E-Books

As a result of the partnership between IndieCommerce and Google, announced in May at BEA, ABA member stores with IndieCommerce websites will be able to sell Google Editions when the product launches.

On Friday, September 17, indie booksellers met with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and members of his staff to discuss the digital content agency model and the dangers posed by below-cost pricing.

An interesting media meme has emerged in the last month: that there are unique opportunities for indie booksellers in a society of hyper-connectivity and technological saturation.

Markus Dohle, the chairman and CEO of Random House, and Andrew Wylie, the president of the Wylie Agency, have resolved their differences over Random House titles included in Wylie’s Odyssey Editions e-book publishing program as digital editions available only from Amazon.com.

This week, ABA CEO Oren Teicher wrote to Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, to urge him to refocus his office’s recently announced inquiry into agreements between the industry’s major publishers and Amazon.com and Apple, Inc.

Much of the reaction to the Wylie Agency's creation of a publishing subsidiary that will sell e-books exclusively through Amazon's Kindle platform addressed the disadvantage that independent bookstores and other retailers now face.

Last week's news of literary agent Andrew Wylie's exclusive agreement with Amazon.com to publish Kindle editions of 20 backlist titles by notable writers represented by Wylie provoked strong reactions among some major publishers and elicited extensive industry discussion regarding the implications of this potential disintermediation.

21,919 industry professionals at BEA; Above the Treeline launches Edelweiss GeoSearch; PBS NewsHour features industry discussion on e-books; Lambda Literary Foundation names 2010 award winners; 2010 Arab American Book Award winners announced

The opening session of ABA's Day of Education at BEA featured ABA's Oren Teicher and six other industry leaders debating "the value of the book."

Google Editions offers a "a new, exciting twist on e-books," ABA COO Len Vlahos told a standing-room-only audience at Tuesday afternoon's session featuring Tom Turvey, director of strategic partnerships for Google. The session was part of ABA's Day of Education, sponsored by Ingram.