I Would Rather See My Books Get Pirated Than This (Or: Why Goodreads and Amazon Are Becoming Dumpster Fires)
We desperately need guardrails on this landslide of misattribution and misinformation. Amazon and Goodreads, I beg you to create a way to verify authorship, or for authors to easily block fraudulent books credited to them. Do it now, do it quickly.
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Amazon’s latest antitrust foe: Libraries
Driving the news: The American Library Association said libraries are struggling to acquire ebooks because of an “abuse of market power by dominant firms,” as part of a report for the House Judiciary Committee’s digital markets investigation that was made public Thursday.
https://www.axios.com/amazon-library-ala-antitrust-ebooks-679e8e4d-97bc-4b91-98dc-353d607e6cd2.html
Amazon caught selling counterfeits of publisher’s computer books—again
Amazon markets the service to publishers as a way to have “100 percent availability of books” internationally, and the company has enrolled a number of publishers. The problem is that Amazon apparently doesn’t police whether book content uploaded to CreateSpace actually belongs to the person doing the uploading. As others who sell through Amazon have discovered, Amazon has had a problem with mixing legitimate and counterfeit products in fulfillment warehouses because of how it prepositions product for Prime Delivery.
From Amazon caught selling counterfeits of publisher’s computer books—again | Ars Technica
Amazon Sells Way Fewer Books To Academic Libraries Than People Think
Is Amazon taking over the academic library industry? That’s what a new study from a higher-education-focused non-profit takes a look at, and their findings might surprise you as long as you haven’t read the title of this article too closely.
For the study, Ithaka S+R gathered acquisitions data from 124 U.S. higher education institutions in fiscal year 2017 along with data from 51 institutions covering between 2014 and 2017. The report has more than one interesting takeaway about the under-examined world of academic literature, but here’s the big one: Amazon isn’t anywhere close to controlling the academic library market.
From Amazon Sells Way Fewer Books To Academic Libraries Than People Think
Booksellers Protest Amazon Site’s Move to Drop Stores From Certain Countries
More than 250 antiquarian book dealers in 24 countries say they are pulling over a million books off an Amazon-owned site for a week, an impromptu protest after the site abruptly moved to ban sellers from several nations.
The flash strike against the site, AbeBooks, which is due to begin Monday, is a rare concerted action by vendors against any part of Amazon, which depends on third-party sellers for much of its merchandise and revenue. The protest arrives as increasing attention is being paid to the extensive power that Amazon wields as a retailer — a power that is greatest in books.
From Booksellers Protest Amazon Site’s Move to Drop Stores From Certain Countries – The New York Times
The populism of Amazon’s real-world bookstores
Walking around, I half-expected to see SQL queries accompanying some of the displays — “SELECT * FROM books WHERE rating > 4.8 AND pub_year = 2017 ORDER BY number_sold”. Amazon definitely needs to figure out how to get a little weird into their stores, a little of the human touch. Toning down the data talk would help. A more casual typeface might work too — not Comic Sans but perhaps something at least approaching handwritten? They’ve got so so much data about how people buy books…they just need to be more clever about how they slice and dice it. Maybe look for books that exhibit the Napoleon Dynamite Problem? Find people with interesting wishlists?
Best Books of the Year @ Amazon.com
More About Amazon.com’s Best Books of 2017
All year, Amazon.com’s editorial team reads with an eye for the Best Books of the Month, plus the best books in popular categories like Cooking, Food & Wine, Literature & Fiction, Children’s books, Mystery & Thrillers, Comics & Graphic Novels, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, the best books for teens, and more. We scour reviews and book news for tips on what the earliest readers have loved, share our own copies and tear through as many books as possible. Then we face off in a monthly Best Books meeting to champion the titles we think will resonate most with readers.In October, we collect all our favorites, look at upcoming 2017 titles, and cast our ballots for the Best Books of the Year. The titles that made our lists are the keepers, the ones we couldn’t forget. Many of our editorial picks for the best books are also customer favorites and best sellers, but we love to spotlight the best books you might not otherwise have heard about, too.
The books included in Amazon’s Best Books program are entirely editorial selections. We are committed to helping customers find terrific gifts for booklovers and drawing more attention to exceptional authors. Our passion is for uniting readers of all ages and tastes with their next favorite reads.
Trump appointment pushes book to #1 on Amazon
On February 20, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump named McMaster to serve as his National Security Advisor following the forced resignation of Michael T. Flynn on February 13.
Blurb about book: (First published in 1997) Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning new analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on recently released transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. It also pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.
Dereliction Of Duty covers the story in strong narrative fashion, focusing on a fascinating cast of characters: President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, General Maxwell Taylor, McGeorge Bundy and other top aides who deliberately deceived the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Congress and the American public.
Sure to generate controversy, Dereliction Of Duty is an explosive and authoritative new look at the controversy concerning the United States involvement in Vietnam.
Book — http://amzn.to/2mgGLlq
George Orwell’s 1984 Is Now the #1 Bestselling Book on Amazon
George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, 1984, has suddenly surged to the very top of the Amazon’s bestseller list. Though first published in 1949, it’s back with a vengeance. And George only has the new administration to thank.
From George Orwell’s 1984 Is Now the #1 Bestselling Book on Amazon | Open Culture
Amazon dominates self-publishing in books
A recent report (pdf) from Bowker, the US company that issues International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), shows that self-publishing is growing rapidly. Between 2010 and 2015, the number of ISBNs from self-published books grew by 375%. From 2014 and 2015 alone, the number grew by 21%. And perfectly positioned to take advantage of the growth is Amazon, whose DIY print business CreateSpace has become far and away the biggest self-publishing platform in the United States.
From Amazon (AMZN) dominates self-publishing in books — Quartz
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