]> More plagiarism from authors and journalists.

NY Times has another reporter who has admitted to lifting text from other journalists, specifically from the Wall Street Journal. He apologized and said he thought it was his own material. Slate made up its own list of excuses by plagiarists.

But apologies might be a thing of the past. Author Helene Hegmann was accused of lifting and she retorted that her copying was a remixing of material.

Although Ms. Hegemann has apologized for not being more open about her sources, she has also defended herself as the representative of a different generation, one that freely mixes and matches from the whirring flood of information across new and old media, to create something new. "There's no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity," said Ms. Hegemann in a statement released by her publisher after the scandal broke.

Hegemann’s book is finalists for the $20,000 prize of the Leipzig Book Fair in the fiction category. The jury picked her, even knowing the plagiarism charges.

Harlequin seriously wants everyone in the world to read its books. The latest is that they have opened an office in Turkey. ” HARLEQUIN TURKIYE will officially open its offices in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district in February, 2010.”

ComputerWorld has an article about how awful Adobe’s EPUB encryption is because even though the EPUB container might be standard, the proprietary systems are not, from the nook to the Sony and now Apple who will encrypt with Fair Play. Breaking the Amazon monopoly would be easy if publishers would just abandon the ridiculous DRM which only serves to punish legitimate customers by confusing and hampering their reading enjoyment. Sarah Wendell calls DRM, Driving Readers Mad. It’s so true.

Kindle for Blackberry is available but only in the US.

According to Kindle Daily Nation, a note in the Blackberry announcement indicates that Kindle will be available on the iPad. (Via Teleread).

File this under horribly creepy but some school is accused of spying on kids in their home through the students’ mac books. According to the lawsuit posted at Boing Boing, each family was issued a personal laptop equipped with a web camera by the Lower Merion School District. One student was disciplined for engaging “in improper behavior in his home” and they cited “as evidence a photograph from the webcam.” If this is true, I can’t even begin to express the egregious nature of the privacy violation.

Lori posted about things that pull her out of a book.

Men in their late 30′s or 40s that can have sex For. Ever. And Ever. And Over. And Over. Sorry, but unless you’re mainlining Viagra, that’s just not happening. Male recovery time is the perfect time for pillow talk. Just sayin’. (I will add a sour grapes note that this didn’t bother me until my late 30s. Heh.)

Sarah is taking a survey of where people buy their books. I buy at Amazon, Fictionwise, Books on Board and Barnes and Noble.

2009 wasn’t a very good year for Simon & Schuster. It’s revenue was down 7% and its operating income declined 42.5%. Caroline Reidy blames the assault on the hardcover and noted that all paperback formats did better which means in 2010, you’ll see more trade paperback reprints and originals. Here’s hoping that S&S jacks those ebook prices up high. (sarcasm).

This is a quite hilarious ad by Verizon mocking AT&T’s pathetic coverage (I am an AT&T customer via my move to the iPhone). Watch until the end.

Guardian asks whether crowdsourcing author advances is legitimate. Deanna Zandt wanted to write a book on using social networking for social change and action, specializing in [...]]]>

This is a quite hilarious ad by Verizon mocking AT&T’s pathetic coverage (I am an AT&T customer via my move to the iPhone). Watch until the end.

Guardian asks whether crowdsourcing author advances is legitimate. Deanna Zandt wanted to write a book on using social networking for social change and action, specializing in often marginalised subsets such as women, people of color and queer folk. She wanted to write full time and not work and asked for “investors” who would send her money that she could use to support herself while she was writing books. She raised about half of the money that she had targeted.

The article calls this asking for the crowd to source an advance but because investors don’t get anything back, I see it more as a modified patronage system. It was one of the experiments that Cory Doctorow wrote about. I don’t think it’s chutzpah, necessarily, as the Guardian author suggested. I wouldn’t donate to Deanna, but I did donate money to Ann Marie Cox when she was laid off in the midst of covering the presidential election. The note I sent was that I hoped she used my donation expressly for something frivolous. I had received a lot of enjoyment from following Cox during the election period and wanted to give back.

