With the launch of the iPad and its accompanying iBookstore just over two weeks away, the transition to an agency model for ebooks remains both contentious and uncertain. It is not at all clear whether any significant number of independent publishers will be signed with Apple and available for direct sale in their store on launch, just as it remains uncertain whether other publishers will experience interruption in their business with Amazon as Macmillan did while negotiating their transition to the new model. At least one independent publisher of scale was told categorically by Amazon in a recent phone call […]