The smart money is on the jackal

Revolutions produce unlikely heroes, and the Digital Revolution has produced a very unlikely one in the form of a man that many believe is so wanting in ethical principles that he is nicknamed The Jackal. Yet it is on literary agent Andrew Wylie’s fangs and claws that the populist dream of a fair e-book royalty rests as he dares the world’s highest profile trade book publisher to do something about the slap he has administered to its face.

The smart money is on The Jackal, and to understand why you have to think like a jackal.  While pundits debate contract law and publishing ethics, the real war is being conducted on a less visible battlefield. But it is one on which Wylie holds the high ground.

To understand Random House’s reluctance to protect its rights from Wylie and other marauders you need to understand a number of not so obvious factors.  The most salient of them is this: Publishers are loath to sue authors (or the widows and children of authors).

Let’s see how these factors play out in the power struggle unfolding before our eyes.

Random House not confident of its legal position

In 2001 Random House sued Rosetta, an e-book startup that acquired directly from authors the digital rights to books by such Random House lions as Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Robert B. Parker and William Styron, books that were still in print in paper format under Random House imprints. Random had published them before there was such a thing as e-books, but nevertheless considered a book is a book is a book whether in tangible or digital form. The courts however rejected Random’s position, denying their request for an injunction against Rosetta. Random filed an appeal and the court turned it down. A second appeal was rejected too, forcing Random to work out a settlement with Rosetta. The critical issue – what is a book? – remained unlitigated and left Random uncertain about its legal position.

Random Backs off from Open Road Threat

When publishing superstar Jane Friedman launched her Open Road e-book venture she declared her intention to start with several works by Styron including Sophie’s Choice and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Confessions of Nat Turner. The problem was, Random House claimed it owned those rights (presumably having recovered them from Rosetta as part of the settlement) and it issued a stern warning to all “third parties” without naming Friedman specifically. Authors, stated CEO Marcus Dohle, are “precluded from granting publishing rights to third parties that would compromise the rights for which Random House has bargained.” By drawing a line in the sand, Random expected Friedman and other potential interlopers to back off or face the full wrath of the publisher’s litigators. (see Random House Serves Notice on Would-Be E-Interlopers)

It is  a fundamental business principle that you don’t make threats you aren’t prepared to act on. And that is why we were flabbergasted four months later to learn that Random House had released e-rights to the Styron estate (See Random Returns Sabre to Scabbard in Styron E-Book Standoff). What was that about?

“The decision of the Styron estate is an exception,” Random executive Stuart Applebaum explained. “Our understanding is that this is a unique family situation.”

Why, after rattling its saber so truculently, did Random give in? In our estimation it’s because ultimately, to make good on their threat, they would have had to sue Styron’s widow and children. And that would be a public relations disaster.

Whether Styron was truly an exception or Random blinked, one thing was clear to publishing professionals: sooner or later there would be further tests of the publisher’s determination. How would Random react the next time?

We’re about to find out.

Don’t Bother Suing Agents

Claiming that he hates the low e-book royalties paid by traditional publishers (see Random House Changes E-Book Royalty Policy), agent Wylie, representing hundreds of distinguished authors such as Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and the late John Updike, announced that he is starting his own e-book publishing venture and intends to launch it with books published by Random House and other trade book publishers.

Does he have the right to do that? Wylie says he does: “The fact remains that backlist digital rights were not conveyed to publishers, and so there’s an opportunity to do something with those rights,” he declares.

Despite what happened with Open Road, some industry observers expected Random House to threaten to sue Wylie’s ass into pebble-sized pieces. But Wylie knows they won’t, because, generally speaking, agents are not legally liable for breaches of contract committed by their clients. A lawsuit against Wylie would in all likelihood be thrown out of court, and the judge would tell Random that if they have a beef it’s with Wylie’s authors, they’ll have to sue Wylie’s authors. Which brings us back to our thesis: Publishers are loath to sue authors (or the widows and children of authors).