There are definitely some authors that I would donate money to simply for the pleasure of keeping them writing. Whether there are enough of us to do that, I can’t rightly say.

Another article in the Guardian notes that George RR Martin has completed over 1200 pages in his next installment of the Song of Fire and Ice series. I some concern that this series will never be completed so I am not going to reinvest time to revisit this series until is actually finished.

Media publishers (not book publishers…yet) are upset with Apple over Apple’s refusal at this time to give up any consumer data information.

Media executives fear Apple will have unprecedented control over their readers’ information, one of their most valuable treasures to attract advertising, and will take almost a third of their subscription revenues “forever,” according to the Financial Times.

Keishon writes about how ebook quality control is important to her.

Lack of covers -’ most annoying. But the argument always circles back to well, you're not even reading on a device that sports color anyway so what's the big deal. It's a big deal. In color or not, I would like to look at the original cover versus looking at a mock-up with book title, author name and publisher name. Its an eye-sore and it looks tacky. Besides, Stanza and eReader apps for iPhone sports color covers.

Kassia Krozser admits to having entitlement issues.

A recent meme in publishing is that some readers are exhibiting a sense of "entitlement" about buying ebooks. I'd like to humbly offer myself as Exhibit A. It is true: I feel entitled to buy books. I insist upon it, actually*.

Seriously, is it ever a good idea to disparage your customers? To treat them like they are annoyances? To suggest that they simply don't understand how things work, when, really, why should they? Especially when, in at least one instance, the publishers were the ones who changed (or attempted to change) the rules?

So, as a person who happily pays for books, this is what I feel entitled to: the book in the format I prefer at the time my awareness in said book is sufficient that I go to make the purchase at the price I deem reasonable based on my extensive experience as a book consumer.

Jessica takes on the scholarly article on romance and feminism by Rochelle Hurst in Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 24, No. 62, December 2009. Hurst apparently posits that BJD is more feminist than the Mills & Boon books:

I am not going to comment on Hurst's points about Bridget Jones' Diary, except to note that her argument for BJD's feminist superiority to romance, depends largely on her faulty take on the romance genre. I want to focus instead on Hurst's portrayal and dismissal of romance, and her "scholarship".

James Grimmelman, a professor at New York Law School, found this interesting tidbit in the Google Book Settlement filing. It comes from the statement of Paul Aiken, Executive Director of the Authors’ Guild, and suggests that the contracts that were submitted by the Author Subclass cover digital editions:

Counsel also advised me from their review of such contracts that in the late 1980s many of the major publishing houses' form contracts began to include electronic rights grants to the publisher.

From the Authors’ Guild website, however, is this statement:

The misunderstandings reside entirely with Random House. Random House quite famously changed its standard contract to include e-book rights in 1994. (We remember it well — Random House tried to secure these rights for royalties of 5% of net proceeds, a pittance. We called it a “Land Grab on the Electronic Frontier” in our press release headline.) Random House felt the need to change its contract, quite plainly, because its authors did not grant those rights to it under Random House’s standard contracts prior to 1994.

A fundamental principle of book contracts is that the grant of rights is limited. Publishers acquire only the rights that they bargain for; authors retain rights they have not expressly granted to publishers. E-book rights, under older book contracts, were retained by the authors.

Amazon is [...]]]> I was browsing books last night and came across Patricia Briggs’ Silver Borne (non affiliate Kindle link).   Right now the Kindle price is $9.99 if you pre-order.   My understanding is that Kindle pre -orders do count for bestseller lists so you can get the book now and still help out a favorite author.

Amazon is playing around with pricing so you might want to check in every so often to see if you can get a deal before the March agency pricing kicks in. Charlaine Harris’ May book, Dead in the Family (non affiliate Kindle link), is priced at $10.80 today.

