The proposed final judgment in the ebook case says that settling defendants may enter into contracts with ebook retailers that prevent the retailer from selling a settling defendant’s ebooks at a cumulative loss over the course of one year. What does that mean for the future of ebook prices?
Membership has its privileges — This piece was aimed at the newspaper industry but it’s very much applicable to the book publishing world as well.
Community vs. commodity — Another article aimed at a different industry (television) but the one-to-one relationship it describes is equally important for books; think “direct sales”, people!
Let me draw you a picture — Here’s how a 55-page DOJ brief gets boiled down to 5 pages…in comic strip format.
Is the settlement really in the best (long term) interest of consumers?
Yesterday was the deadline for filing statements in opposition to the proposed settlement in the price fixing case between the Department of Justice and three publishers: Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster. The focus of the resistances by the publishers Macmillan and Penguin were that the DOJ had failed to provide economic analysis in support of the settlement. Macmillan argued that the DOJ should be required to prove that the settlement won’t send the ebook market back into the control of Amazon. Penguin asserted that the underlying allegation of the DOJ – that prices have increased under Agency pricing – has not been proved by the DOJ and that the DOJ should be required to provide economic analysis of its allegations.
Publishing News: Self-publishing to be the option of first resort?
Mark Coker talks publishing disruption, the DOJ gets snippy, Robin Sloan programs a book review, and NFC gets a dispenser.
Amazon is reportedly peddling new ad space on its Kindle Fire home screen, Apple responds to the DOJ, and Craig Mod says its time to hack digital book covers.
Removing DRM may not save publishing, first sale doctrine goes to the Supreme Court, and Apple wants its day in court.