This is a cross-posting of an editorial from April L. Hamilton’s Indie Author Blog. Given that anyone who reads my blog is an author, publisher, or otherwise involved in the book business, I don’t think I need to trouble myself with recounting every detail of how the U.S. Department of Justice came to charge Apple, … Read more
Yesterday the New York Times reported: As soon as the Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it was suing five major publishers and Apple on price-fixing charges, and simultaneously settling with three of them, Amazon announced plans to push down prices on e-books. The price of some major titles could fall to $9.99 or less from … Read more
Bloomberg News is reporting that when the U.S. Justice Department officially moved to file suit against Apple and the “Agency 5”, all but Apple and one of the publishers named in the suit negotiated a settlement. From Bloomberg: The U.S. sued Apple Inc. (AAPL), Hachette SA, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster in New … Read more
Apple and five major publishers, suspected of colluding to artificially raise and fix prices for ebooks, are under investigation by regulators in the U.S. and European Union. The whole thing began when Apple introduced its “agency pricing model” for ebooks last year. Up until that time, Amazon, as the dominant player in the ebook field, had … Read more
Amazon is already operating its own publishing house, under the imprints AmazonEncore, Amazon Crossing, Montlake Romance and formerly, The Domino Project (in collaboration with Seth Godin). It’s also well-known that Amazon has branched out into film production, with its Amazon Studios program. Could it be that Amazon is now interested in producing television shows as well? On … Read more
Maybe so. From the Company Town blog on the LA Times site: Amazon.com has been quietly recruiting game developers, posting dozens of jobs on its site. Why this burst of interest in game design from the world’s largest online retailer? P.J. McNealy, founder of Digital World Research, believes that Amazon is amassing resources to potentially … Read more