Here are some weekend specials:

• Powell’s has a $5.00 off your purchase sale. They sell ebooks too.
• At LBF Books, you can grab a copy of DEADLY SECRETS, a romantic suspense by Leeann Burke for free
• Diesel eBooks is giving away The Greek Tycoon’s Disobedient Bride by Graham, Lynne

The Wall Street Journal did an article on basketball player’s reading habits. Quite a few of them read, particularly the international players. Remember Julie James’ book, Practice Makes Perfect, when J.D.’s friend Tyler explains about using P&P as a pick up tool?

Tyler shook his head. "Lit 305: Eighteenth-Century Women's Fiction." He caught J.D.'s look and quickly defended himself. "What? I took it because of the girls in the class. Anyway, I see a bit of a P and P dynamic going on between you and Payton."

J.D. didn't think he wanted to know. Really. But he asked anyway. "P and P?"

Tyler shot him a look, appalled. "Uh, hello-’Pride and Prejudice?" His tone said only a cretin wouldn't know this.

"Oh right, P and P," J.D. said. "You know, Tyler, you might want to pick up your balls-’I think they just fell right off when you said that."

Up front, the cabdriver let out a good snicker.

Tyler shook his head. "Laugh if you want, but let me tell you something: women go crazy for that book. And even crazier for men who have read it. If I plan to bring a girl back to my place, I might just so happen to leave a copy of it sitting out on my coffee table and, let's just say, hijinks frequently ensue.”

Seriously? Is there anything more sexy than a well read man? What about One Summer by Karen Robards (lord, I love that book) and, of course, there is the English literature major in Jennifer Crusie’s Crazy for You.

Shoot. I should have saved this for a Tuesday article.

Anyway, this is a long way to say that men who read are sexy and Dwayne Wade saying that one of his favorite books is Pride and Prejudice just made him exponentially more so.

Miami’s Dwyane Wade isn’t afraid to admit that one of his favorite books was Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which he first read as a student at Marquette.

TechCrunch posted a rumor from a “reliable source” that Amazon wants to give the Kindle to all its Prime members. Thank god I signed up for that in December. I’ve often wondered why device manufacturers haven’t done a subscription service + device package much like cell phones. Sign up for a two year agreement to spend $20 per month and get the Kindle/nook for free or something like that.

USA Today will include nook and Sony sales in its bestseller compilations. It already includes Kindle numbers. I hope that the Times start to do this as well. I wonder if the urge to get these books on the bestseller list will affect pricing? One thing that I would love to see would be reverse windowing or the release of ebooks before print editions come out. You could charge more for this and it could be a win for publishers as early buzz of the book sweeps across the internet and on review sites by the early and anxious readers. These pre print sales would need to be included in the bestseller tabulations, though, for publishers and authors to like this option.

For those publishers who believe Apple is their savior, they may want to take a look at this news report. Apple is driving down the prices of iTunes TV episodes to $1 per show. I think this is great and I [...]]]> Is it Thursday already? I feel like I haven’t had any traction this week.

For those publishers who believe Apple is their savior, they may want to take a look at this news report. Apple is driving down the prices of iTunes TV episodes to $1 per show. I think this is great and I know I’ll buy far more TV shows at that price. The idea of lower pricing is that you make up in volume what you lose in margin:

"If you move five times the volume [of sales] at half the price, it's a good idea," one digital media strategist at a big US media conglomerate said. "The argument for holding the line gets bad quickly."

Publishers say price levels are not settled by any means and that now, having reached agreements where publishers -’ rather than retailers -’ set consumer prices, they have an opportunity to test different situations.

"We may introduce a book at $14.95 for a year and then move the book to $9.99 when we would have put out the trade paperback edition," said Dominique Raccah, chief executive of Sourcebooks, an independent publisher. "I suspect you're going to see a fair amount of experimentation."

