The five publishers facing a potential suit are CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster Inc.; Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group; Pearson PLC's Penguin Group (USA); Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; and HarperCollins Publishers Inc., a unit of News Corp. , which also owns The Wall Street Journal.
Traditionally, publishers sold books to retailers for roughly half of the recommended cover price. Under that "wholesale model," booksellers were then free to offer those books to customers for less than the cover price if they wished. Most physical books are sold using this model.
Go feds! E-books are way overpriced
"Agency Model" by Steve Jobs is violating federal antitrust laws.
It isn't the first time the Justice Department has taken action against Apple for allegedly colluding with other companies. In 2010, several technology companies agreed to settle Justice Department allegations that they colluded to hold down wages by improperly agreeing not to poach each other's employees.
Publishers set the price of the book and Apple would take a 30% cut. Apple also stipulated that publishers couldn't let rival retailers sell the same book at a lower price. "We told the publishers, 'We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway,'" Mr. Jobs was quoted as saying by his biographer, Walter Isaacson. The publishers were then able to impose the same model across the industry, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson. "They went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books,' " Mr. Jobs said.
Contracts such as Apple's prevent publishers from selling books to other buyers at a cheaper rate. Such terms, known as "most favored nation" clauses, have drawn the scrutiny of the Justice Department in recent years in the health-care industry because they can sometimes be used to hamper competition. The U.S. Feds and the The European Union are investigating.
E-book sales more than doubled to $970 million in 2011, according to a survey of 77 publishers conducted by the Association of American Publishers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203961204577267831767489216.html
Here's The Blow-By-Blow Account Of How Apple Decided To Screw Over Amazon And Consumers Over E-Books
One of the neat things about the DOJ's lawsuit against Apple over e-book pricing is that we get an inside glimpse into what Apple was thinking when it decided to open the iBookstore. At the time Amazon was just starting its Kindle ecosystem, and the iPad was still in development.
We read through the DOJ's lawsuit against Apple and publishers and we've pulled out the most interesting elements. (It's not every day you get to read some of the emails from Apple's top executives.) After reading the case, it's hard to see how Apple didn't work with publishers to screw over Amazon, and thus the consumer.
We don't know if that's illegal or not. Apple has a well compensated legal team working on destroying the case.
Self publishing writer becomes million seller
An entrepreneur has turned the writing world upside down by becoming the first author to sell more than a million electronic books without a publishing deal.
He saw that many successful authors were charging almost $10 (£6) for a book and decided that he would undercut them – selling his own efforts for 99 cents (60 pence). "I've been in commission sales all my life, and when I learned Kindle and the other e-book platforms offered a royalty of 35 per cent on books priced at 99 cents, I couldn't believe it," he said.
READ: Ebooks and Self-Publishing - A Dialog Between Authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath
2011 Amanda Hocking is getting rich! HOW DID AMANDA MAKE MONEY?
20 million people read e-books in 2010. Somehow, someway, her audience found out about her. Ms. Hocking works it via social networking: She's written nineteen books. But this is an unheard of success story. And she did it all herself.
"This 26-Year-Old Is Making Millions Cutting Out Traditional Publishers With Amazon Kindle"
In fact, out of the top 25 best-selling indie Kindle writers, only 6 were previously affiliated with a publishing house. Back of the envelope math suggests that selling 100,000 copies a month at $1 to $3 a pop and keeping 70%, Hocking can make millions per year, straight to her pocket.
"Authors catch fire with self-published e-books": Amanda Hocking and others like her are riding the comet of digital publishing. She sold 164,000 books in 2010. Most were low-priced (99 cents to $2.99) digital downloads. More astounding: This January she sold more than 450,000 copies of her nine titles. More than 99% were e-books. This unheard of twenty six year old woman has sold over 900,000 copies of nine different books since she first put her work on sale April 15, 2010. There are paperback editions, which retail for $8.99 or $9.99, but the big money's in the e-editions...four are ninety nine cents and five are $2.99.
TP: What has been your strategy for marketing and publicizing your books?
AH: I didn't really have a strategy. I think one of the advantages I have is that stuff considered marketing is stuff that I do a lot anyway. I've been active on social networks and blogs for years. I did publish books through Lulu but I sold zero copies then went to Kindle in April.
I also send ARCs [advance review copies] out to book bloggers. Book bloggers are a really amazing community, and they've been tremendously supportive. They've definitely been a major force that got my books on the map.