So? How does Random intend to punish Wylie? “Regrettably,” Applebaum declared, “Random House on a worldwide basis will not be entering into any new English-language business agreements with the Wylie Agency until this situation is resolved.”

This is known as the We’ll Cut Off Our Nose to Spite Your Face ploy, and it will avail Random nothing. Wylie’s clients are so coveted by Random’s rivals that if Random made good on its threat you’d see the greatest migration since the Aleuts crossed the Bering Land Bridge.  Jackals are standing by!

Buyer? Seller?

Though legal threats won’t faze Andrew Wylie, handling the challenge of being both an agent and an e-book publisher might. A number of knowledgeable people like Macmillan’s John Sargent have not only deplored Wylie’s decision to put all his authors’ eggs in Amazon’s basket but have questioned whether it’s in the best interests of his authors. There is arguably more money to be made selling not just to Amazon but to Sony, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and other retailers.

Navigating the shoals of conflict of interest between buyer and seller is another daunting task. Even if he is able to build a “Chinese wall” insulating the two functions from short-circuiting each other, Wylie’s own clients will reasonably want to know how it’s going to work: “If my agent is now my publisher, who am I supposed hire to negotiate with him?”

Will Wylie’s stratagem succeed in forcing publishers to raise their royalty rate?  Not a chance.  E-book royalties will eventually go up, but it will be no thanks to Crusader Wylie. But we thank him for articulating the dissatisfaction of authors and agents with low royalty rates and for so fearlessly acting on his convictions.

Richard Curtis

If you think clearing permissions is a nightmare today...

The word is “Greed”, says author Tony Woodlief in the Wall Street Journal.

Is that the right word? We can agree on it as a working hypothesis, but in truth the issues are far too complicated for such oversimplification, and unfortunately they’re about to become even more complicated. Fiendishly, maybe even insolubly, complicated.

The High Cost of Permissions

In a cautionary anecdote Woodlief voices a complaint about the high cost of clearing permissions: “When I asked to use a single line by songwriter Joe Henry, for example, his record label’s parent company demanded $150 for every 7,500 copies of my book. Assuming I sell enough books to earn back my modest advance, this amounts to roughly 1.5% of my earnings, all for quoting eight words from one of Mr. Henry’s songs.” Woodlief spurned the record company’s price and elected instead to use a quote from a public domain source. In a masterfully understated phrase, he muses “it’s not clear that his interests —or theirs—are being served here.”

The debate over permissions has gone on for as long as copyright protection was established by statute, including the American Constitution, centuries ago. These laws attempt to navigate the tension – or perhaps conflict is a better word – between rewarding content creators for their works and satisfying the public’s need to benefit from those creations. Woodlief phrases it cogently: “While we want to give artists incentives, we don’t want the costs to be so high that art appreciation—a difficult cultural attribute to re-establish once it is lost —declines.”

Publishers and agents daily walk this tightrope, setting prices for licenses for properties under their control that recognize the licensor’s intentions and budget on the one hand and the value of the artist’s work on the other.  To the seller the price may seem reasonable, to the buyer exorbitant. The battle is never-ending.  Except that in the Digital Era the battle is intolerable and will simply have to stop.

Permissions clearance a disaster in the Digital Age

The reason it has to stop is the emerging species called Enhanced E-Books. Unlike simple print anthologies of an earlier, quainter century (the 20th), enhanced e-books draw on film, video, music, photographs, and other art forms. For which reason they are also known as “vooks” in contemporary parlance, a hybrid of “videos” and “books”. (See If They Asked Me I Could Write a…Vook?)

So? What’s the problem?  For a recent webinar on the subject I stated it this way: “The challenge of clearing rights for enhanced e-books is so dauntingly complex that nothing less than an overhaul of the current antiquated system is necessary if enhanced e-books are not to die aborning.”

