The extraordinary good will Amazon has engendered for itself in the publishing community recently (kidding! kidding!) has spread into the writing community: As a Publishers Weekly story reports, the Authors Guild has launched a program on its website that “allows authors to track the buy button status of their books on Amazon.”

To use WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com, “authors need to register their ISBNs with the Guild for monitoring. According to the Guild, authors will get an e-mail alert if their Amazon buy button is removed.”

As the Guild explains on the site,

It happens without warning, always. Just ask the authors in the U.K., well published by major houses, who woke up to find their Buy Buttons had gone missing. No “pardon the inconvenience” e-note from Seattle, just a quiet severing of ties with a few million customers. It’s happened here in the U.S., too, more times than you know. See, the folks at Amazon have a headlock on the online book world, and they tend to get carried away.

After the Justice Department filed a brief contesting the revised version of the Google Book Settlement last Friday (see the earlier MobyLives report), the Authors Guild has elaborated on the somewhat defensive, somewhat confusing statement issued hastily last Friday — the one saying it disagrees with the DOJ except for the parts it doesn’t disagree with. Also, that it could have pressed its case harder against Google — even though it, uh, sided with Google — and that it might have won, although it might have lost. In the AG’s words:

We disagree with the Justice Department’s reading of the law. At the same time, it’s good to see the Department recognizes the settlement’s many benefits. In our view, it’s best for everyone that out-of-print library books be made available through reasonable, market-based means to readers, students and scholars. Without a settlement, that won’t happen. It’s also best that authors have direct control of the scans that Google has made, with the power to compel Google to hide, display or remove those scans. Without a settlement, authors have no such control. Google’s scanning and use of authors’ books would continue until the lawsuit was finally resolved.

Some authors and authors’ groups have asked why we didn’t press the litigation through to the end. The answer (besides the benefits we saw for authors in creating new markets for out-of-print works), in part, is that copyright litigation is uncertain. Fair use law is complex. One could fill a good-sized law-school classroom with copyright professors who believe that Google’s scanning of your books is a fair use. We don’t agree with that view, but our opinion may not have prevailed. If we’d lost, it would then be open season on scanning of your out-of-print and in-print books. All one would need is a scanner and a friend with a little bit of technical knowledge to start displaying “snippets” at your science fiction, humor, Civil War, or Harry Potter website. All perfectly legal; all without obligation to authors to properly secure those scans. Nothing gets illegal file-sharing going quite so much as millions of unsecured digital works floating around the Internet.

We also could’ve won. That would’ve been sweet. But here’s the thing: copyright victories tend to be Pyrrhic in the digital age. Our settlement negotiations went on with full knowledge of what happened to the music industry. The RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) won victory after victory, defeating Napster and Grokster with ground-breaking legal rulings. The RIAA also went after countless individuals, chasing down infringement wherever they could track it down.

It didn’t work. The infringement just moved elsewhere, in unpredictable ways. Nothing seems to drive innovation among copyright pirates as much as a defeat in the courts. That innovation didn’t truly abate until Apple came along with its iPod/iTunes model, making music easily and legally available at a reasonable price. By then, the music industry was devastated.

Lest all the hoo-haw over Apple’s iPad, and while Amazon is still dusting itself off after some of its worst press ever, Barnes & Noble announced yesterday that “its popular nook e-book reader is back in stock online and will be rolling out in the majority of the bookseller’s U.S. stores this week.”

According to a Newsfactor report by Mark Long, at least one analyst expects it to do well, despite a rocky start wherein it got terrible reviews, and wasn’t available for the holidays as expected. James McQuivey of Forrester Research says, “The nook, despite its slow start, is priced right, targeted to book readers rather than skipping off to focus on magazine or newspaper readers, and, most importantly, the nook will be featured in front of millions of book buyers every month as they walk through the store. You can’t underestimate the power of that.”

