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Look for Amazon Titles in Your Nearest…Bookstore?
“I’ll publish my book with Amazon as long as I can retain the print rights.” “Original e-book publication is fine, but I don’t consider my book legitimate unless it’s printed on paper and sold in...
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Tomorrow’s Fiction, Kindle Style
Mr. Curtis said he expects to eventually see product placement in digital books that will generate ads for e-books. “If you see a link in a novel to a product being advertised, you’re generating...
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This Fly is REALLY Open!
Psst. Amazon. Your fly is open. And your algorithm is showing. Earlier this month, a UC Berkeley colleague brought to biologist Michael Eisen’s attention an astounding anomaly: a book entitled The...
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Amazon Romances on the Way. SciFi Next.
Amazon’s Announcement of Montlake Romance Line SEATTLE, May 04, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) – Amazon.com today announced the launch of Montlake Romance, the fourth and latest imprint from Amazon Publishing....
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Amazon Romances on the Way. SciFi Next.
Amazon has announced the launch of a romance line, Montlake Romance. It will lead off with a novel by Rita-winner Connie Brockway, which will be published in all formats including print. More genre...
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Audible’s Press Release on Audiobook Creation Exchange
FOR RELEASE MAY 12, 2011 AUDIBLE LAUNCHES THE AUDIOBOOK CREATION EXCHANGE (ACX) ACX is the first online platform that connects rights holders with established producers to enable any professionally...
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Audible Offers Matchmaking Service for Authors and Audiobook Producers and...
This exciting announcement from Audible. ******************** NEWARK, NJ – May 12, 2011 – Audible, Inc., today announced the launch of ACX (ACX.com), a dynamic online audiobook rights marketplace,...
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Barnes & Noble in Play?
The investment world is abuzz with the news that John Malone’s Liberty Media, a conglomerate that owns Starz and QVC among other holdings, has made an offer to acquire Barnes & Noble. B&N’s...
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Larry Kirshbaum to Run Amazon NYC
For some time it’s been clear that Amazon was moving in the direction of original publication, such as its announcement of a romance line and the hiring of a science fiction editor. But no one could...
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Should Bookstores Be Publishers Too?
The following article was published in June 2009. In view of Amazon’s announcement of the creation of a New York book publishing initiative, we thought you might find it relevant. ************* Lev...
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If it Worked for Railroads, if it Worked for Oil…
A piece by Emily Witt in the New York Observer captures the alarm in the publishing community about the competitive impact of Amazon’s move into original publishing. (See Larry Kirshbaum to Run Amazon...
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Why Are Agents Speaking Anonymously about Amazon Publishing?
In a recent Publishers Weekly article about Amazon’s foray into trade book publishing, every agent PW interviewed spoke “under condition of anonymity.” Why? Apparently, writes PW’s Rachel Deahl, “their...
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Task #1 for Apple’s New CEO: Amazon Tablet
Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook was just welcomed with a goody bag filled with 1 million shares of his company’s stock. That was the easy part. Now he’s going to have to earn it. But as much as he would like...
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Web Spawns “An Industry of Fibbers”
“Keep your mitts off Amazon reviews!” we snarled last January. Ha! A lot of good that did. Half a year later, rave reviews of books, movies and music, hotels and restaurants are going for $5 a pop,...
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Print on Demand is One Thing. But Refrigerator on Demand?
We try to stay on top of hot trends but we must have been asleep when Click and Collect arrived on the scene because we never heard of it until a couple of days ago when we came across it in The Retail...
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47North, Amazon’s SciFi Imprint, Launches Today
Last May, in connection with the launch of its romance line, Amazon exec Jeff Belle said “We also know our customers enjoy genre fiction of all kinds, so we are busy building publishing businesses that...
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Amazon’s Announcement of 47 North SciFi Imprint
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced the launch of 47North, the seventh imprint from Amazon Publishing, focused on science fiction, fantasy and horror. 47North launches with 15 books,...
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Are E-Books Returnable? Why?
Alfred Knopf coined the classic bon mot about returns in the book business: “Gone today, here tomorrow.” Having expended some of the best years of my career railing – in vain – against the ruinous...
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Kindle Wants to be Free
Graph by Silicon Alley Insider Years ago it became clear to us that we were heading for a Gillette Event. That day may be only months away. The Gillette Event is the day that the price of e-readers...
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P-Books Hostage in E-Book War
Amazon and Barnes & Noble collided recently in a fearful clash. A lot of damage was inflicted but predictably the biggest victim was the customer. The first shot was fired when Amazon acquired...
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Hard to Make a Living on $0.00 List Price
As all frequenters of online bookstores know, read-inside-the-book features entitle e-tailers to publish a certain percentage of your book at no charge to encourage readers to sample the goods. Content...
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Please Shut Off Your Cell Phones. This is a Bookshop.
Coming soon to a bookshop near you: a sign that says “Cell Phones Prohibited.” “Bookstore owners everywhere have a lurking suspicion,” writes Julie Bosman in the New York Times. “that customers who...
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Stop Presses: Publisher Has Something Good to Say about Amazon
Stephen Roxburgh, founder of a small press called namelos llc., has written a guest editorial in Publishers Weekly defending Amazon.com against accusations of predatory behavior and thanking it for its...
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First Sighting of Free Reading Device – Our Spotters Say It’s a Nook!
We’ve spilled a lot of E Ink projecting that 2012 will be the year that Amazon starts giving away the Kindle as they realize that there’s more money to be made from the content than from the gadget...
