Goodreads has acquired Discoverreads.com to recommend books to readers. It will be interesting to see how that works out.
Penguin reports solid gains in the U.S. and the UK markets. Penguin CEO John Makinson credits digital books and books by Nora Roberts and Charlaine Harris.
Harlequin reports that digital sales are up and print sales are declining.
Mike Shatzin believes publishers better start using their scale to price better, and soon!
“Publishers are going to have a devil of a time defending their 25% royalty rate into the future, which just feels intuitively unfair to authors. They can get away with it for the time being because print sales still matter. But they won’t for long and if publishers don’t use their scale to do a better job managing dynamic pricing to extract the maximum revenue from ebook sales than an author might do on his or her own, the challenge of retaining their top talent will become even more difficult.”
Speaking of the 25% rate… Avon is “launching Avon Impulse, a new imprint dedicated to digital publishing that will feature e-books and POD novels and novellas by current Avon authors.” They’re also open to seeking new talent. They’re offering a 25% royalty rate for the first book up to 10,000 net copies, after which the rate rises to 50%. That’s 25% of net.
Librarians are launching a boycott of HarperCollins’ books in response to their decision to limit the lending of e-books to 26 patrons. In response, Harper Collins’ President of Sales sent an open letter to librarians stating that “selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book eco-system…” From the comments to his open letter, the librarians aren’t buying his explanation.
Is midlist becoming the E-list? Lee Goldberg at A Writer’s Life thinks it is.
“Publishers are going to double-down on their bestsellers and their established, successful franchises — and so are bookstores. That’s already the case at the biggest booksellers of all, the big-box general retailers like Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Costco, where mid-list authors are already barely represented on their limited shelf space.”
According to David Carnoy on cnet Reviews, the rise of the 99-cent book by indie authors is the new sweet spot.
J.A. Konrath believes there’s room for more than one price for books. In this post, he gives a breakdown of what he’s charging and what he’s making.
A thoughtful look into the Amanda Hocking’s phenomenon that corrects some false reporting. Amanda had words of her own about the buzz.
New York Times bestselling author Michael Stackpole has nine must-have clauses for authors concerning their digital rights contracts.
New Spencerhill Associates, Ltd. agent Nalini Akolekar is looking for women’s fiction:
She is seeking: “Nalini is interested in discovering and developing new talent, and is accepting submissions—from published and unpublished authors—in women’s fiction, romance of every genre, and suspense/thrillers.”
Awesome, as ever, Edie. Thank you!
Thanks, Michelle!