Something Is Rotten In The State Of E-Book Publishing

The publishing industry has a problem. The old guard haven't innovated. And neither their business models nor their products embrace the digital books revolution. Take the ongoing and complicated spat between Apple and the Justice Department over the agency pricing model and alleged collusion which ended up with consumers being forced to spend more than they needed to. The battle may expand internationally, in fact. Apple tried to expand its 30% revenue share model, which has done very well in the billion-dollar app economy, into books. It also pushed publishers to agree to a very different way of selling their products: Instead of buying books traditionally, at a pre-agreed wholesale price and then pricing them as Apple saw fit in the iBookstore, it would let the publishers set their own price and extract its usual fixed share of the income ... as long as the publishers wouldn't sell ebooks elsewhere.It was a bold move, and one that could and did shake up the industry a bit. Amazon, the publishers contend, had established a monopoly on ebooks, and was selling their wares at overly discounted prices. With Apple's model they could choose to price ebooks lower than physical books cost (appeasing consumers who expect to pay less for a non-physical product), and yet extract more money due to the cost-savings of e-publishing.The DOJ disagreed, and says Apple's deal meant consumers ended up spending much more than they needed to, hence its action against Apple and a laundry... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'

[ Fast Company | 2012-04-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital publishing: the experts' view of what's next

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[ The Guardian | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time-Life Books Gets Set for a Return

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' Surges in E-Book Sales

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[ ABC News | 2014-01-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Holiday Sales for Children's Books Strong at Indies

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James Franco stars in an ambitious book trailer for Gary Shteyngart memoir

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Digital Publishing: All the News That's Fit to Pin

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Publishers, libraries poke fun at the cold

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[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New York Times Redesign Points to Future of Online Publishing

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A Picture Book To Teach Kids Typography

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Should Australian newspapers publish climate change denialist opinion pieces?

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