It’s been two full business days since Amazon allegedly admitted defeat (in the Kindle Community forum, no less) in the face of Macmillan’s attempt to price ebooks according to an agency plan, basically torpedoing Amazon’s desire to set the ceiling of ebook prices at ten bucks.

Yet, it doesn’t seem like Macmillan’s titles have been relisted on Amazon. Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall? Nope. Robert Jordan’s Gathering Storm? Nada. Andrew Young’s scandalous look at John Edwards The Politician? Nyet!

All of this makes me wonder who actually ‘capitulated’? Was it an authorized decision maker for Bezos & Co., or some mid-level flunky? Amazon is a pretty secretive company, but this silence isn’t helping them any.

The court of public opinion has spoken, and authors, publishers and agents are siding with Macmillan. So are investors, as Amazon’s stock has declined in value over the past two days, despite Monday and Tuesday showing gains in the Dow Jones index.

The Wall Street Journal, commenting on this brouhaha, noted that even though Amazon stands to gain by charging more for ebooks than they are now, that investors are predicting that, despite their hopes, that “Amazon.com won’t be the next Apple”.

(Wall Street Journal link via MobyLives)

• Leave a comment... (0)

If you accept donations  from people for your political action committee (PAC), and then use those donations to buy a book that you wrote (thus earning yourself some royalties), wouldn’t that fit the definition of money laundering in the criminal sense?

ABC News reports that Sarah Palin used money from her PAC to purchase copies of her book Going Rogue: more than $60,000 worth to be more precise.

A lot of hay has been made about this, and most groups are drawing lines along partisan boundaries.

Personally, I’m no fan of Palin, and this strikes me as a bit underhanded. As the report indicates, other politicians have done similar things, including VP Joe Biden (who refused royalties on the books in question).

However, the books were intended as premiums for donors who contributed over $100 to Palin’s PAC. If you donated a c-note to her PAC with the understanding that you would be getting a copy of the book, and knowing that somebody had to pay for the book, were Palin supporters really hoodwinked?

That being said, would Palin supporters be happy to hear that they also helped foot the bill for her book tour, from which she stood to gain some serious lucre?

Maybe.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Everybody knows that if you want to release some bad news, or anything else you want to fly below the radar of the news cycle, you release it quietly on a Friday evening.

On Friday, Amazon, in a move of potential ant-trust violating proportions, removed every title published by Macmillan (including imprints like FSG and Henry Holt). Kindle editions vanished from the site and according to MobyLives, Amazon even went so far as to remove Macmillan titles from customers wish lists (I haven’t seen any other reports mention this, so I’m taking this with a big grain of salt).

But, as Amazon should have realized last Easter, when it removed the sales rankings from gay and lesbian titles, the Internet never sleeps.

On Saturday, Macmillan John Sargent released a public letter explaining the cause of the dispute. Macmillan wants to make their ebook titles available via an agency plan, which would raise the price of ebooks (and Kindle editions) marginally. Amazon disagreed, and pulled the plug on Macmillan’s titles.

On Sunday evening, Amazon relented and will agree to Macmillan’s agency plan pricing. Methinks that publishers’ agreements with a  certain computer company in Cupertino may have something to do with this.

One thing that struck me as odd was Amazon’s letter (buried in their Kindle Community page) stated that Macmillan had a monopoly on the titles they publish. Well, duh, all publishers have a monopoly on their titles, just as Amazon has a monopoly on Kindles.

On Monday morning, it’s business as usual, and it might seem like nothing ever happened. But, this is really just beginning. As people divide themselves into pro-Amazon, pro-Apple and pro-publisher camps, things are going to get very interesting indeed.

• Leave a comment... Comments Off

Two fiercely independent American writers died Wednesday: Howard Zinn and J. D. Salinger (above-taking a swing at a photographer).

I won’t try to compose an obituary for either of these men. The New York Times has fine obituaries posted here (for Zinn) and here (for Salinger).