Meanwhile, Newsfactor reports,

The temporary time-out on nook sales gave the bookseller enough breathing space to address some of the machine’s software shortcomings. “nook v 1.2 will be made available to customers in a seamless over-the-air update over approximately the next week,” a Barnes & Noble spokesperson wrote in a blog.

Among other things, the software upgrade improves the way e-books and periodicals open on the machine, as well as enhance the response of the Reading Now & Settings buttons. Moreover, the current reading page, as well as the bookmarks on all e-books, becomes saved automatically whenever the nook is powered off. And personal files that have been downloaded onto the machine can now be sorted by author and title.

Well, at long last the war between Amazon and Macmillan is kind of sorta for the most part just about pretty much over. While some sort of agreement seems to have been reached, once again in the low visibility of the weeken hours (and as per MobyLives‘ Friday night report). Stiil, as is their wont, Amazon can’t seem to keep from — there’s no other word for it, really — fucking with Macmillan. For example, while all the buy buttons have been replaced for Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winning Wolf Hall, the print version of the book is being discounted an extraordinary 50%, and the ebook version is for sale at $9.99 … whereas, wasn’t this whole thing basically a hissy fit about the difference between $9.99 and $14.99? (Of all the angry ridicule circulating the web attempting to describe Amazon’s behavior, a post from Quill & Quire put it best: “It’s not difficult to imagine Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos fluttering his fingertips together and ordering Smithers to remove the buy buttons on book pages that don’t please him.”)

But the Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Geoffrey A. Fowler say it’s so, and so it must be true. As per their report, “the two sides have settled their differences and books by Macmillan authors went back on sale on Amazon’s Web site over the weekend…. Specific terms of the Macmillan agreement couldn’t be learned. However, they are expected to include higher prices for e-books, mirroring those offered by Apple on its coming iPad device.”

What’s more, “The pact between Amazon and Macmillan will likely serve as a template for other publishers during their coming discussions with Amazon. Last Thursday, Lagardère SCA’s Hachette Book Group sent a letter to book agents stating that it is adopting the Apple e-book pricing model for the sale of its e-titles. Others publishers, large and small, are expected to follow.”

So who won? Well, Apple, of course. As the WSJ report astutely observes, “By agreeing to accept a new pricing model, Amazon has publicly acknowledged the sudden emergence of a rival that may not only threaten its highly popular Kindle franchise but also its total domination of e-books.” And then there’s the coming Google ebook store …. In short, “The settlement sets the stage for what will almost certainly be a transformative year in publishing ….” And the implications loom large not just in the U.S., as indicated by this report from The Bookseller, which notes thar one “senior UK publishing executive” says the eight-day war was a “very significant week and genuinely a very good week for book publishers, authors and readers.”

At the end of it all, both parties remained true to form, giving perhaps some notion of how Amazon is going to confront change: the WSJ report says Macmillan CEO John Sargent issued a classy statement saying he was “delighted to be back in business with Amazon.”

Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, who hasn’t said a word to explain his company’s behavior since the fracas started, maintained his petulant silence: Amazon refused to comment.

Germany’s constitution has made it illegal to disseminate Nazi propaganda since the end of World War II, but now it looks as if the book that sold so well it made author Adolf Hitler a multi-millionaire, Mein Kamf, is head back to print in just a few years.

As a Daily Telegraph report by Allan Hall explains, “the copyright, held by the state of Bavaria where the Nazi movement began life in the 1920s, expires in 2015, 70 years after the death of its author in his Berlin bunker.”

Hall does not explain why the copyright running out suddenly makes it legal to publish the book, but he does go on to report that “the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History (IfZ) pledged to publish an ‘annotated version’ with historical notes that it hopes will see the book used in schools and colleges.” And ifZ spokesperson tells the paper, “we think our version, with sensible notes and comments pointing out the falsity of much of what he wrote, will be far better than neo-Nazis putting out their own versions.”

What’s more, German Jewish leaders are supporting the publication. Hall runs an unattributed quote say “they” — presumably Jewish leaders –believe it “would prevent neo-Nazi from profiteering from Mein Kampf. while an aggressive and enlightening engagement with the book would doubtless remove many of its false, persisting myths.”

