Friday, February 5, 2010

Weighing in on the E-Book Situation

Just read in the Wall Street Journal that Hachette Book Group (Little Brown, Grand Central Publishing, etc.) has joined forces with Macmillan in pushing for an agency model for e-book sales.

Went onto Amazon and did some random, unsystematic research.  Did note that, while Randy Susan Meyers' new title, The Murderer's Daughters (St. Martin's--Holtzbrink/Macmillan family) and F. Paul Wilson's Jack: Secret Histories (Tor--Holtzbrink/Macmillan) have no buy buttons, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight (Little Brown--Hachette) is still for sale. So, I guess Amazon hasn't wrapped Hachette's knuckles quite as hard as Macmillan's. (As I meandered through Amazon, though, I actually think I spotted a couple Macmillan titles whose "buy" buttons have not been stripped--not telling which as I'd like those authors to be able to sell their books!)

I'm no lawyer and I don't know the statistics, but I do wonder about the legal issues surrounding a book/e-book seller with Amazon's market share linking its willingness to distribute traditional books to the pricing for ebooks.  Hmmm...

Oh, writers, writers.  Do not read the news today.  Go into that dark, scary place inside your head and write something wonderful.  Do not let the dark, scary places out in the world and cyber world interfere with your art, your craft, your heart!

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