Book Distribution

Amazon.com Inc. said it is "not optimistic" that a dispute with publisher Hachette Book Group will be resolved soon and defended its actions as "doing so on behalf of customers."

The comments, which Amazon made in an online post, are the first extensive remarks by the world's largest online retailer about its skirmish with Hachette over digital-book prices.

My long-held conviction that broad-based subscriptions for ebooks were not likely to work is partly based on facts that are now changing. It is still by no means a slam dunk that ebooks must go where Spotify has taken digital music and Netflix has taken the digital distribution of TV and movies, but it looks more likely today than it did six months ago. Still, looks could be deceiving.

The core of subscription economics is to pay less to the content supplier than they earn other ways to give you some headroom

Amazon stopped selling certain Hachette books on Friday, including JK Rowling's latest detective novel and a new thriller offering by Adam Brookes. Other Hachette books, such as Joshua Ferris' new novel, appeared to be for sale as usual, although under a large banner advertising "similar items at a lower price." Still others were being sold at non-competitive prices. A hardcover edition of bestselling author Jeffery Deaver's new novel, The Skin Collector, cost $17.99 on barnesandnoble.com on Friday - and $25.20 on amazon.com.

Occasionally I've asked book publishers if they've ever considered a turnabout: withholding their books from Amazon until Amazon makes some concessions. They always insist that they couldn't withstand the short-term financial hit such a move would entail. They surely know the reality of their own bottom lines far better than I do, and they certainly haven't gotten the same free pass from Wall Street that Amazon has enjoyed over the past couple of years.

It has been a week since news broke that Amazon and Hachette were in the middle of a nasty contract negotiation, and much ink has been spilled about Amazon's dirty tricks. The NYTimes has cited instances of Amazon running out of stock on Hachette titles, Publishers Weekly has posted a behind the scenes view of what's at stake, and yesterday GigaOm posted a roundup of responses to the negotiation. But  in spite of all this coverage I think there's an aspect of this story which no one has covered yet, and that is the possibility that

In response to a recent opinion piece posted on Rocklin & Roseville Today titled "Barnes & Noble: Gone By New Year's?", Barnes & Noble Chief Executive Officer, Michael P. Huseby, contacted our office to respond. Here is his complete, unedited response.

Liberty Media's sell-off of its stake in Barnes & Noble last month might have seemed like one more nail in the bookseller's coffin.  The company has been struggling for years and most recently reporting a year-over-year revenue decrease of 10% in Q3 of 2013. B&N's Nook division had been considered its one bright spot and led to Liberty's interest in the company in the first place.  But when competing with Amazon proved to be too difficult, Liberty bailed and the news of its divestiture sent B&N's share price down by 10%.

Titles by authors including Malcolm Gladwell, James Patterson and Iain Banks are taking weeks to be sent to readers from Amazon.com, as the online retailer is accused by the books' publisher Hachette of delaying delivery "for reasons of their own".

The New York Times found estimated delivery times of two to three weeks in the US on a range of books published by Hachette, including titles by Gladwell, Stephen Colbert and JD Salinger. Other affected Hachette titles include Banks's Consider Phlebas, Kate Adie's memoir The Kindness of Strangers,

Independent booksellers are being sent reinforcements in the battle against Amazon with a website that will support the dwindling band of high street traders, backed by the world's largest publisher . My Independent Bookshop, a social network for book lovers from Penguin Random House, launches on Thursday as an online space where anyone can review their favourite books and show off their good taste on virtual shelves.

Crucially, readers can also buy books from the site, with a small proportion of takings going to support scores of local independent book stores.

The U.S. bookseller, which opened in 1965 as a university bookstore in New York, wants a much bigger presence on college campuses, where students last year spent an average of $1,200 on textbooks and supplies, according to the College Board.

Barnes & Noble, now the second largest operator of college bookstores with 696 shops, plans to have about 1,000 locations within five years, Max Roberts, chief executive of the company's college business, said in an exclusive interview at Rutgers University's bookstore in New Brunswick, New Jersey.