From The Ottawa Citizen: In 2012, a librarian from the University of Colorado presented research in a field so new he had to name it himself: predatory publishing. Jeffrey Beall discovered thousands of online science journals that were either willing to publish fake research for cash, or just so inept that they couldn’t tell the good from the bad and … Read more
From author Ron Vitale: The state of indie publishing is in flux. Is print coming back? Are indie authors losing sales? And with the rise of more competition from traditional publishers, what is an indie author to do? Based right outside of Philadelphia, I took the train up to New York and went hoping to … Read more
From The Literary Hub: A truism long held in the literary world is that the greatest gift you can give a writer is time: to daydream, to wander, to write. Every writer thinks about what their career might look like if only life’s ordinary restrictions were lifted. In my twenties, after finishing an MFA in … Read more
From Jane Friedman: Do you remember the digital publishing startups Vook? Booklr? Byliner? All of these services/companies have been folded into an ebook distribution service known as Pronoun, which was launched in fall 2015 and later acquired by Big Five publisher Macmillan. Pronoun works with independent authors to distribute and sell ebooks to the five major online retailers: Amazon, Apple, Barnes & … Read more
From The Globe and Mail: Apple Inc.’s long legal struggle over alleged anti-competitive e-book pricing took another turn on Friday as the company joined a consent agreement with Canada’s Competition Bureau that will ban a controversial sales tactic for three years. Three of Canada’s four major book publishers – Hachette Book Group Inc., Macmillan (a … Read more
From The Wall Street Journal: Online retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. plans to open its first New York City bookstore in Manhattan’s Time Warner Center, the company said late Wednesday. The 4,000-square-foot store is slated to open in the spring in the Shops at Columbus Circle on the edge of Central Park. . . . . … Read more
From veteran publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin: [T]he big challenges for the industry [in 2017] — how to change marketing to hit customers who are mostly learning what to buy online (which, as you’ll see, is well covered) and how to cope with the steadily growing market share that is Amazon’s — remain the ones I … Read more
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch: All Romance Ebooks and its sister website Omnilit did something incredibly awful on December 28, 2016. It sent out a handful of emails, letting writers, publishers, readers, and others know that it was shutting its doors four days later. The letter WMG Publishing got said this, On midnight, December 31, our … Read more
Attorney C.E. Petit, who focuses on copyright and author’s issues, comments on the letter the Association of Authors’ Representatives sent to the Department of Justice recently: [T]he trade association for literary agents demonstrates its inability to understand law — despite its members’ obligation to look out for the legal interests of its clients — and … Read more
From the New York Times: Last Tuesday, Buzz Bissinger hopped the Amtrak train to Philadelphia from New York, where he had done a bit of publicity for “After Friday Night Lights,” a 12,000-word e-book that had been performing nicely since its release. But when he opened his laptop to check his ranking on Amazon, he found … Read more
From FutureBook: Microsoft’s investment in Barnes & Noble’s Nook and college business should not be the huge surprise it clearly is. The giant software business has tried twice to get into the e-book market, and failed on both occasions. . . . . [Twelve years ago] Microsoft was touting its Microsoft(R) Reader with ClearType(TM) display technology that … Read more
From Forbes: Barnes & Noble has had a troubled few years. Part of the problem is that it continues to be a tablet business with a chain of bookshops connected to it rather than the other way around – with the tablet and ebook reader business growing at a savage pace, while the bookshop dawdles. … Read more
TechCrunch has some additional details: Barnes & Noble has found a new, major partner in its fight to get an edge over Amazon and Apple in the market for e-books and the devices being used to consume them: it is teaming up with Microsoft in what the two are calling a strategic partnership, name yet … Read more
A reprise of an earlier post: An agency clause may be inserted into a publishing contract between an author and a publisher. In essence, a typical agency clause provides that the agent may receive royalty payments on behalf of the author and has authority to act in the name of the author with respect to … Read more
