“I feel like exposing this scam might even hurt my own sales,” he said.
Experts are more optimistic: Jane Friedman, a professor of digital publishing at the University of Virginia, describes catfish as an ongoing but “not that significant” threat. (“It increases the noise for everyone, sure,” she wrote by e-mail, “but for any author building a long-term career, it’s not hard to distinguish yourself from low-quality opportunists.”) Amazon, meanwhile, promises that it is weeding out deceptive accounts and their products.
Amazon
America’s Biggest Publisher of Literature In Translation is Amazon
Of course, $10 million over five years for works in translation is not a world-shaking announcement—after all, Simon & Schuster just gave comedian Amy Schumer close to that amount for just one book. And, while AmazonCrossing did announce a few interesting tweaks to its operations (more on those in a moment), it is mostly committing to continuing to do what works, just on a slightly grander scale. Still, though $10 million over five years will not turn AmazonCrossing into a publishing powerhouse, it still has important implications for translators and for readers.
From America’s Biggest Publisher of Literature In Translation is Amazon | The New Republic
Girl, 12, finds porn on Amazon search for teenage books
Nicola, who lives in the south of England, said her daughter was looking for free books to download for a new Kindle which she was to be given as a present.
“I’m trying to protect my teenager in every way possible,” she said.
“I’m doing all the things that I ought to do and a company like Amazon is not only allowing her to access it but is actually offering it to her when she’s not even looking for it.
From Girl, 12, finds porn on Amazon search for teenage books – BBC News
E-Book Sales Fall After New Amazon Contracts
When the world’s largest publishers struck e-book distribution deals with Amazon.com Inc. over the past several months, they seemed to get what they wanted: the right to set the prices of their titles and avoid the steep discounts the online retail giant often applies.
But in the early going, that strategy doesn’t appear to be paying off.
Strong case could be made that Amazon actually saved publishing
Another wake-up call from Amazon as they serve author interests better than publishers have
http://goo.gl/3HBmxx
Excerpt:
Although those fighting Amazon can and will point to what they consider to be situations where Amazon takes unfair advantage of its marketplace position, there are two aspects of what has transpired over the past 20 years that the critics who plead for government intervention will almost certainly ignore.
Most of Amazon’s success is due to their own stellar performance: innovating, investing, executing, and having a vision of what could happen as they grew.
Most of what Amazon has done to build their business — almost all of what they’ve done until the past few years of Kindle dominance — benefited most publishers and helped them grow their sales and their profitability. (In fact, book publishing uniquely among media businesses didn’t fall off a cliff in the decade surrounding the millenium and a strong case could be made that Amazon actually saved them.)
How libraries can compete with Google and Amazon – Quartz
“Being able to provide the resources and technology that people can’t afford on their own is something that the library—that’s what the library should do,” says Watson from the Queens Library. “The library is the equalizer.”
From How libraries can compete with Google and Amazon – Quartz
EU Launches Antitrust Probe Of Amazon’s E-Book Business
European regulators have launched a formal investigation into Amazon’s practices in the e-book market.
In a statement released Thursday, the European Commission announced that its antitrust investigation will focus on Amazon’s contracts with publishers — and whether the Internet retailer is abusing its dominant position as the largest e-book distributor in Europe.
The commission, the 28-member executive arm of the European Union, is especially concerned with a few key parts of those contracts.
In particular, NPR’s Lynn Neary reports, “The commission is concerned about specific clauses that require publishers to inform Amazon about more favorable or alternative terms offered by its competitors.”
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/11/413676630/eu-launches-antitrust-probe-of-amazons-e-book-business
How Amazon Tricks You Into Thinking It Always Has the Lowest Prices
The goal of the index is to highlight how a nuanced approach to pricing %u2014 such as Amazon%u2019s %u2014 can be a smarter, more cost-effective option over simply price-matching across the board. This is where Boomerang enters the conversation: The startup wants to help Amazon competitors think about pricing in as sophisticated a way as Amazon does.
http://recode.net/2015/01/13/how-amazon-tricks-you-into-thinking-it-always-has-the-lowest-prices/
Amazon And Hachette Reach A Deal On E-Book Pricing
Amazon And Hachette Reach A Deal On E-Book Pricing
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/13/363794096/amazon-and-hachette-reach-a-deal-on-e-book-pricing
Recent Comments