Writers and Editors

Jun 26, 2011 9:13 AM EDT

Smashbooks publishes a very useful guide to formatting eBooks (download it free ON your e-reader or your computer:Smashwords Style Guide by Mark Coker -- also available free through Amazon.com. For "any author who wants to distribute their book via Smashwords to major ebook retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel." (Note: that does not include Kindle. Read main blog entry.)Here's the Kindle site.

- PM

Mar 09, 2012 11:23 AM EST

- Anonymous

Mar 12, 2012 9:59 AM EDT

Postscript. You don't need to own a Kindle to read a Kindle book. You can download free Kindle Reading Apps. Download an app to read a Kindle book on your iPhone, Windows PC, Mac, Blackberry, iPad, Android, or Windows Phone 7. Or download app for the Kindle Cloud Reader, to read online in your Web browser.

- PM

Mar 27, 2012 9:27 AM EDT

What’s the greater fear for publishers? Amazon or piracy? (Mike Shatzkin, Shatzkin Files, 3-27-12). Kindle editions of the seven Harry Potter books are available only from the Pottermore site. Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne gave Amazon a take-it-or-leave-it offer. By referring Amazon patrons to the Pottermore site, Amazon can collect an affiliate fee. (The alternative was to ignore the Potter books.) "Redmayne and Pottermore have now demonstrated that if you will live with the anti-piracy protection of watermarking, rather than insisting on a digital hammerlock through DRM, you can gain extraordinary leverage."

- Pat McNees

Apr 16, 2012 10:03 AM EDT

Barnes & Noble Won’t Sell Books From Amazon Publishing (Julie Bosman, NY Times, Media Decoder, 1-31-12). Among other points made: "Barnes & Noble has chafed at deals that prevent it from selling the digital versions of books even as it is expected to market the books by displaying the print versions in stores. In August, the company said it would not sell print books published by Amazon unless it could also sell the e-book versions, in an objection to Amazon’s deals to publish authors’ work exclusively. In October, it removed from its stores all the physical copies of graphic novels from DC Comics because of a deal that allowed Amazon exclusive digital rights to them.""It also seemed unlikely that many of the 1,900 independent bookstores in the United States would be willing to stock Amazon books."As Goodreads Ends Sourcing From Amazon, Users Fear Lost Books (Laura Hazard Owen, paidContent, 1-27-12). "Book-centered social networking site Goodreads, which allows users to keep records of the books they read and share the information with others, has long sourced most of its basic book data from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). Now, saying Amazon’s API terms have become 'more and more restrictive,' Goodreads is switching data providers and entering an agreement with book wholesaler Ingram — alarming some users who fear their reading records will be lost."

- PM

Oct 24, 2012 12:16 PM EDT

Amazon as a threat to steal big titles from big publishers is still a ways off (Mike Shatzkin, Shatzkin Files, 10-23-12). Do read the whole article, which is interesting, but here's a sample: "But, for now, it would seem that B&N definitely did the right thing for their own good by boycotting Amazon’s titles. And, for now, it would seem that most of the authors Amazon will get for their general list will be those who are annoyed at the publishing establishment like Konrath and Eisler or curious about working with a tech-oriented publisher like Ferriss.

- PM

Nov 24, 2012 1:19 PM EST

The Amazon Effect (Steve Wasserman, The Nation, 6-18-12). Yale University Press executive editor-at-large Steve Wasserman looks at the ways Amazon has already succeeded, and where it has yet to prove itself. Excellent long pieces. Here's one excerpt:"The inexorable shift in the United States from physical to digital books poses a palpable threat to the ways publishers have gone about their business. Jason Epstein got it right two years ago when he wrote, 'The resistance today by publishers to the onrushing digital future does not arise from fear of disruptive literacy, but from the understandable fear of their own obsolescence and the complexity of the digital transformation that awaits them, one in which much of their traditional infrastructure and perhaps they too will be redundant.'” And this: "Two decades ago, there were about 4,000 independent bookstores in the United States; only about 1,900 remain. And now, even the victors are imperiled. The fate of the two largest US chain bookstores—themselves partly responsible for putting smaller stores to the sword—is instructive: Borders declared bankruptcy in 2011 and closed its several hundred stores across the country, its demise benefiting over the short term its rival Barnes & Noble, which is nonetheless desperately trying to figure out ways to pay the mortgage on the considerable real estate occupied by its 1,332 stores across the nation. It is removing thousands of physical books from stores in order to create nifty digital zones to persuade customers to embrace the Nook e-book readers, the company’s alternative to Amazon’s Kindle."