We’re getting pretty close to the end of posts about the antitrust suit against the Price-Fix Six until something else happens. Here are diverging views on the merits of the suit from two law school professors. First, Professor Daniel Crane: The book publishers felt that Amazon was devaluing the e-book market in order to promote … Read more
From Reuters: The Justice Department could reach a settlement in the next few weeks with Apple Inc and some of the major publishers suspected of colluding to push up electronic book prices, according to two people close to the negotiations. While negotiations are still fluid, the settlement is expected to eliminate Apple’s so-called “most favored … Read more
From the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University: Try this: Call up your local newspaper or online news organization. Tell them you want to buy something and ask them what they can sell you? Of course, at first, they’d be non-plussed: Sell you something? Then, after giving it some thought, they’d say you can buy a newspaper … Read more
From Kristine Kathryn Rusch: I have known for decades that collusive behavior exists in publishing, although I have not personally been involved in any “at the highest level.” I’ve seen it at lower levels, from editors warning each other away from writers because the writers are litigious or business minded or just terrible people to … Read more
From How Not to Write: At this stage, J.K. Rowling can afford to do pretty much anything with her books. She could even give them away for free. Not that she is, but she could. No, what’s starting up is a grand experiment to see if an author can claim a direct relationship with readers on … Read more
The Bookseller had an article behind its paywall yesterday concerning agents’ complaints about high discount clauses. The proposed solution was to move to a royalty base of net revenues. Following is a reprise of a post Passive Guy first released several months ago that discusses how high discount clauses can screw authors out of royalties. The … Read more
From the New York Times: In March 2009, an eternity ago in Silicon Valley, a small team of engineers here was in a big hurry to rethink the future of books. Not the paper-and-ink books that have been around since the days of Gutenberg, the ones that the doomsayers proclaim — with glee or dread … Read more
About a year ago, internet guru and bestselling author Seth Godin announced the Domino Project, a new-model indie publisher “powered by Amazon.” Today, he announced that the Domino Project is ending after publishing its 12th book. Excerpts from Seth’s blog: By most of the measures I set out at the beginning, the project has been … Read more
From David Gaughran: A bestselling self-published novel – Sugar & Spice by writing duo Saffina Desforges – disappeared from Amazon UK 18 days ago, with no reason given to the authors. Repeated requests to KDP UK have failed to elicit an explanation, let alone a solution, costing the authors significant lost sales. . . . . Like every corporation, Amazon … Read more
Long-time publishing pro Mike Shatzkin talks about pricing books and dividing the sales revenue: The division of the consumer’s dollar across the publishing value chain has a history of change. When I came into the business 50 years ago, discounts from publishers to retailers often topped out at 44% and even wholesalers seldom got more … Read more
Continuing a Thanksgiving weekend reprise of the most popular earlier posts. Once more, Passive Guy dips into his Contract Collection for another little horror. (What?! You haven’t contributed to PG’s Contract Collection yet? Click HERE to mend your ways!) PG doesn’t disclose who, what or where regarding the sources for his contracts and he has modified today’s … Read more
Note this was created in July, 2011. Passive Guy hasn’t checked to see if things have changed with the aggregators since then. From Publish Your Own Ebooks: In some cases instead of publishing directly to an ebook store you might choose to publish via an ebook “aggregator”. What is an Ebook Aggregator? An ebook aggregator … Read more
Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes another must-read essay about fear: As one analyst said today, Amazon is the mirror image of Apple. Apple, a device maker, has low-priced content to encourage you to buy devices. Amazon, a content provider, has low-priced devices to encourage you to buy content. . . . . I know, without doing … Read more
A comment to one of the many Amazon posts Passive Guy has made recently included a link to Borderlands Books, a San Francisco fantasy, science fiction and horror bookstore selling new and used books. Of specific interest was an essay written by owner Alan Beatts entitled Amazon is Nobody’s Friend, Part One Excerpts from a much … Read more
OK, you might think this is about Amazon, but it’s really about Apple’s iPad because it’s been out long enough to track user behavior. From the Wall Street Journal: Retailers have found an interesting characteristic of consumers who browse their websites using tablets: They’re much more likely to pull the trigger on purchases than other … Read more