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B&N Hits Amazon Where It Hurts: Authors
When Amazon offered in December to reward customers who scanned book bar codes in bookstores and then bought the book on Amazon instead, we wrote “Amazon’s strategy could backfire.” “When Amazon’s...
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Stephen Colbert Referees Little Indie Bookstore Parnassus v. Amazon
The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Ann Patchett www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive
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Authors Guild re Pricing: Government Could Kill E-Book Competition
This statement from Authors Guild President Scott Turow just in… *************************** Dear member, Yesterday’s reports that the Justice Department may be near filing an antitrust lawsuit against...
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To Avoid Hurting Authors, B&N Swerves in Game of Chicken with Amazon
The below announcement from the Authors Guild reports that Barnes & Noble has acceded to pleas from the Guild not to make authors collateral damage in the war with Amazon over the latter’s business...
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Compliance with DOJ Settlement: Slightly Better Than House Arrest
After complying with the draconian reporting requirements imposed by the Department of Justice, the three publishers that have settled to avoid prosecution may wish they’d fought the charges. The...
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Will B&N Give Goldfinger to James Bond?
In another coup for its book publishing enterprises, Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint has acquired fourteen novels in Ian Fleming’s James Bond thriller series, plus two nonfiction books by Fleming....
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Can You Survive without Amazon?
To contemplate publishing books without partnering with Amazon is to lose a lot of sleep, weight, hair or all of the above. Luckily most of us steer well clear of any action that might provoke the...
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Cheaper E-Books Coming?
If you seek cogency on digital publishing subjects you’ll always find it in Laura Hazard Owen’s postings. A good example is a recent one on the implications for consumers of the settlement agreements...
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B&N Showrooms for…B&N
Laura Hazard Owen, writing for Gigaom.com, reports a unique strategy for combating the practice known as “showrooming”. In showrooming, customers enter a bookstore, browse, then select (or scan the...
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Amazon Succumbs to the Siren Song of High Couture
She was his first love and he was willing to overlook her imperfections at the time. Though she could be charming, cultured and articulate, she was also dowdy and old-fashioned in tweeds and sensible...
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Target is Target (of Amazon Showrooming)
Independent bookstores aren’t the only retailers chafing at the practice of showroom. Just ask Target. In showrooming, customers enter a retail store and, when they have located the product they’re...
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Rumors of Amazon Retail Bookstore? Don’t Believe Them
Shame on Forbes. We thought they were a thoughtful business publication but in spreading rumors without an ounce of foundation or attribution they make washerwomen look martyrs for truth. The...
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Authors Guild Takes DOJ to Task for its Price-Fixing Suit Against Publishers
Paul Aiken, Executive Director of the Authors Guild, has issued an open letter to the chief of litigation in the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, expressing its opposition to the DOJ’s...
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Want to Buy Dorchester? Bid Against Amazon
After a long illness Dorchester Books as finally succumbed, a victim of the digital revolution to which the mass market paperback publisher could not adapt. If authors and agents read the fine print in...
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Price-Fix Trial to Start on Opening Day of BEA
Don’t be surprised if the Macmillan booth at next year’s Book Expo America is set up in the courtroom of Judge Denise Cote. It happens that the date when the Department of Justice’s e-book...
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Do Amazon Reviews Count?
Has anybody seen an honest reviewer? Has anybody seen an honest reviewer? Five years ago we asked Do Amazon Reviews Count? Our answer was yes, they absolutely do, and we were surprised that few...
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Amazon Alliance with Ingram: Policy Shift?
Of the many companies that have reinvented themselves in the violent upheavals of 21st century publishing, Ingram Content Group (as it is now called) stands out as one of the most resourceful. It has...
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Why Wal-Mart Discontinued Carrying Kindle: Cherchez La Showroom
Last May, Target, one of America’s biggest retail chains, announced it would no longer carry Kindles. Today it’s the turn of an even larger chain – indeed, the country’s largest. Wal-Mart will no...
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What Zagat Reviews and Amazon Reviews Have in Common
The idea that your next-door neighbor’s opinion may affect your decision to buy or pass up a book seems unlikely. True, word of mouth has always been a factor in the fate of successful books, but...
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Apple Corners Page-Turn Technology
The ticks are at it again I’m really confused. On November 16, New York Times blogger Nick Bilton reported that the US Patent Office had approved Apple’s patent on the feature that enables you to...
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Psst. Wanna Buy a Used E-Book?
No no. I said used E-BOOKS! It takes a lot to leave me speechless but when I read that Amazon was contemplating selling used e-books I was too flabbergasted to make sense of it. Luckily Brian...
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Authors Guild President Turow Describes Amazon/Goodreads as “A Devastating...
Authors Guild President Scott Turow has posted the following comment on Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads: ************************************************************* Feel free to forward or comment....
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Star Fantasy and Science Fiction Author Dave Duncan Receives Career Honor
The first novel in a popular Duncan fantasy quartet. Thirty-one Duncan works are offered by E-Reads. Curtis Agency client Dave Duncan, a fantasy and science fiction star, has been elected a lifetime...
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Publishing 3.0: A World without Inventory Part 1
By now it must be clear to all but a handful of diehards that the business model based on returnability of books for credit, a practice instituted by the trade book industry some 75 years ago, is no...
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Publishing 3.0: A World Without Inventory Part 2
In our previous posting we pointed out that today’s “speculative” publishing model, based on the returnability of unsold books, is no longer viable. It has served us well for the better part of a...
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With Amazon MatchBook Bundling One Big Step Closer to Reality
Publishers Weekly reports that “After years of false starts, bundling e-books with print books may have gotten the spark it needed Tuesday morning when Amazon announced an October launch date for...
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