- PM

Nov 24, 2012 1:22 PM EST

Ten Reasons to Avoid Doing Business With Amazon.com (The Nation, 5-31-12)

- PM

Nov 24, 2012 1:24 PM EST

The Bookstore’s Last Stand (Julie Bosman, NY Times, 1-28-12) "...why Barnes & Noble, once viewed as the brutal capitalist of the book trade, now seems so crucial to that industry’s future. Sure, you can buy bestsellers at Walmart and potboilers at the supermarket. But in many locales, Barnes & Noble is the only retailer offering a wide selection of books. If something were to happen to Barnes & Noble, if it were merely to scale back its ambitions, Amazon could become even more powerful and — well, the very thought makes publishers queasy."

- PM

Mar 20, 2012 11:21 PM EDT

Pat, Could you add an RSS widget to your blog so that readers can have it fed into their iGoogle pages? I can't find one, or an email subscription widget either, and it's hard to remember to come back to a web page . . .

- Richard Gilbert

Mar 21, 2012 9:05 AM EDT

I'll see if I can figure out how to do so, Richard.So much to do, so little time!

- Pat McNees

Mar 23, 2012 4:32 AM EDT

Pat, it's not hard! You just have to find the little striped icon and enable it. If you can't, ask any kid or grad student who blogs and they can set it up in three seconds.(Pat responds: I did something. I'm not sure if it's a widget.)

- Richard Gilbert

Aug 16, 2010 8:48 AM EDT

Mike Shatzkin describes the printed book's path to oblivion (The IdeaLogical blog, 8-15-10)

- PM

Dec 16, 2010 7:45 AM EST

In How will you win at ebook retailing?, Mike Shatzkin talks about which features on e-readers will help that company win the retail race. But his comparison of features is also worth reading if you're shopping for an e-reader.

- PM

Feb 02, 2010 5:54 AM EST

More on this important power struggle: The Authors Guild, in The Right Battle at the Right Time, writes: "Macmillan's current fight with Amazon over e-book business models is a necessary one for the industry. The stakes are high, particularly for Macmillan authors. In a squabble over e-books, Amazon quickly and pre-emptively escalated matters by removing the buy buttons from all Macmillan titles (with some exceptions for scholarly and educational books), in all editions, including all physical book editions. Thousands of authors and titles are affected; hardest and most unfairly hit are authors with new books published by Macmillan that are in their prime sales period."And Amazon is tough on its own behalf, not on readers' behalf. The Authors Guild again: "Amazon has a well-deserved reputation for playing hardball. When it doesn't get its way with publishers, Amazon tends to start removing "buy buttons" from the publisher's titles. It's a harsh tactic, by which Amazon uses its dominance of online bookselling to punish publishers who fail to fall in line with Amazon's business plans. Collateral damage in these scuffles, of course, are authors and readers. Authors lose their access to millions of readers who shop at Amazon; readers find some of their favorite authors' works unavailable. Generally, the ending is not a good one for the publisher or its authors -- Amazon's hold on the industry, controlling an estimated 75% of online trade book print sales in the U.S., is too strong for a publisher to withstand. The publisher caves, and yet more industry revenues are diverted to Amazon. This isn't good for those who care about books. Without a healthy ecosystem in publishing, one in which authors and publishers are fairly compensated for their work, the quality and variety of books available to readers will inevitably suffer." AG links to a quick rundown on media reactions to the fight over control of e-book prices: Amazon Revealed: It Hates You, and It Hates Publishers (Kit Eaton, Fast Company, 2-1-10). Eaton adds: "It's clear the move was inspired by Apple's iPad and simultaneous iBooks launch event, which promises a fairer share, more favorable terms and conditions than Amazon, and higher price points." (Fast Company's pieces on the iPad include Peripherals: The Forgotten Killer Feature of the iPad and How the iPad Could Drive Up College Tuition .

- PM

Feb 02, 2010 6:49 AM EST

Thriller writer JA Konrath has an interesting entry, Digital Perception, on his blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. He makes a compelling case against publishers trying to raise the price of e-books: more e-book piracy (because it's easy). Elsewhere Konrath talks about the money he's making selling e-books of his old titles that NY book publishers didn't want. In June, his royalty rate went from 35% to 70%. Surely Amazon would have kept getting its 65% if it weren't under pressure to create more favorable terms--first from Sony and now, more effectively perhaps, from Apple.

