It won’t last long, the established companies won’t be happy but most of the people will. I, the content provider (= the entertainment company, like a book publishing house or a film studio or a music label), don’t trust you, my beloved customer. And I don’t want to deliver to you my content as it is.…
Amazon Expands Kindle Scout Publishing Platform Internationally
This week Amazon announced that it was expanding its reader-powered publishing platform internationally, including Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and India. Kindle Scout was launched last year in the United States and the platform allows authors to submit unpublished, novel-length English-language manuscripts. Previews of the manuscripts are made available for Amazon readers to…
The Story of Self-Publishing (Part Two): Follow the Money – Sean Murphy | Guest Post
Earlier this year, NPR featured a podcast roundtable wherein four authors tackled the question: Is Amazon The Reader’s Friend? Generally speaking, the debate has been framed in terms of how Amazon is disrupting traditional publishing practices. Technologically speaking, disruption is often the result of innovation and consumers benefit because products or services are streamlined, reimagined or…
Amazon Changes the Payout Rules on Kindle Unlimited
From next month Amazon has decided to change how it pays authors for books enrolled in its Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Previously Amazon paid authors based on whether a reader read more than 10% of a book, or what it referred to as a ‘qualified borrows’. Kindle Unlimited is a subscription service that allows readers to discover…
Is HarperCollins Set to Take on Amazon?
Business Insider reported yesterday that negotiations between publisher HarperCollins and Amazon are not going well. The big five publisher’s current contract is due to expire soon and it is unclear whether Amazon will continue to sell and promote HarperCollins titles beyond this date. Hachette was involved in a long-running dispute with the online retailer last…
Amazon Announces First Batch of Kindle Scout Titles
In October last year Amazon invited submissions and readers for its Kindle Scout crowdsourcing program. The reader-powered publishing platform has amassed 29,000 reading ‘scouts’ in recent months and yesterday it announced the first batch of ten titles to be published on March 3rd. Authors with successful submissions received a five-year contract, a $1,500 advance and 50% digital royalties, marketing services…
Amazon Is The Reader’s Friend | Intelligence Squared Debate [VIDEO]
In late 2014, Amazon and the publishing house Hachette settled a months-long dispute over who should set the price for e-books. In Amazon’s view, lower prices mean more sales and more readers, and that benefits everyone. But for publishers, the price of an e-book must reflect the investment made, from the author’s advance to a…
Amazon Unlimited: Where to now, Columbus?
While the publishing industry is going into wind down this week for the holiday period, one news story caught my attention in recent days and for me hit the note 2014 is ending on. Amazon Unlimited Earlier this month TIPM published its final Publishing Service Index and I noted that Amazon KDP had slipped from its number…
Make Peace Not War: Amazon and Hachette Agree New Terms
Amazon and Hachette have ended their long-running dispute and agreed a new multiyear contract. The new contract will come into effect in early 2015 and allows Hachette to control the price of e-books while benefitting from incentives offered by Amazon to keep pricing low. While both parties have not disclosed details of the new deal, the agreement…
Dutch Book Readers and Authors Awake to Amazon.nl and KDP
Dutch book readers and authors have a couple of new online places to visit this morning. In late September TIPM reported that Amazon was in negotiations with Dutch publishers ahead of a planned launch of Amazon.nl. It’s been no secret that the online retail giant was going to enter the Dutch book market and rumours of Amazon.nl…