From Forbes: Amazon.com Inc. ramped up the tablet wars on Wednesday, unveiling a new Kindle Fire device and announcing cheaper Kindle e-readers. Shares of Nook maker Barnes & Noble Inc. sank more than 12 percent in afternoon trading. Barnes & Noble started selling the Nook two years ago in an effort to reshape its struggling … Read more
If you see this post before the previous Kindle posts, scroll down for background, basics and pictures. Passive Guy’s early reactions to the new Kindles announced today: This is very aggressive pricing by Amazon. Two Kindles will be priced below the magic $99 price level. The folks at Barnes & Noble are at whatever the … Read more
Excerpts from a live blog of the Amazon launch from the New York Times: The Fire will cost $199, Mr. Bezos says. (Remember, the iPad starts at $499.) “We’re delivering premium products at non-premium prices,” Mr. Bezos says. The Fire will ship on Nov. 15; preorders are being taken now. . . . . What … Read more
From today’s Wall Street Journal: Barnes & Noble Inc.’s fiscal first-quarter loss narrowed less than expected but the bookseller continued to post robust sales growth tied to its popular Nook electronic-book reader. . . . . Barnes & Noble stores saw overall sales fall 3% as comparable-store sales decreased 1.6% for the quarter. Online sales … Read more
It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy. Steve Jobs, 1982, quoted in Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, 1987
A fascinating analysis of the effect of agency pricing on best-sellers by Dan Lubart, Principal, Iobyte Solutions. For those unfamiliar with agency pricing, prior to the release of the iPad and the opening of Apple’s bookstore, Amazon bought books from publishers the same way physical bookstores did and Amazon set the sales prices for the … Read more
Kristine Kathryn Rusch has written another important essay on the changing face of publishing. I’ll intersperse some excerpts with my comments, but this is one you’ll want to read in its entirety. There is, as always, a link at the bottom. As will be abundantly clear from Kris’ examples, traditional publishers and the new agents-turned-publishers … Read more
What percentage of total book sales will be hardcopy in ten years? Most people agree that Big Publishing has a big advantage in the hardcopy/physical bookstore ecosystem (more like a lock than an advantage), but that’s an expensive distribution network, particularly when you consider returns from bookstores to publishers. What is the overhead and capital … Read more
It’s an open secret that a lot of iPad users buy their ebooks from Kindle instead of i Books. It’s a less-open secret that a good percentage of new iPad purchasers already own a Kindle and plan to continue to use it for ebooks instead of switching to the iPad. Dennis Loy Johnson provides more … Read more
Dana Lynn Smith, book promotion guru, coach and book marketer lays out how to make your book available on all devices Apple. 3. Publish an ebook directly to Apple’s iBookstore. You can publish an ebook directly to the Apple store, but it’s not the easiest option. You must use a Mac computer with QuickTime 7.0.3 … Read more
We’re seeing classic examples of self-defeating business behavior among publishers with ebook pricing. Once upon a time, Passive Guy worked for a large corporation that was dealing with disruptive changes to its business courtesy of the internet. Passive Guy developed a brilliant strategy for the company to not only survive, but thrive in this new … Read more
The recent announcement by Random House that it would enforce agency pricing gives this pricing model a clean sweep among the big book publishers. For those unfamiliar with the term, agency pricing means the publisher sets the online price of a book. Even though Amazon may be willing to sell a book for $6.99, under … Read more
From The Vancouver Sun: Of the people I know who have an iPad, or who want one, one of the reasons they want one is to use it as an ebook reader. And with good reason: At the moment, the iPad is arguably the best and most versatile ebook reader on the market. Why? Because … Read more
John B. Thompson has written a recent book titled, Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century, which explores the current state of the publishing industry. His research included 280 interviews with “people working in the industry of trade publishing in London and New York City—publishers and editors, people who work in the publishing houses, agents … Read more
Passive Guy is a former country lawyer, city lawyer, entrepreneur, tech executive and writer. He has permanently retired from everything but writing. During the latter part of his professional life, PG was involved in high-stakes intellectual property litigation. He started The Passive Voice as an anonymous blog so his snarky remarks would not show up … Read more