The one significant factor in Penguin Random House’s US performance not mentioned in yesterday’s half-year report from Bertelsmann was the artificial boost to ebook sales while the house stood alone since mid-April as the only big trade publisher that still allowed significantly discounting on their ebook prices. (Harper returned to full agency in mid-April; HBG on…
Agency
Houghton Moves to Some Kind of Agency
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt appears to have reached a new ebook sales agreement with Amazon and looks to be working with a modified form of agency across their ebook accounts now. Like their peers, the company declined to discuss their retailer terms. But the Amazon listings are a fairly reliable guide. All of HMH’s ebooks are…
Authors Guild Addresses “Inadequate e-Book Royalties”
As part of their series of Fair Contract Initiative communications, the Authors Guild has a long post on “today’s inadequate e-book royalties,” asserting that “half of net proceeds is the fair royalty rate for e-books.” The post acknowledges one of the big structural obstacles to change: “Major book publishers have agreed to include ‘most favored…
Corporate: A Penguin Random House/Amazon Deal, and A News Corp. Dividend
Amazon has confirmed (to both the Bookseller and PW) signing “new long term agreements with Penguin Random House in both the US and the UK,” ratifying that alarmist accounts of a standoff starting from a UK tech blog were, as expected, overblown. The important part is what was not disclosed: any change in fundamental ebook…
Amazon Resumes Limited Hachette Pre-Orders and Restores Some Discounts
For the first time since late May, Amazon customers can pre-order at least some titles from Hachette Book Group — principally Little, Brown books, set for imminent release (such as Kevin Pietersen’s AUTOBIOGRAPHY, publishing December 1) as well as books not scheduled until spring 2015 (including Cathy by John Carder Bush in April, and books by Susanna Gregory in February and March). From our searches…
Update re: Awkward Amazon Communications On Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption
As most of our readership has likely seen by now, on Tuesday afternoon the Amazon Books team put up another unsigned, closed to comment post (or what Barry Eisler would call a shameful “pointless, pernicious, promiscuous anonymity”) on the Kindle Forum. The post is said to offer “specific information about Amazon’s objectives” in their negotiations with…