I thought it was interesting that Raccah is equivocal about decreasing pricing. It’s important to remember that dynamic pricing doesn’t automatically mean lower pricing.   The article notes how authors see readers who want lower pricing as full of entitlement and having a “Wal-mart” mentality.   Yes, as a consumer, I like low prices.

The reason is that book publishers make less money from the agency model than they do from the traditional wholesale model (in which Amazon buys a book license at the full wholesale price, and then sells each copy for whatever it wants, often losing money on the sale). The agency model, therefore, also leaves publishers less money to pay authors and agents.

Random House is the likely suspect here.

RNA has its shortlist of books released.   I’m just going to quote wholesale from the Press Release:

The greatly-prized Romantic Novel of the Year is chosen from a shortlist of six titles which have been selected by the reading public from more than 150 nominated books. The winner is selected by three independent judges. The shortlist, in alphabetical order by author name, is:

• Passion – Louise Bagshawe (Headline Review)
• Fairytale of New York – Miranda Dickinson (Avon (Harper Collins))
• Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts – Lucy Dillon (Hodder & Stoughton)
• A Glimpse at Happiness – Jean Fullerton (Orion)
• The Glass Painter’s Daughter – Rachel Hore (Pocket (Simon & Schuster))
• The Italian Matchmaker – Santa Montefiore (Hodder & Stoughton)

The Love Story of the Year is for a shorter romance where there is a strong emphasis on the developing central relationship. A shortlist of six is again chosen by the reading public, with the winner selected by three judges. The shortlist is:

• The Notorious Mr. Hurst – Louise Allen (Harlequin Mills & Boon)
• Animal Instincts – Nell Dixon (Little Black Dress)
• Always the Bridesmaid – Nina Harrington (Harlequin Mills & Boon)
• Fair Deception – Jan Jones (Robert Hale)
• The Wedding Party – Sophie King (Hodder)
• Claimed for the Italian’s Revenge – Natalie Rivers (Harlequin Mills & Boon)

The People’s Choice Award

In keeping with the RNA’s desire to help good new romantic writers achieve prominence. publishers were invited to submit books by authors in whom they believe passionately, who would benefit from being part of the 50th Anniversary Awards event. Expert romantic writing buyers at key retailers were then asked to select their favourite six for the shortlist.

The winner of this award is chosen by the public. Readers are invited to read as many of the new paperbacks as possible and vote for their favourite at the poll website www.lovereading.co.uk/purepassion. The shortlist is:

• Missing You – Louise Douglas (Pan)
• Remembrance Day – Leah Fleming (Avon)
• I Heart Hollywood – Lindsey Kelk (Harper)
• Rich Girl Poor Girl – Lesley Lokko (Orion)
• Heiresses – Lulu Taylor (Arrow)

The Rom Com Award is organised and administered in the same way as the Romantic Novel of the Year. To reach the shortlist, the books must really tickle readers’ funny-bones. The winner is chosen by a panel of writers and readers selected by the RNA. The shortlist is:

• Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend – Jenny Colgan (Sphere)
• The Nearly-Weds – Jane Costello (Simon & Schuster)
• 50 Ways to Find a Lover – Lucy-Anne Holmes (Pan)
• Rumour Has It – Jill Mansell (Headline Review)

Gayle Trent’s KILLER SWEET TOOTH, the next in her Kindle-bestselling cozy mystery series, moving to Lauren McKenna at Gallery, in a two-book deal, by Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group.

On Friday, blogs noted an exchange between Walt Mossberg and Steve Jobs about ebooks.   Steve told Walt that publishers hate Amazon and that they would be withholding their ebooks from Amazon.   Late Friday, the “buy it now” button has disappeared from books by Julia Spencer Fleming, Lisa Kleypas, Louisa Edwards, Lora Leigh, and [...]]]>

On Friday, blogs noted an exchange between Walt Mossberg and Steve Jobs about ebooks.   Steve told Walt that publishers hate Amazon and that they would be withholding their ebooks from Amazon.   Late Friday, the “buy it now” button has disappeared from books by Julia Spencer Fleming, Lisa Kleypas, Louisa Edwards, Lora Leigh, and virtually every author who publishes through Tor, St. Martin’s Press, and other Macmillan imprints.

