Writers and Editors

May 01, 2013 8:17 PM EDT

Thanks for this great roundup. Especially important is the e-book royalty point. All of this is fast evolving, as you note. We live in interesting times.

- Richard Gilbert

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

Feb 03, 2019 11:19 AM EST

The Democratization of Publishing(Chip Rossetti, Publishing Perspectives, 5-20-15) Publishing is returning to its pre-industrial models in which everyone was a creator and is transforming into a network where emotions matter most, says Richard Nash. “It’s hard to see large amounts of revenue coming from digital downloads,” he says. “But what I think you’ll start to see is different ways in which the book artifact, the physical item, increases in value and becomes more expensive. Just as you see with certain kinds of clothing, designed objects, and organic foods today.” "Scholars have pointed to the importance of publishing — a.k.a. 'print capitalism' — to the emergence of nationalism in Europe, and to the dissemination of new political and cultural ideas. “Retail was invented in bookstores. Booksellers were the first retailers — in the sense that items on the shelves were available to be browsed, rather than something you had to go in and ask for, or ask them to make for you individually.”The emotional connection between an experience and a consumer gains in importance: “I look at how much more people spend on vacations now, or on their willingness to spend money on a T-shirt because it’s a souvenir of a concert they attended."

- PM

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