“Though an enhanced e-book would appear to be a digital product, in fact most of the processes necessary to produce it rely on the traditional and extremely tedious tasks of clearing rights and permissions, something publishers and agents have been doing for a century. For nothing more than a single image you will have to track down the credit line for the photographer or artist to give proper attribution; then you need to ascertain the source – where was it originally published? Then you must examine the contract to learn the terms by which the image was acquired. One time use only? Or did the purchaser buy rights in perpetuity? If the latter, you need to locate the purchaser to negotiate permission. If you’re using the image worldwide you need to clear permission with copyright owners in each territory (North American, UK, foreign language publishers, etc.

“And that’s for one image. If you use dozens, plus copyrighted texts, plus YouTube videos, plus movie clips, music and other protected works, the clearance process can be so daunting as to be not worth it.”

The solution?  Become a Renaissance man

“There’s gotta be a better way,” I concluded.

Is there? Bartering isn’t practical, though Woodlief actually tried it. “Will you,” he asked some poet friends, “give me a poem in return for a book and dinner?” Some of them agreed, and their poems ended up in his book.

Marc Aronson took a stab at a more realistic approach in a recent NY Times op-ed. “For e-books, the new model would look something like this: Instead of paying permission fees upfront based on estimated print runs, book creators would pay based on a periodic accounting of downloads… If rights holders were compensated for actual downloads, there would be a perfect fit. The better a book did, the more the original rights holder would be paid.”

Unfortunately, Aronson doesn’t address how the book’s creator would divide payments among movie companies, music composers, photographers, videographers, and garden variety authors.  Nor does he venture into the question of how to place comparative values on a one paragraph quote from an obscure journal versus a three minute clip from a blockbuster movie versus a top-of-the-charts hit song. Nor does he tell us how a humble little vookmaker will be able to afford the permissions cost of all that imported content when even a few minutes of music will bust his budget.

In all likelihood Aronson didn’t venture into this territory because it’s radioactive. It’s hard to imagine how we will come up with a solution in the foreseeable future, even though the success of this exciting new genre desperately depends on it. Unless…

Some years ago as the Digital Age dawned I wrote a piece called Author? What’s an Author? suggesting that the author of tomorrow would have to become more like the breed of filmmaker called “auteur” who writes, produces, directs, edits and scores his or her own movies.

“The day is coming—and much sooner than you may think—when authors will no longer be able to define themselves simply as creators of literary works,” I wrote. “As electronic technology hurtles too fast for even futurists to keep up with, a generation of readers is emerging that will not accept text unless it is interactively married to other media. The twenty-first century’s definition of ‘author’ will be as far from today’s definition as you are from the town scribe of yore.”

In short, if you possess the filmmaking gifts of a Hitchcock, the song-writing skills of Rogers and Hammerstein and the photographic genius of a Cartier-Bresson, and – oh yes – if you’re as good a writer as Tolstoy, you’ll be able to create your own enhanced e-books without laying out a dime for permissions. You’ll be nominated for a Vookie, which is undoubtedly what they will call the award given out to auteurs of vooks.  Just make sure you have your speech ready if you win.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

E-book sales statistics for May 2010 have been released by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) in conjunction with the International Digital Publishing Forum and there’s been yet another might leap: trade eBook sales were $29,300,000 for May, a 260% increase over May 2009 ($11,200,000).

We’ve become so spoiled by triple and quadruple sales growth that when the jump is “only” 260% we begin to fret that sales are starting to flatten.  But our statisticians remind us that the real numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts. Even if they aren’t, every business should all be so lucky to experience “flat” business growth of 260%!

As always, we’re reminded by AAP and IDPF that…

• The data above represent United States revenues only
• The data above represent only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels.
  
• The data above represent only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers
• The data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales
• The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
• The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is “All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices”
• The IDPF and AAP began collecting data together starting in Q1 2006

Richard Curtis

Hard to read e-books on this cooler

Damn! The Cool-er may die before we  learn how to pronounce its name. Martin Daniels on the Bookseller Association blog says the “Cooler reader looks to be another casualty of the squeeze that is inevitable in the ‘lookie likie’ E Ink reader market. They follow iRex in what may be a growing queue of dead technology failures.” Don’t forget Skiff, which dropped out of the e-device market a few weeks ago.