A fight occurred between Hachette and Amazon in 2008 in the UK.   Hachette wasn’t happy with some of the terms that Amazon wanted (or so was reported) and thus Amazon removed the Buy It Now button. The dispute was settled and the Buy It Now button restored.

The reason that this hurts the publisher is because the only option that is available to readers is through the secondary market.   Consumers who want the print version can easily get the title from a secondary seller, both in new and used versions.   But the secondary market means no royalty for the publisher or the author.   One publisher person told me that Amazon could comprise up to 15% of sales which, for a publisher, could mean the different between a profitable year and a non profitable one.

John Sargeant, CEO of Macmillan, is not an ebook fan.

But some publishers worry that the convenience of borrowing books electronically could ultimately cut into sales of print editions.

"I don't have to get in my car, go to the library, look at the book, check it out," said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, which publishes authors like  Janet Evanovich,Augusten Burroughs and  Jeffrey Eugenides. "Instead, I'm sitting in the comfort of my living room and can say, "Oh, that looks interesting' and download it."

As digital collections grow, Mr. Sargent said he feared a world in which "pretty soon you're not paying for anything." Partly because of such concerns, Macmillan does not allow its e-books to be offered in public libraries.

Macmillan has had a very negative attitude toward ebooks.   It has charged 50% more for the digital equivalent of the mass market paperback (usually $9.99 versus a paper copy which sells for $6.99-$7.99). In this link, the list price is $14.00 for a mass market.   It delays the release of ebooks. Some books aren’t released in ebook format at all (Tor books).   Prices of ebooks aren’t reduced even after the mass market versions are released. (I still await Julia Spencer-Fleming’s books to be reduced).

What will Kindle owners do? Will they blame Amazon? Will Amazon tell them that Amazon wants to sell them the book at a good price but that the publisher is demanding that Amazon raise the price? This is a serious battle and I can’t guess who will win.

UPDATE: I called customer support at Amazon and was told that if the Kindle version of the book was removed it was either because there was an error in the book or the publisher removed it.   Amazon would make it available to Kindle owners if it could.   I was told to click the “Tell the Publisher” button so that Amazon could relate to the publisher how many Kindle readers would like the book in Kindle format.

I asked about the missing “Buy It Now” button and asked if Amazon was in some dispute with Macmillan.   I was told that sometimes Amazon likes to promote the Amazon Marketplace.

See more at

• NYTimes Blog
• Publishers Marketplace (reg requ’d)
• John Scalzi’s Whatever

The message that I heard from others yesterday is that they were underwhelmed by the iPad. Significantly, it lacks the ability to run applications simultaneously, has no camera, lacks a USB port or external memory slot. Further, there is no innovative input, only a large screen keyboard. I’m not certain how easy it would [...]]]>

The message that I heard from others yesterday is that they were underwhelmed by the iPad. Significantly, it lacks the ability to run applications simultaneously, has no camera, lacks a USB port or external memory slot. Further, there is no innovative input, only a large screen keyboard. I’m not certain how easy it would be to type with that thing in your lap.

For reading, the battery life is a promised 10 hours at half brightness. The screen is 9.7 inches with a backlit IPS LED screen. IPS is also known as “In Plane Switching” and supposedly provides better lateral views of the screen. IPS also is reported to need a stronger backlight so those claims of 10 hour battery life might be overhyped.

Steve Jobs talked briefly about books on the iPad. First, it looks as if the bookshelf is based on the Classics application. Second, the platform is ePub but we don’t know if iBooks can be read on other devices. Likely not.