- PM

Feb 14, 2010 6:07 AM EST

Two blogs start their discussion by saying anyone who wants to be in the know about book publishing should pay $20 a month for a subscription to Michael Cader's Publishers Lunch Deluxe or at least subscribe to his free Publishers Lunch. They then relay his criticism of the NY Times piece on e-book pricing, E-Book Price Increase May Stir Readers’ Passions (Rich and Stone 2-10-10). In Notes from a lecture by Professor Cader(2-13-10), Mike Shatzkin quotes Cader as saying that Amazon (and Sony and Apple) are making their money from the sale of expensive e-readers (Kindle, $200) and Amazon is losing money on the $9.99 prices of bestsellers that that they are using as loss leaders to sell their reader. Moreover, they're not giving credit to the publishers who are making backlist titles of bestselling authors available free as e-books, in hopes of bringing new readership to those authors. Read Shatzkin on the subject, subscribe and read the original in Publishers Lunch, or check out Michael Cader's Masterclass (Dennis Loy Johnson's Moby Lives, a column about books and writers).

- PM

Feb 20, 2010 12:50 PM EST

Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers (Electronic Frontier Foundation white paper)

- PM

Mar 01, 2010 6:40 AM EST

**Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book (Motoko rich, NYTimes, 2-28-10, making the case for i-Pad e-book prices). Reading from the writer's viewpoint I am most aware of this para:" The author’s royalty — a subject of fierce debate between literary agents and publishing executives — is calculated among some of the large trade publishers as 25 percent of the gross revenue, while others are calculating it off the consumer price. So on a $12.99 e-book, the royalty could be anywhere from $2.27 to $3.25."and this: “If you want bookstores to stay alive, then you want to slow down this movement to e-books,” said Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of the Idea Logical Company, a consultant to publishers. “The simplest way to slow down e-books is not to make them too cheap.”'Also, check out Anne Rice's comment at the end of the story.

- PM

Mar 18, 2010 5:38 PM EDT

Amazon Threatens Publishers as Apple Looms (Motoko Rich and Brad Stone, NYTimes, 3-17-10). Rumors swirl that Amazon could revoke the buy buttons for books by Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin, or Hachette if the major publishers don't strike an eBook deal with the online bookseller. "The hardball approach comes less than two months after Amazon shocked the publishing world by removing the “buy” buttons from its site for thousands of printed books from Macmillan, one of the country’s six largest publishers, in a dispute over e-book pricing."

- PM

Mar 18, 2010 5:49 PM EDT

Random House, HarperCollins Look to Lock In Low E-Book Royalty Rates: 5 Ways to Protect Yourself. Message to all authors from the Authors Guild. Be sure to read this one, if you have, or expect to have, any kind of book contract. Main points, in brief (but read the details):1. Get the absolute right to renegotiate.2. Negotiate for a royalty floor. 3. Double-check your reversion of rights clause. 4. Check your contract; you may control e-rights. 5. If you can't obtain adequate safeguards, you may want to bide your time.

- PM

Apr 03, 2010 8:48 AM EDT

All major publishers but one raising e-book prices. Random House the last publisher sticking to traditional model for e-book sales; other major publishers switching to "agency model," which gives publishers right to charge price they want, with Amazon etc. taking a commission. Result: higher e-book prices. Christopher Null, tech writer for Yahoo News, 4-1-10)

- PM

May 04, 2010 7:49 AM EDT

The iPad, the Kindle, and the future of the book business. . Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business? (Ken Auletta, Publish or Perish, The New Yorker, 4-26-10). Responses: Erik Sherman, The New Yorker's Ken Auletta Needs a Calculator, not an E-Book Reader, and Mike Shatzkin, Ruminations on Returns.From Auletta's story in the New Yorker, I quote:Jason Epstein believes that publishers have been handed a golden opportunity. The agency model, he says, is really another form of the consortium he proposed a decade ago: “Publishers will be selling digital books directly to the iPad. They are using the iPad as a kind of universal warehouse.” By doing so, they create opportunities to cut payroll and overhead costs. Epstein said that e-books could also restore editorial autonomy. “When I went to work for Random House, ten editors ran it,” he said. “We had a sales manager and sales reps. We had a bookkeeper and a publicist and a president. It was hugely successful. We didn’t need eighteen layers of executives. Digitization makes that possible again, and inevitable.”

- Pat McNees