What’s going on?  The front-running e-readers – Kindle, Nook and Sony – all sit on large bodies of content, whereas many of the upstart gadgets have been counting on succeeding strictly on the merits of such competitive qualities as thinner, cheaper, lighter, brighter, more colorful etc. But they also have to beg, borrow or scrounge content. The only outsider holding its own is Apple’s iPad, and one good reason why is that it aggregated a lot of content soon after launching.

So – what went wrong with the Cool-er? Daniels says that it “entered the market in full color with a spectrum of cases, but forgot to make the screen color too. They also misjudged their launch with a stand and presentation more geared to a car show than a book show and their one trick pony was just a color case.”

And of course there was the dumb name. Daniels calls it the “Cooler” but it was introduced as the “Cool-er”.  “Aren’t consumers going to be confused by a b&w reader that sounds like “Col-or”?” we asked (See Another E-Book Reader with a Dumb Name)  “Or is it supposed to suggest the device is cool. Do you pronounce the word like the refrigerated water dispenser commonly found in business offices? Or do you come to a full glottal stop, thus: Cool. Er. No matter how you say it, it’s awkward, cacophonous and meaningless.”

Now it looks like we may never know. Same goes for the Plastic Logic device which, after tormenting us endlessly by withholding the name, finally announced the “Que”.  Is that pronounced “Cue?” “Kwee”? Or is it “Que” as in “Que pasa?”  However you say it, the Que’s release is seriously delayed and it too could be an also-ran in the e-reader sweepstakes. In fact Daniels says “We doubt we will see E Ink readers as we know them today in 2012…The only stay of execution will be a drop to $99 a unit.”

Richard Curtis

Qu'est-ce que c'est? C'est Amazon Patent No. 7,748,634 B1

Okay, e-reader mavens, it’s time to play Name That Device. Here’s a description of a popular one:

A handheld electronic device comprising: a housing; an electronic paper display disposed in the housing and having a first surface area; and a liquid crystal display (LCD) disposed in the housing proximate the electronic paper display, the LCD having a second surface area that is smaller than the first surface area of the electronic paper display.

Sounds like Barnes & Noble’s Nook, right?

Wrong. It’s a description of a patent applied for by Amazon in 2006, a patent that Amazon never published – until now. And the United States Patent and Trademark Office has just granted the patent to Amazon!

Nilay Patel writing in Engadget calls the revelation “Juicy.”  It could be a lot more than that if Amazon decides to file an infringement claim against B&N.

Patel reminds us that “Barnes & Noble is already involved in a trade secret dispute over the Nook with Spring Design, which claims that B&N saw its Alex reader under NDA [Non-Disclosure Agreement] and then copied it for the Nook.” That case is still pending. (See Who is Alex and Why Is He Suing the Nook People?)

B&N’s patent attorneys are going to have their hands full in the coming months.

Richard Curtis

Amazon has announced that it will pay a 70% royalty to content providers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to upload e-books.

Up to now the Kindle  royalty has been pegged at approximately 50% of the publisher’s list price, but Amazon may be responding to the pressure generated by its major rivals Apple and Google, which have publicly stated royalties of 70% and 63% respectively. The move also appears to be tied to speculation that Amazon is withdrawing support for its wholly owned e-book platform Mobipocket (see Is Mobi a Dying Whale?). For years Mobi has served as the go-to place for publishers to upload files destined for the Kindle, but with the Kindle DTP program Amazon is clearly going in another direction.

Royalty? 70%.  But…of What?

At first glance the new 70% royalty would appear to be a no-brainer for  publishers and authors, 70% being more than 50%, right?  Well… not so fast.

