A reporter called earlier this week focused on what he figures are the upcoming negotiations over trading terms between Amazon and Penguin Random House. I had observed when Amazon was throwing sharp elbows at Hachette during their contractual dispute that Amazon wouldn’t try similar tactics with PRH. Since then, with HarperCollins and Amazon having announced […]
Publisher margins today may be enviable, but it will be a big challenge to keep them that way
The major publishers have apparently worked themselves into a very strong commercial position at the moment with the transition to ebooks. I say “apparently” because the data that gives the most recent rise to that understanding — a presentation by HarperCollins of the current economics — is somewhat incomplete. What Michael Cader reported in Publishers […]
The ebook marketplace is about to change…a lot
Now that the DoJ’s response to the public comments has made it overwhelmingly likely that the settlement it negotiated with Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster will be accepted by the Court, it is time to contemplate the changes we’ll see in the ebook marketplace in the next couple of months. The settlement requires the […]
Royalty Share CEO Bob Kohn alleges DoJ violates the Tunney Act
According to Bob Kohn, an attorney and the CEO of Royalty Share, the Tunney Act very clearly requires that the Justice Department publish (and it was thought originally that this meant “print”) all the public comment they got within the alloted comment period. Kohn says that’s what the law states clearly, as upheld in a […]
Auletta’s New Yorker piece is good orientation for thinking about the DoJ case
Writing about the lawsuit the DoJ has instituted against Apple and five leading publishers is very hard. It’s a big issue and doing it justice requires navigating two very large and complex bodies of knowledge: anti-trust law and the trade book publishing business. Whenever I write about it, I feel handicapped because I don’t know […]