American Booksellers Association

With U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote expected to rule on a proposed ebook pricing settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and three publishers by the end of August, Judge Cote confirmed that Apple may provide a further five-page objection by August 15.

Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster have agreed to settle in response to the DOJ’s allegations that they colluded with Apple to fix ebook prices.

The American Booksellers Association announced this week that registration is now open for the second IndieCommerce Institute (ICI). The program will take place on Thursday, September 13, 2012, with a reception on the evening of Wednesday, September 12, and opportunities for hour-long one-on-one sessions with IndieCommerce staff on Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning.

Nine of the country's leading independent publishers have taken a bold step, and deserve public recognition for their action. On June 25, they submitted a cogent, twenty-page comment to the court objecting to the Department of Justice's settlement with the three publishers on the grounds that it would "adversely impact competition -- harming independent publishers, authors, booksellers and consumers -- and should be rejected." The case itself would still go forward, unless it is dismissed by the judge or is settled in some way that remains to be devised.

In his letter to the Department of Justice on the proposed e-book settlement, American Booksellers Association president Oren Teicher calls Amazon a “classic free-rider” and argues that settling publishers Hachette, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins should not have to drop the agency pricing model as a requirement of the settlement. The end of agency will hurt indie bookstores Elimination of the agency model would “significantly discourage new entry, and will lead to the departure from the market of a sizeable number of the independent bookstores that are currently selling e-books,” Teicher writes. He says indie bookstores were only able

NEW YORK, N.Y. - It could all change quickly, but independent booksellers again have good news to report as the publishing industry prepares for its annual national convention, BookExpo America. Core membership of the American Booksellers Association rose by 55 over the past year, from 1,512 to 1,567. It's the third straight increase for the independents' trade organization after years of double digit and triple digit declines brought on by superstore chains and online sellers such as Amazon.com. The independents have stabilized even as the economy suffers and the market shifts dramatically from physical stores to digital purchases.

The story of P.K. Sindwani and his suburban Philadelphia bookstore is a saga of the beleaguered bookselling industry: good intentions, crazy times, and anyone’s guess as to how things will turn out.

For nearly two decades, Sindwani had done well at his shop near Ursinus College. But in 2010, with an anchor supermarket dying next door and the industry transforming at an exasperating pace, things got so tough that the onetime accountant and lifelong book lover was planning an exit strategy.

On Tuesday representatives of Google contacted the American Booksellers Association and Powell’s Books to announce that it will end its Google eBooks reseller program worldwide. In February, it had seemed as if independent booksellers were getting a reprieve when Google reinstated some affiliate stores that had low sales. But in yet another sign of industry consolidation, Google will start selling e-books solely through its recently launched Google Play beginning January 31, 2013.
 

Recently Barnes & Noble announced that it would not sell books in its brick and mortar store that are published by Amazon’s new print publishing division. Shortly after this, Books-a-Million, Canada’s largest bookseller Indigo Books and Music and the American Booksellers Association also announced that they were joining the boycott.

These are, indeed, interesting times we live in. Have you ever heard of an instance like this? In ANY industry? Competitor B launches a boycott of competitor A, paints it as being for the good of the industry, and gets support from other competitors? Not I.

Publishers Weekly reports that the American Booksellers Association has become the latest bookstore entity to join the boycott of books produced by Amazon’s publishing arm. Indeed, the ABA’s for-profit subsidiary, IndieCommerce, has begun removing those titles from its database. IndieCommerce director Matt Supko wrote in an email announcement that the move was in response to [...]

The University of New Mexico Press, University of South Carolina Press and Indiana University Press have selected Ingram Content Group Inc. CoreSource as their digital content distribution system. The University Press of Florida, University of Virginia Press, and Wesleyan University Press recently enhanced their CoreSource relationship with the CoreSource Plus option.