What I like to think about both of these men is that throughout their careers, they could have taken the easy way out. They were both smart enough that they could have followed conventional wisdom or prostituted their gifts to the highest bidders. But neither men ever sold out.

Zinn, who called his life story You Can’t Be Neutral On a Moving Train, faced conflicts both inside and outside of the world of academia. His boss at Boston University said that Zinn was an example of those who would “poison the well of academe”. And it was interesting to listen to conservative commentators on the radio decry Zinn as evil, yet failing to mention anything substantive about what he had written.

Salinger got a lot of grief for withdrawing from public life and publishing, but I never had a problem with it, despite my desire to read more of his writings. Imagine that you’ve written a novel that neatly sums up your alienation with life and personal expectations surrounding it. Then you suddenly see a bunch of kids with Johnny Unitas haircuts telling you how your book changed their lives.

To Salinger, this must have seemed like the phonies thought he could identify with them and nothing could be further from the truth. Suddenly his cynical view of humanity is validated and all he could do was flee.

It reminds me of another apostle of youth, who transformed the pain of alienation into mega-success: Kurt Cobain, the frontman for Nirvana. Here was a case of the outcast making it big, and suddenly, the people who were the cause of his misery were embracing his music. It had to have driven him nuts to see frat boys moshing in the pits of Nirvana concerts, wear Nirvan shirts, and declare that Nirvana ’speaks to them’.

Sadly Cobain’s withdraw was a lot more dramatic and lot more permanent.

While Salinger, for literary intents and purposes, died over forty years ago, the world is nonetheless poorer for the loss of these iconoclasts.

(photo via MobyLives)

• Leave a comment... Comments Off

Back in 2005, during the second season Lost, a semi-obscure novel (The Third Policeman) by a semi-obscure Irishman (Flann O’Brien, semi-obscure in America at least) was featured in an episode, causing the novel to sell as many copies in three weeks as it had the previous six years.

According to io9.com, the novel Deep River by Shusaku Endo is alleged to figure into Lost’s upcoming sixth season.

However, as it’s possible that lighting will strike twice, my impression of the show (I don’t watch it) is that viewers are getting frustrated with it, so I would be surprised if Deep River sees a genuine sales spike.

• Leave a comment... Comments Off

Bookseller.com in the UK is reporting that author Ian McEwan has signed with Amazon to distribute his ebook back-catalog.

Gotta hand it to Amazon, that’s one way to make sure that you can release Kindle versions of books priced the way you want.

I don’t think it takes a Magic 8-Ball to see that Amazon is two shakes away from plundering star writers for Frontlist titles. Imagine how we’ll feel when the next chapter of Sarah Palin’s life story, instead of being delayed in ebook format, will be released as Kindle exclusives, forcing Luddite readers to cough up the lettuce for the device.

It will be either that or wait six months to read the new Stephen King (who has already prostituted himself to written an exclusive short story forAmazon), and pay more for the privilege of reading a paper and ink book.

(via Bookninja)

• Leave a comment... Comments Off

There is a great article over at the LA Times that explores the final decade of SF author Philip K. Dick’s life that was spent in Orange County, California.

Not much that I can add to with this one. It makes sense that such a paranoid work as A Scanner Darkly would be written in the shadow of Disneyland.

(via io9.com)

• Leave a comment... (3)

This will either make a lot of adults feel better about their own middle school experience, or it will embolden a new generation of pre-teen sadists.

The film is scheduled to open April 2nd, so start stocking up on the books now.

• Leave a comment... Comments Off

Seems an intern at Random House jumped the gun when they tweeted that When You Reach Me had won the Newbery Medal minutes before it was actually announced at the ALA convention.

Whoops.

Random House attributes the premature tweet to ‘human error’.

So, I’m speculating that an intern was responsible…still, it’s easy to imagine.

• Leave a comment... Comments Off