For one thing, you are prohibited from charging more than $9.99 for your e-book. Commitment to Kindle’s DTP price structure will preclude content providers – such as the five major publishers that signed agreements with Apple – from selling their e-books on the iPad at Apple’s suggested retail prices of $12.99 to $14.99.

For another thing, the 70% royalty is calculated not on the publisher’s list price but on the actual price charged by Amazon.  If your book’s list price is $9.99 and Amazon charges customers $9.99, then yes, you’ll make out well with a royalty of $6.99.  However, if Amazon offers your book at $4.99 your 70% royalty will be $3.49. And the deeper that Amazon discounts the book’s price the lower your royalty goes.

How deeply could Amazon discount your book?  If there were a price war the list price could go very low indeed.  Could there be an e-book price war? Recently Barnes & Noble discounted the list prices of many books to as low as $3.21.  If Amazon matched that price, your 70% royalty would be $2.25. And with new retailers coming into the business, the prospects for price-cutting are not insignificant.

Playing It Safe with 35% of List Price

If you don’t have the stomach for that kind of roller coaster ride or have better things to do than track your book’s list price on the Kindle Store daily – and if you’re a publisher you could be tracking hundreds or thousands of them – Amazon offers you an alternative: a straight and unvarying 35% royalty based on the list price of your book.  For a $9.99 book that means a $3.50 royalty. No matter how low the Kindle price for your book goes, you’ll still get that $3.50.

Playing the Royalty Game

For gamblers who like playing the ends against the middle, Kindle permits content providers to switch from the 70% net royalty to the 35% list price royalty, something you might want to do if your books are caught in a price war. The new royalty will kick in within 48 hours from the time you issue the command, according to Amazon’s pricing page. How easy it will be for large publishers to switch over from one mode to another, we can’t say. If it means manually clicking on hundreds and hundreds of titles, that will be a problem. If e-book prices go back up again you can switch back to 70%, and switch back and forth as often as you want. On the other hand, if you want to speculate in futures it might be easier to day-trade pork bellies.

Another thing you need to know is that the 70% royalty applies only to US sales.  Royalties for non-US sales such as the UK are calculated at 35% of list price with no other option.

Mega-Bite Out of Your Royalties

But there’s more:  Amazon will now charge content providers for delivering e-books to customers, a little like airlines charging fliers for luggage. The charge is fifteen cents per megabyte but no less than one penny. We at E-Reads have measured the file size of our e-books and determined that a typical book is about 2 megabytes: a large one might be 3 MB. That translates to $.30 and $.45 respectively and it comes off the top. On a $9.99 title sold at 70% discount, that’s a levy of somewhere between 3% and 4 1/2% for a book of average length.  But if the list price is heavily discounted, as in the example above where your royalty is $2.25, Amazon’s bite on your pay check will be roughly between 7% and 11%.

We’re not aware of other retailers charging for delivery of content, but the prospect of Amazon’s rivals picking up on the practice should be of concern to all content providers.

There are some other significant restrictions and conditions which you can – and should – read here.

If you’re a gambler who likes action and want to play the odds, the new Kindle royalty structure is your game.  If you’re an author or publisher, you could make out very well if list prices stay high. But you could also take a bath if there’s a price war.  You may decide to opt for the safe, straight 35% of list price. But bear in mind that that’s 30% less than the 50% that Amazon was paying you before The Great Change. If you add the delivery charge the net proceeds to you are even smaller.

To read Amazon’s announcement in its entirety, click here.