For me, the design is very unlike Apple. It looks dated. Further, the only feature that Steve showed during the keynote was that you could change the font. Whoop de freaking do. One concern expressed by readers like author Shannon Stacey was whether the iBook application would spell the end of the existing applications like Stanza, Kindle, BN’s eReader. Kobo books is working feverishly to get iPad ready.

Kirk Biglione, from Media Loper, pointed out that “Apple has typically restricted apps that duplicate built-in functionality. That’s why there are no third-party web browsers or media players in the App Store.” Upon further examination, he noted, “It’s clear that users will have to download the iBookstore application through the App Store. After they’ve done that they can buy books from within the app, read, and manage their libraries. I’m guessing this means books won’t be added to the device’s main media library as a new type of media.”
The pricing appears high for ebooks: $12.99 and $14.99 for hardcovers and some lower price for trade and paperbacks. I would expect this to trend downward if Kindle remains in the App Store. To kick Kindle out, along with other booksellers, would trigger a DOJ investigation, in my opinion.

The take away for me is that this is a giant and, very fast, iTouch and at the price of $499 for the entry level version, that’s enough for me. I’ll be ordering the mid level (32 GB) wifi enabled version as soon as I am allowed to do so. I’ll review it here, of course, for your consumption. The iPads are expected to ship in 60 days.

A new ebook store was launched called ebook pie. It is selling MS Lit, eReader, and Adobe DRM’ed formats. Interestingly, it doesn’t designate which Adobe DRM platform it is selling, either PDF or ePUB which signals a rather stunning lack of understanding of the technology for an ebookstore.

The Millions has an interview with a book pirate. He buys a lot of books, uploads a lot of books, and downloads a lot of books. He knows its wrong but I don’t get the sense that is stopping him.

Mother Jones features an essay wherein the editor of a journal asks for literary writers to do less navel gazing and start writing things we want to read. Ted Genoways argues graduate literary programs have been churning out writers but few of them are generating consumable material.

India company, Mehta, is going to release an ebook reader. India is projected to be the largest English speaking country in the world. Currently it sits as second only to the U.S. The U.S. has 251,388,301 English speakers and India has 232,000,000.

On Thursday, Mehta will announce the Infibeam Pi, an e-book reader that looks like the Amazon Kindle, has the same e-Ink screen that the Kindle sports, and has a rights architecture than is more open than the Kindle. The Infibeam Pi, which can now be ordered online and will start shipping in February, is priced at Rs 10,000. The Amazon Kindle, when shipped to India, costs about Rs 18,000.

Kindle has released a book light (non affiliate link) which clips on to the top of the device. It has two LCD bulbs which will provide a bright, bright light. I like the design of it and how it is kind of hooded but those lights will be very bright.

Avon is holding a big contest for readers.   Suggest a novella idea and if yours is [...]]]> Amazon is publishing four previously unpublished manuscripts through Amazon Encore.   We anticipated this move back when Amazon purchased CreateSpace.   I anticipate that these books will be distributed, in print, through third party wholesalers and receive prime advertising at Amazon.

Avon is holding a big contest for readers.   Suggest a novella idea and if yours is picked you will win $1,000.   Over at It Happened One Season, you can read all the details.   Essentially,  Stephanie Laurens, Mary Balogh, Jacquie D'Alessandro and Candice Hern will each write a novella based on one reader’s idea.   This is actually pretty cool.

Visit www.ItHappenedOneSeason.com to suggest your story. It must take place during the Regency social season. And you must include three specific plot points (such as these used for the anthology It Happened One Night: (1) a couple meets at an inn 2) they had met before but not within the past ten years 3) the whole story takes place within a 24 hour period.) Submit three specific plot elements and your ideas could create the theme of the four tales in the new anthology collection, IT HAPPENED ONE SEASON. The authors choose the four finalists. The readers vote on the ultimate favorite and one lucky winner will see their dream come true. The grand prize winner will be acknowledged on the dedication page of IT HAPPENED ONE SEASON and receive a $1,000 American Express gift card and a copy signed by all 4 authors. Semi-finalists will receive $100 American Express gift cards and a set of personalized autographed books.

