Hachette Book Group
July 11, 2014
The primary mission of the Authors Guild has always been the defense of the writing life. While it may be true that there are new opportunities and platforms for writers in the digital age, only the willfully blind refuse to acknowledge that authorship is imperiled on many fronts. True, not all writers are equally impacted. Some authors still make fortunes through traditional publishing, and genre writers (both traditionally published and independently published) appear to be doing better than writers of nonfiction and "literary" mid-list fiction.
July 11, 2014
Amazon.com Inc.'s e-books clash with a publisher is on the European Union's radar after EU officials said they're seeking to understand the dispute, which also spurred a German antitrust complaint by booksellers. Germany's association of booksellers said they were told of the EU's interest by Germany's Federal Cartel Office, according to an e-mailed statement today.
July 10, 2014
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) recently made a clever move to garner authors' sympathy in order to protect its control over the e-books business. It proposed to Hachette Book Group that the book authors can keep 100% of the revenues generated from e-book sales while the two companies reach a common ground as they re-negotiate their expired e-book contract. Hachette Book Group has rejected the proposal. While the proposal was a tactical PR (public relations) move by Amazon, the retailer's priority remains to retain control over pricing and discounts of e-books
July 9, 2014
As the negotiations with Hachette drag on, Amazon says it is "thinking of proposing" a path that would alleviate pressure on Hachette authors.
David Naggar, VP of Kindle content and independent publishing, sent a letter to a few Hachette authors, literary agents and Authors Guild president Roxana Robinson over the weekend suggesting that "for as long as this dispute lasts, Hachette authors would get 100% of the sales price of every Hachette ebook we sell. Both Amazon and Hachette would forego all revenue and profit from the sale of every ebook
July 7, 2014
Malcolm Gladwell, Dick Cavett, and Dave Hill discuss the Amazon-Hachette dispute on TOUGHTalk. Directed, shot, and edited by Tim Fornara.
June 27, 2014
With Amazon.com (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos battling major publishers to divvy up the economic spoils of the book market, both sides could point to seemingly good news in the latest industry statistics.
U.S. publishers collected about $3 billion in trade ebook sales last year, virtually unchanged from 2012, according to the new report from the Bookstats Project, jointly produced by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group. Total revenue from print and digital books in the trade category, which excludes textbooks and journals, declined 2% to $14.6 billion.
June 26, 2014
In the New York Times coverage, for example, the fact that hundreds of indie publishers were part of the deal doesn’t show up until — well, it doesn’t really show up at all. The fact that Perseus even had a “distribution arm” doesn’t appear until paragraph seven, but you’d have to know what “distribution arm” meant to really get it, and even then it only merits half a sentence: “Under the terms of the deal, Hachette would keep the Perseus publishing business,
June 25, 2014
The world's biggest bookstore is too big for German book publishers.
The German Publishers and Booksellers Association announced today that it filed a complaint last week to the national antitrust authority, asking for an investigation into Amazon's practices.
The complaint was precipitated by Amazon's refusal over the last two months to ship books from a major German publishing house, the Bonner Media Group, because of a disagreement over a revenue split from sales of e-books.
June 25, 2014
Hachette Book Group is bulking up and diversifying, steps that could improve its long-term negotiating position with Amazon, the giant online retailer.
The publisher said on Tuesday that it had agreed to acquire the Perseus Books Group, the country's sixth-largest trade publisher.
Michael Pietsch, Hachette's chief executive, said in a phone interview that the deal was part of Hachette's "strategic long-term plan to grow in the U.S. market," and was not related to its monthslong standoff with Amazon over e-book pricing.
June 24, 2014
As I scroll through Google News articles about the now infamous Hachette-Amazon dispute, I see several impassioned headlines that urge authors and readers to pick a side in the brawl, as if allegiance is somehow a reflection of one's moral fiber. "Amazon is Not the 'Putin of Books,'" and "Amazon is Not Your Best Friend," are two such examples.