Richard Curtis

Pricing Page

1. Royalty Options. Subject to the limitations set forth in this Pricing Page, for each Digital Book, you may choose, in accordance with our then-current procedures, either the 35% Royalty Option or the 70% Royalty Option, each described below.

a. 35% Royalty Option.

i. The Royalty for the Digital Book will be equal to 35% of the applicable List Price for the Digital Book.

ii. For any Digital Book for which you select the 35% Royalty Option, at all times that the Digital Book is available for sale through the Program, you must adjust the List Price as required to ensure that the List Price, plus any applicable VAT, does not exceed the lowest of: (a) the lowest suggested retail price or equivalent price for any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book; (b) the lowest price at which you list or offer any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book on any website or other sales channel; and (c) any maximum List Price we provide from time to time in the Program Policies.

b. 70% Royalty Option.

i. The 70% Royalty Option is only applicable to sales to United States customers, so if you choose this option, the Royalty on sales to non-United States customers will be as provided under the 35% Royalty Option.

ii. The Royalty will be equal to 70% of the amount equal to the applicable List Price for the Digital Book less the Delivery Costs (as defined below) for the Digital Book. But if we sell the Digital Book at a price below the List Price to match the price at which a third party sells any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book or to match the price at which we sell any physical edition of the Digital Book, the Royalty will be equal to 70% of the amount equal to the price at which we sell the Digital Book less the Delivery Costs for the Digital Book. Our determinations regarding price-matching are final and non-reviewable. If you object to our price-matching determination with regard to one of your books, your sole and exclusive remedy is to switch your Royalty option for future sales of the Digital Book to the 35% Royalty Option as described below.

iii. The Delivery Costs for a Digital Book will be equal to $0.15 multiplied by our determination of the number of megabytes your Digital Book file contains, once uploaded by you and converted by us into our then-current Digital Book format. One megabyte equals 1024 kilobytes. One kilobyte equals 1024 bytes. We will round file sizes up to the nearest kilobyte. The minimum Delivery Cost for a Digital Book will be $0.01 regardless of file size.

iv. Example: If your book has a file size of 0.400 megabytes and a List Price of $8.99, the Delivery Cost will be $0.06 (0.400 MB x $0.15 = $0.06), and your Royalty will be $6.25 (($8.99 – $0.06) x 70% = $6.25).

v. For any Digital Book for which you select the 70% Royalty Option, at all times that the Digital Book is available for sale through the Program, you must adjust the List Price as required to ensure that the List Price does not exceed the lowest of: (a) the lowest suggested retail price or equivalent price for any digital edition of the Digital Book; (b) the lowest price at which you list or offer any digital edition of the Digital Book on any website or other sales channel; (c) 20% below the lowest suggested retail price or equivalent price for any physical edition of the Digital Book; (d) 20% below the lowest price at which you list or offer any physical edition of the Digital Book on any website or other sales channel; and (e) any maximum List Price we provide from time to time in the Program Policies.

vi. The 70% Royalty Option is not available for Digital Books that consist primarily of public domain content, and by selecting the 70% Royalty Option for a Digital Book, you confirm that it does not consist primarily of public domain content. If you select the 70% Royalty Option for a Digital Book that we determine consists primarily of public domain content, we will be entitled to change the Digital Book to the 35% Royalty Option retroactively and to pay you Royalties and adjust your previously reported or paid Royalties based on the 35% Royalty Option.

vii. If you select the 70% Royalty Option for a Digital Book, you must make it available to us for distribution in each territory for which you have appropriate distribution rights, and you must comply with any other restrictions or requirements we may provide from time to time for the 70% Royalty Option in the Program Policies.

viii. If at any time your Digital Book does not meet the requirements for the 70% Royalty Option, the Royalty for the Digital Book will be as provided in the 35% Royalty Option.

ix. Any new feature incorporated into the Program will apply to all Digital Books distributed under the 70% Option even if we make the feature optional for other Digital Books.

2. Changing your Royalty Option. You may change your choice of Royalty option for future sales of a Digital Book at any time through our then-current procedures. It may take up to 48 hours for your change to be effective.

3. List Price Requirements. To be accepted in the Program, your Digital Book’s List Price must meet the List Price requirements.

SEATTLE, Jun 30, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that the 70 percent royalty option that enables authors and publishers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell is now available. For each book sold from the Kindle Store for Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac and Android phones, authors and publishers who choose the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of the list price, net of delivery costs.