When I first published, I did do a bit of promoting on the Amazon forums, but they're not really open to that, so I haven't really interacted there much at all in months.
Hocking's version of the truth: Hocking credits her success to aggressive self-promotion on her blog, Facebook and Twitter, word of mouth and writing in a popular genre.
Three of my full length novels are priced at $.99 in ebook, and my novella is priced at $.99.
The other five books are priced at $2.99. All my paperbacks are priced at $8.99 and $9.99 purchase from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Smashwords.I hang out Goodreads The Goodreads Author Program is a completely free feature designed to help authors reach their target audience — passionate readers. This is the perfect place for new and established authors to promote their books.
Book Mapping! Goodreads has the data to generate some interesting visualizations of reading habits tied to location.
Then How to Lie With Maps. also Follow Goodreadsand Kindleboards Facebook, Twitter, and I blog. And that's about it.Book Reviewers -- Book Bloggers Can Help you sell your books
What happens after your book is reviewed. If you submit a book for review, no matter how they review it - even if its a scathing 1-star review - your only response should be: "Thank for you taking the time to read and review my book. I appreciate the time and work you put into it." That's it. That's all you can say.
YOU ARE READING AND LEARNING ABOUT THIS ONLINE VIA THE INTERNET!!! GET IT?
People e-mailed me and I could immediately go to the Web. That's how you reach people today, one on one. But this digital word of mouth is faster than speaking, if you're good, if you hit a nerve, you can become a star seemingly overnight.
Go for mass consumption, make the hurdle low, allow people to indulge and build a career...and make a hell of a lot of money.
The mainstream media means less than ever before.
And the books didn't blow up immediately.
She was selling fewer than 1,000 a month in the spring, but sales blew up in November.
That's the power of the Internet. Everybody can know at once, something can blow up overnight.
Turns out your best marketing may be the Web.
Assuming you're going independent. And bloggers are not people who steal, but passionate friends who will promote your work.
Your ebook ready format could blow up online, because these genres have Net infrastructure.
Books and Music isn't underpriced, it's overpriced!
Books and CD's should be as cheap as Ms. Hocking's books.
GETTING A BOOK DEAL THE TRADITIONAL WAY
Self-publishing is done without the involvement or vetting of an established publisher and uses a publishing system such as Lulu, Smashwords, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing or Barnes & Noble's PubIt! Many traditional media outlets do not review self-published books.
Bookstores return 40% of hardcovers they buy.
When you write under a work-made-for-hire contract, you are no longer the owner - the publisher is.
In 1985, the Supreme Court considered a case against The Nation magazine for publishing unauthorized portions of former President Gerald Ford's forthcoming memoir from Harper & Row. The court found that The Nation stole the memoir in advance of publication and demonstrably hurt Harper's sales revenues and was therefore liable for damages. Who own's the story? Harper & Row. The legal conclusions from the Supreme Court is the law. Entertainment content is now the largest US export, and information is the basis of more than half of US gross domestic product. Publishers are contractually responsible to the author for the defense of the copyright that they have licensed as the publisher.
Tracking Indirect Sales
Online Computer Library Center bibliographic database Go to http://www.abebooks.com. Enter the name of a title of interest, but misspell a key word. This will get you to the next screen, which suggests that you try to find the title in a library, since it's not available on the " abebooks" site. After clicking on this option, enter the correct title and you'll be able to find out which libraries worldwide carry the title in question, and you can follow an increase in library sales.
The lesson: "Own Everything." Since no one can know for certain in advance what is going to become a successful project -- or when -- or in what format or medium --, waking up every day with the goal of owning the intellectual property rights to all the versions and derivative works based on the underlying original work is the key to the success of making money with your intellectual property.
$18 million settlement in a class action suit they and 21 freelance writers 4/05
Exit Plan - Bury your Dead Dot With Diginity when you are Done
Extensive Compiliation about CopyRight and CopyLeft
Digital Rights Management <> Concerns, Issues, Resources
Knowledgespeak news service reports on the STM publishing industry, on a daily basis.
Google Books will offer free downloads of these and more than one million more public domain books in the EPUB format, a lightweight text-based digital book format that allows the text to automatically conform (or "reflow") to these smaller screens. And because EPUB is a free, open standard supported by a growing ecosystem of digital reading devices, works you download from Google Books as EPUBs won't be tied to or locked into a particular device.
Set up a password-protected area and charge for access, try "Account Manager Pro" by CGI Elite. It runs about $200. Short article explaining the difference between wholesalers and distributors and how they work with you and each other.