After a day in which Macmillan chief John Sargent gave Amazon another series of masterful lessons in the art of publicity, corporate responsibility, business leadership, and overall class (see the earlier report from MobyLives), the behemoth from Seattle finally really did capituate, although once again it was on a Friday night when it was likely to get the least attention: At about 6:15 pm ET tonight (Friday, February 5th), Macmillan’s buy buttons reappeared.

Except, it wasn’t — again — anywhere near a complete capitulation. As a brief report from the Wall Street Journal notes, Amazon has gone about things in its own pissy way: “only print editions of Macmillan books such as ‘Wolf Hall’ by Hilary Mantel were for sale by Amazon, not e-book editions of those books for the .”

It’s been a full week since Amazon disappeared all of Macmillan’s buttons. A New York Times report says “So what did Amazon hold out for? The company would not comment, but it is likely that Amazon demanded that no other e-book vendors, such as Apple, get preferential access to new titles, or any kind of pricing advantages. Amazon may also have negotiated terms into its agreement with the publisher that would allow users of Kindles or Kindle software to lend e-books to each other.”

But don’t let the assumption of the Times report, nor of other headlines proclaiming “the buttons are back,” fool you. As the WSJ report makes clear, they’re not back completely, meaning Amazon is still punishing Macmillan, and has yet to give in on ebook prices. Although it does seem that they’re processing the fact that they’ve lost in the industry, and in the court of public opinion … it just seems to take them a long time to process such information.

A day after HarperCollins owner Rupert Murdoch came out in support of Macmillan in its stand against Amazon, a third Big Six publisher has sided with the embattled publisher. Last night, Hachette Books Group CEO David Young sent a letter to agents announcing he, too, would follow the pricing model advocated by John Sargent at Macmillan.

As Peter Kafka put it in a report at All Things Digital,

Here’s another publisher publicly throwing its weight behind Apple — and against Amazon — in the e-book pricing war. Hachette Book Group says it will pursue the “agency model” for pricing its e-books: They set the retail price, and the retailer gets a 30 percent cut.

Translated into more practical terms, it means that Hachette will demand that Amazon and other retailers — but really, this is aimed at Amazon — raise the prices on their e-books from the $9.99 standard they’ve adopted. Instead, it will want them to use the $12.99-$14.99 standard for new books that Apple introduced last week along with its iPad.

The only question now is: Are a bunch more buttons about to disappear from Amazon?

February 4, 2010

Dear Agent,

At Hachette Book Group, we have been considering a new pricing model for some time, and have decided to transition to selling our e-books through an agency model.

There are many advantages to the agency model, for our authors, retailers, consumers, and publishers. It allows Hachette to make pricing decisions that are rational and reflect the value of our authors’ works. In the long run this will enable Hachette to continue to invest in and nurture authors’ careers–from major blockbusters to new voices. Without this investment in our authors, the diversity of books available to consumers will contract, as will the diversity of retailers, and our literary culture will suffer.

The agency relationship will allow us to make more titles available to more consumers on more platforms. This expands the author’s reach and readership, which is at the heart of what we do as a publisher. Ultimately, these new terms open doors to all online e-book service providers and create more avenues for delivering e-books to readers.

Another great benefit to our consumers is that we intend to release HBG e-books simultaneously with the hardcover (or first format print edition).

It’s important to note that we are not looking to the agency model as a way to make more money on e-books. In fact, we make less on each e-book sale under the new model; the author will continue to be fairly compensated and our e-book agents will make money on every digital sale. We’re willing to accept lower return for e-book sales as we control the value of our product–books, and content in general. We’re taking the long view on e-book pricing, and this new model helps protect the long term viability of the book marketplace.