Delivery costs are based on file size, and pricing is set at $0.15/MB. At today’s median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option. This new option, first announced in January 2010, will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option.

In addition to the 70 percent royalty option, Amazon also announced improvements in DTP such as a more intuitive “Bookshelf” feature and a simplified two-step process for publishing. These features make it more convenient for authors and publishers to publish using DTP.

“We’re excited about the launch of the 70 percent royalty option and user experience enhancements in DTP because they enable authors and publishers to conveniently offer more content to Kindle customers and to make more money from the books they sell,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content.

DTP authors and publishers are now able to select the royalty option that best meets their needs. Books from authors and publishers who choose the 70 percent royalty option will have access to all the same features and be subject to all the same requirements as books receiving the standard royalty rate. In addition, to qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, books must satisfy the following set of requirements:

* The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99.
* The list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest list price for the physical book.
* The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights.
* The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
* Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices.

The 70 percent royalty option is for in-copyright works and is unavailable for works published before 1923 (a.k.a. public domain books). The 70 percent royalty option is currently only available for books sold to United States customers.

DTP is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and format their books for sale in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). To learn more about the Kindle Digital Text Platform, visit http://dtp.amazon.com or e-mail dtp-support@amazon.com.

Kindle is in stock and available for immediate shipment today at http://www.amazon.com/kindle.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle and Kindle DX are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle and Kindle DX utilize the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.deb,www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and www.amazon.cn. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

SOURCE: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon.com, Inc.

Oops. We meant Mobi, not Moby

Mobipocket is a cross-platform e-book format developed by a French team at the dawn of the e-book revolution.  It was the earliest attempt to make a one-size-fits-all program and for years the most successful.  Then Amazon acquired it and reversed its polarity, turning it from a universal format to an exclusive closed system. That system became the Kindle. E-book publishers wanting to convert files for the Kindle use a variant of Mobi called eBookBase.

According to Diesel founders Scott Redford and Kelley Allen. you can kiss your eBookBase goodbye. “Last month,” they report on the Diesel website, ” eBookBase informed their client base that they had no current or future intentions of renewing their contracts with the Agency Five (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster) and that they were pulling all A5 books off our site.”

Redford and Allen have looked at some other examples of a fading MobiPocket presence and wonder Are We Witnessing the Slow, Agonizing Death of Mobipocket?

It makes sense to us. A whole new suite of tools has burgeoned since the program was introduced and it just may be that the time has come to deep-six Mobi. Au revoir, cher ami!

Richard Curtis

Amazon.com Press Release:

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Amazon today announced a new update to Kindle for iPad and Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch, which allows readers to enjoy the benefits of embedded video and audio clips in Kindle books. The first books to take advantage of this new technology, including Rick Steves’ London by Rick Steves and Together We Cannot Fail by Terry Golway, are available in the Kindle Store at this URL.

“We are excited to add this functionality to Kindle for iPad and Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch,” said Dorothy Nicholls, director, Amazon Kindle. “Readers will already find some Kindle Editions with audio/video clips in the Kindle Store today–from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes with video tips on preparing the perfect cake to Bird Songs with audio clips that relate the songs and calls to the birds’ appearances. This is just the beginning–we look forward to seeing what authors and publishers create for Kindle customers using the new functionality of the Kindle apps.”

“We are truly excited to have collaborated with Amazon to launch Kindle Editions with audio/video,” said Peter Balis, Director, Digital Content Sales, Wiley. “Innovations like these represent the advantages that digital can offer. Advancing our content in this manner is important for our authors and our readers and it will raise the bar on what digital reading can offer for years to come.”

“In the new Kindle Edition with audio/video of Rick Steves’ London, the embedded walking tours allow customers to listen to Rick as they explore the sites of London,” said Bill Newlin, publisher, Avalon Travel. “Rick’s narration adds depth to the reader’s experience, while listeners can follow the routes more easily with the text.”