Borders CEO has just resigned which does not signal good things for the struggling retail chain. Ron Marshall had only been there one year.

Macmillan announced that a major source of pirated works appears to be in house copies. “We found almost no legal versions of books that had been hacked,” said Macmillan president Brian Napack. Um, Napack, I don’t think you are looking in the right places, but if you want to believe that, okay.

In any event, Macmillan will be seeking to prosecute readers who pirate and seek legislation to protect publishers better. He’s optimistic piracy can be “curbed”. Via Publishers Lunch (reg req’d).

Ursula Le Guin has a petition to object to the Google Book Settlement. The problem for Le Guin is that if you object, you remain part of the settlement. If you opt out, your objection can’t be heard. I’m not sure if I understand her position.

Teleread points to the discrepancy of treatment between publishers on Kindle. Not all of them can participate in the free promotional giveaway.

Joe Esposito looks at a Kaiser study of kids and their consumption of media, whether it is television, digital or print. Print is the big loser, by the way, with social media and television the big winners.

Similarly, a spokesman for Penguin Group USA said: "Penguin has not and does [...]]]> Motoko Rich has a piece on the advisability of free giveaways on Kindle. Random House, Harlequin, and smaller publishers are giving away copies of books at Amazon. Other publishers like Penguin and Hachette believe that giving away books devalues the book itself.

Similarly, a spokesman for Penguin Group USA said: "Penguin has not and does not give away books for free. We feel that the value of the book is too important to do that."

Of course, Penguin doesn’t even believe this as it gave away the first books in the J.D. Robb series in physical form a few years ago.

Interestingly, Chris Brashears of Samhain gave statistics of how promotions had positively impacted her authors. Lauren Dane, for example, sold over 6,000 copies of her books in the months of the free giveaways.

Mike Shatzkin argues that offering free books only cannabalizes the market by encouraging readers to simply read free books.

HarperCollins has officially launched inkspot, a writing site for teens. HarperCollins will have an editorial board to review the top five member selections and will be reviewing the site’s offerings for potentially publishable manuscripts. HarperCollins will also have a platform to promote its own publications for sale.

Ian McEwan, the Booker prize winner, has signed a deal with Rosetta to publish his ebooks which will enable him to double his backlist royalties. The digital books will be available exclusively through Amazon for a period of time.   Other authors are looking to strike similar deals.

“Bloomsbury is ceasing to supply copies of the US edition of Magic Under Glass. The jacket design has caused offense and we apologize for our mistake. Copies of the book with a new jacket design [...]]]> Bloomsbury decided to change the cover of Magic Under Glass after intense criticism of the cover arose around the web.

“Bloomsbury is ceasing to supply copies of the US edition of Magic Under Glass. The jacket design has caused offense and we apologize for our mistake. Copies of the book with a new jacket design will be available shortly.”

Keishon is running her To Be Read Challenge for 2010. Next month is virgin heroes. I’m going to have to do an “If You Like” post for that so we can get some ideas of what to read for that challenge.

Ann Somerville is selling two of her books to raise money for the Haitian relief effort.   Links here:

• http://annsomerville.logophilos.net/?p=2725 http://annsomerville.logophilos.net/?p=2719

Susan Helene Gottfried says that any royalties earned on her books from now until January 31 will be donated to Haiti.

Crossed Genres is hosting free fiction for Haiti.

With applications in development for Windows 7, Android and additional operating systems, Kobo, Inc. today announced that the service will be available for various tablet and slate computers in February 2010. Kobo (www.kobobooks.com) is a global eReading service that offers mobile applications on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Palm Pre, as well as support for netbooks and dedicated eReaders, like the Sony eReader. Kobo's selection of popular books includes more than two million titles with content from major publishers including Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Harlequin.

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