We believe that this new model is preferable to withholding books, and is in our authors’ and HBG’s best interest. I’m happy to answer individual questions about the agency model, so please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Best,
David Young

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hachette Book Group |

Some dramatic developments in the Amazon-Macmillan story yesterday — in particular, another public letter appeared from Macmillan head John Sargent, still standing starkly alone despite some encouraging words Wednesday from HarperCollins owner Rupert Murdoch (see the earlier MobyLives report).

You can read the full text here as it appeared first on the Publishers Lunch newsletter this morning. It is, suffice it to say, an elegant affair, addressed to “Macmillan Authors and Illustrators,” with a cc to “Literary Agents.” It’s calm with no apparent rancor and nothing but nice things to say about Amazon, whom, says Sargent, “has been working very, very hard and always in good faith to find a way forward with us. Though we do not always agree, I remain full of admiration and respect for them.” Still, says Sargent, “I can promise nothing on the buy buttons.”

Meanwhile, he issues a moving “salute to the bricks and mortar retailers who sell your books in their stores and on their related websites. Their support for you, and us, has been remarkable over the last week. From large chains to small independents, they committed to working harder than ever to help your books find your readers.”

The letter was made all the more notable in that the day passed, as have all the others in this publicity fiasco for Amazon, without anyone from the company making their own public statements of responsibility, elegant or otherwise.

But that wasn’t all that Macmillan did — continuing to plug their books harder than ever, the company took out a full page ad in the New York Times for Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto that included the line Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon.” (See the full MobyLIves report.)

And the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced it was pulling Amazon buttons from its website, and urging its members to do the same. (See the full MobyLives report.)

But at day’s end, the company’s stock — steadily declining all week — had fallen farther than it had on any other day this week (by $3.16) … and there was still no sign of Macmillan’s buy buttons at Amazon. You can see for yourself if they’re up yet by checking, for instance, the page for Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto, or for Hilary Mantel’s bestselling, Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall.

To: Macmillan Authors and Illustrators
cc: Literary Agents
From: John Sargent

I am sorry I have been silent since Saturday. We have been in constant discussions with Amazon since then. Things have moved far enough that hopefully this is the last time I will be writing to you on this subject.

Over the last few years we have been deeply concerned about the pricing of electronic books. That pricing, combined with the traditional business model we were using, was creating a  market that we believe was fundamentally unbalanced. In the last three weeks, from a standing start we have moved to a new business model. We will make less money on the sale of e books, but we will have a stable and rational market. To repeat myself from last Sunday’s letter, we will now have a business model that will ensure our intellectual property will be available digitally through many channels, at a price that is both fair to the consumer and that allows those who create and publish it to be fairly compensated.

We have also started discussions with all our other partners in the digital book world. While there is still lots of work to be done, they have all agreed to move to the agency model.

And now on to royalties. Three or four weeks ago, we began discussions with the Author’s Guild on their concerns about our new royalty terms. We indicated then that we would be flexible and that we were prepared to move to a higher rate for digital books. In ongoing discussions with our major agents at the beginning of this week, we began informing them of our new terms. The change to an agency model will bring about yet another round of discussion on royalties, and we look forward to solving this next step in the puzzle with you.

A word about Amazon. This has been a very difficult time. Many of you are wondering what has taken so long for Amazon and Macmillan to reach a conclusion. I want to assure you that Amazon has been working very, very hard and always in good faith to find a way forward with us. Though we do not always agree, I remain full of admiration and respect for them. Both of us look forward to being back in business as usual.

And a salute to the bricks and mortar retailers who sell your books in their stores and on their related websites. Their support for you, and us, has been remarkable over the last week. From large chains to small independents, they committed to working harder than ever to help your books find your readers.

Lastly, my deepest thanks to you, our authors and illustrators. Macmillan and Amazon as corporations had our differences that needed to be resolved. You are the ones whose books lost their buy buttons. And yet you have continued to be terrifically supportive of us and of what we are trying to accomplish. It is a great joy to be your publisher.

I cannot tell you when we will resume business as usual with Amazon, and needless to say I can promise nothing on the buy buttons. You can tell by the tone of this letter though that I feel the time is getting near to hand.

All best,
John