Michael Pietsch

HBG revenues were down 4.9% compared to 2013, and HBG's annual sales accounted for 24% of Hachette Livre's overall sales last year (versus 25% in 2013). CEO Michael Pietsch said, "Hachette came through a challenging year having achieved many successes

Amazon and Hachette announced Thursday morning that they have resolved their differences and signed a new multiyear contract, bringing to an official end one of the most bitter publishing conflicts in recent years.

Neither side gave details of the deal, but both pronounced themselves happy with the terms. Hachette gets the ability to set the prices on its e-books, which was a major battleground in the dispute.

"This is great news for writers," said Michael Pietsch, Hachette's chief executive. "The new agreement will benefit Hachette authors for years to come.

Hachette today launched an ambitious initiative to share the entirety of its sales-data with its authors and their agents. The new sales channel, The Author and Agent Portal, will feature confidential sales reports for all of its titles, Nielsen BookScan weekly sales data, an online-piracy-reporting tool, prepublication timelines, and more. Agents will have access to all of the information that their author sees and will receive regular royalty statements through the platform.

Science fiction and fantasy author Edward W. Robertson has added a new insight to the post mortem on Hachette’s response to Amazon’s open letter. And it’s one more that Hachette probably wishes would go away. As well as pointing out, as Chris Meadows has already noted, that Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch either doesn’t know the […]

The post Edward Robertson spots fresh irony in Hachette counter-claims appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Hachette isn't flinching from the inundation of emails Amazon triggered with their plea to KDP authors and publishers early Saturday morning. In fact, they've already started responding to emails sent by Amazon supporters with a form letter of their own.

It's not clear whether everyone is getting the same response, or if it is reserved just for the most ardent Amazon advocates, but according to the email (quoted below) Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch thanks senders for taking an interest in the matter.

Digital Book World is carrying the response Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch is sending to those people who write him at Amazon’s behest. Since I posted the Amazon letter in full, it seems only fair to do the same for this. Pietsch (or whoever wrote the response for him) maintains that “Hachette sets prices for our […]

The post Hachette responds to Amazon advocates’ email on pricing its e-books appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

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