It’s a little technical, but Forbes calls attention to a recent advisory opinion from New York state’s department of taxation and finance that will be of great interest to agency-model publishers and ebook retailers. It is “the tax department’s current position” standard trade ebooks as we know them are exempt from New York state sales tax, and do not qualify as taxable “information services.” The opinion was provided in response to a query from California company that “stores a digitized catalog of electronic books available for sale to customers inside and outside New York through its on-line bookstore.” (But the […]
Agency
Agents at BEA: Nothing Is Off the Table
The newsmaking announcements at BEA might have been all about devices and digital, but the agents also showed up to talk about what is going on in their world of rights and royalties, and some interesting tidbits emerged. To start with, if you thought the 25 percent ebook royalty was settled, think again. On Tuesday’s AAR’s Global Publishing Marketplace panel, Jennifer Weltz, partner and rights director at Jean Naggar, stated: “Twenty-five percent shouldn’t be standard in US or anywhere else, we need escalators. When publishers come back to us and say, No, this is standard we can’t give you more, […]
Random UK Goes Agency; Ed Victor Launches Publisher; and More eNews
There is a lot of ebook news from the UK, today. Random House UK has adopted the agency model, following a similar move at the beginning of March in the US. As of today, the company’s approximately 6,000 ebook titles are available for sale through Apple’s iBookstore in the UK as a result. Random UK spokesperson Maureen Corish says “We were the only major English language trade publisher not to have our ebooks on sale via the iBookstore, so today’s announcement sees us forging a new commercial relationship as part of our commitment to increasing consumer choice and making our […]
eNews: e-Royalty Escalators; Sony Tablets On the Way; Product Placement; and More
Some UK agents claim to the Bookseller that they have negotiated e-royalty escalators and expect this move “will be the norm, not the exception” in the future, but it sounds more like an aspiration than a well-documented accomplishment. Blake Friedmann agent Oliver Munson is the only one saying on the record they’ve already done this: “We’ve certainly had e-book escalators in a number of contracts….. I can’t realistically envisage the much-trumpeted 25% net receipts remaining the benchmark for much longer either.” Piers Blofeld at Sheil Land also says “I have negotiated an escalator, but not with one of the big four. That would be […]
Catherine Cookson Estate To Sell Digital Books Direct, and Other eNews
Add the estate of Catherine Cookson to the growing number of authors selling digital backlist titles directly (and, in this instance, exclusively through Amazon in the US and UK.) The author’s literary representatives at Sheil Land formed a separate company, Peach Tree Publishing, which will sell 91 Cookson titles as ebooks priced between $1.50 and $5.99. Cookson’s agent Sonia Land engages in some mutual controversy-starting with the Daily Mail by saying she never informed Cookson’s print publishers Transworld or Simon & Schuster of the ebook plan: I haven’t told either firm about the deal and I am sure they are going […]
EU Raids Publishers’ Offices as Part of Price-Fixing Investigation
Numerous reports out of Europe this morning indicate that the European Commission conducted surprise inspections of various publishers in several countries on the grounds of possible e-book price-fixing. Amelia Torres, spokeswoman for Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, confirmed the investigation to the AFP, saying that “the competition services Tuesday conducted inspections in publishing houses in several European Union countries due to suspicion of anti-competition practices in the pricing of e-books” on the grounds that “the companies concerned may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and other restrictive business practices.” Torres stressed the EU was “not naming the publishing houses […]