Writers and Editors

May 30, 2010 8:47 AM EDT

Further Thoughts of a Novice E-Reader (Verlyn Klinkenborg, Editorial Notebook, NY Times 5-28-10). Among drawbacks of the e-book, as Klinkenborg sees them: ugliness of the print (as opposed to the text), the system for showing where you are in a book, the fact that you may be reading an earlier, inferior version of a book, and the fact that most e-readers don't permit short-term borrowing (as of library books)--that you have to own the book to read it.

- 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

Sep 03, 2009 7:18 AM EDT

"Debut pricing" for ebooks: a better idea than withholding them (Mike Shatzkin, The Shatzkin Files, 8-23-09) and Debut pricing: my idea, great idea, unfortunately can’t work (Shatzkin's follow-up entry). In a follow-up story, also on ebook pricing, Shatzkin writes, about the race for market domination:"Epub is probably the publishers’ best defense against Amazon and the Kindle. With all other device manufacturers able to coalesce around a non-Amazon standard, we have a situation analogous to the VHS-Beta conflict of the 1980s and the Mac-Windows duke-out of the late 80s and early 90s. On one side, we have a standard that remains closed to enable “control” (Beta, Mac, Kindle.) On the other side, we have a wide-open standard to enable multi-player use (VHS, Windows, Epub.) In the two cases we know about because they are historical, the consensus was that the “loser” of the numbers race (Beta and Mac) provided a superior technological performance. Kindle does not seem to have even that element in its favor. Whether you use something larger that does e-ink (Kindle, Sony Reader) or something you’re carrying anyway that is backlit (the iPhone or any other smartphone) is a matter of personal preference. But does anybody doubt that a world full of hardware creators will soon make a device that is similar but demonstrably better than the Kindle?" Read this if you're trying to figure out which device to buy, or whether to wait.

- PM

Nov 12, 2009 5:59 AM EST

Amazon Kindle for PC E-Book Software. "Amazon's Kindle family gained a new member today with the arrival of the free Amazon Kindle for PC reader app," writes Yardena Arar, of PC World, in the Washington Post (11-12-09). "And while I'm not a big fan of reading books on computer displays, I have to admit that Kindle for PC handles the basics of its job well. But it lacks a few features--most significantly the ability to create your own notes--found not just in Kindle hardware but also in the Kindle for iPhone app." A helpful review of the pros and cons of using Kindle software on your computer.

- Pat McNees

Jan 10, 2010 1:30 PM EST

Apparently the two places to find out what's really going on in the e-book world are TeleRead (news and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics), which has a good blog, and MobileRead (excellent forums "for mobile geeks seeking information and advice for keeping their gadgets happy"). Thanks to Rich Adin for that (and check out his new blog, An American Editor

- PM (thanks to Rich Adin)

Oct 23, 2010 9:33 AM EDT

Insights about the current state of the ebook market (Mike Shatzkin, 10-21-10, discussing the "agency model, wholesale model, and what is being called the 'hybrid' model, but which I would simply call 'a mess that won’t be sustained.'" He discusses why publishers are fighting to keep ebook prices high and what publishers (and Amazon) can't say, and why the survival of bookstores is threatened.

- PM

May 30, 2010 7:57 AM EDT

Apple reveals new service for authors to sell their books directly in the iBookstore (David W. Martin, MacLife, 5-26-10). You no longer have to use a service like Smashwords to put your book in Apple's iBookstore.

- PM

Nov 12, 2010 5:05 AM EST

The Trouble with E-Readers by David Pogue (Scientific American Nov 2010). Electronic books are still far too crude to replace ink and paper, writes Pogue. They're pricey, pages turn slowly, they're copy-protected so you can read them only on the technology for which you bought them (each company using a different protection scheme), you can't pass a book along to a friend when you've finished it (the way you could a printed book), and you're unlikely to be able to read it years hence, when technologies have changed.

- PM