| It’s been a contentious week in the comics world—here’s a roundup of what everyone was arguing about—so it’s nice that this week’s digital comics bargains are not only solid reading, none of them are superhero comics. Instead, they offer some of the wonderful variety that lies beyond that world. Take Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance, a comic with a strong female lead that doesn’t seem to suffer because of it. Dark Horse is offering a megabundle of Season 9, 23 comics for $20. And they have some great deals on Angel & Faith singles and bundles as well. ComiXology’s weekend sale is on Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth, which they are offering for 99 cents per issue. Published by DC’s Vertigo imprint, this is an odd little story set in a post-apocalyptic world in which humans and animals have crossed over; the hero is a boy with antlers. It looks like this sale is available for Kindle and Nook users as well; just search for the comics in the store. Over in the Nook store, they have marked down some of the Smurfs books, including The Smurf King and the very first Smurfs graphic novel, The Purple Smurfs, to $1.99 each. And don’t forget that Viz has a summer sale going on until September 5 in their app and on the Nook. There’s plenty of good reading for the dog days of summer, so don’t miss out! Digital Comics Bargains for April 9: Now for Something Completely Different is a post from: E-Reader News |
Friday, August 9, 2013
Digital Comics Bargains for April 9: Now for Something Completely Different
What is the Best Methodology for eBook Production?
| Publishers are at a crossroads when it comes to digitizing their books and marketing them through various sales channels. There is no shortage of companies out there begging for business and passing themselves off as a one stop shop for eBook creation services. What are the current best practices for developing an eBook creation pipeline? Is it better to develop your own technologies and create everything in-house or to outsource it to a third party? It is very important to understand the current landscape of eBook production to evaluate what process works best for your company. In order to make this a bit easy to understand, major publishers led a session at the DPF Digital Book 2013 conference in New York to talk about this very issue. A informal survey was conducted and respondents included start-ups, existing publishers and the major players, it should give us a sense on what the current best practices are. Approximately 41% of the responding publishers primarily outsource their eBook production to skilled services providers. However, with 45% of respondents reporting that that their business had moved from one that fully outsourced eBook production, a major trend in digital production strategies appears to be the move towards greater internal production of eBooks. That echoes the approach currently adopted by Open Road Integrated Media. Said Nicole Passage, Managing Editor of Open Road, "Prior to the past year, we outsourced almost all eBook conversion, but recently we've begun to adopt internal solutions, allowing us to increase both efficiency and control over results." Internal production seems to be the one major facet that is quite new to the publishing industry and there a number of major concerns when developing a framework. Those include cost, quality and technical requirements. Creating your own system for digitizing eBooks is not for everyone and can be prohibitively expensive. 70% of the publishers survey said that the costs associated with internal production capabilities, including personnel resources and production tools, were too expensive. Outsourcing eBook development seems to be a major trend right now in the industry, but may not be a viable long-term solution. 40% of the publishers surveyed said they did not even know what tools their outsourcing counterparts were even employing to create digital books. Relying on a third party may bring down the costs, but at the expense of having no idea what they are doing or tools they are using. This creates a reliance on dealing with a company and losing creative control over the process. The publishers who have developed the most compelling internal digital platforms often started with outsourcing their materials, and gained an understanding of the processes involved. This allowed them to gain the technical knowledge to develop their own internal solutions and most were quite happy to have walked down both roads. Of those respondents who had moved to full or significant production in-house, all previously having outsourced such work, 100% stated that they were able to achieve greater efficiencies and net benefits by producing internally than they had seen from outsourcing, even factoring additional personnel overhead. The entire publishing industry is trying to figure out what platform works best for them. It is easier to just push your workload off to a company that specializes in eBook creation, but doing it all in-house is not as hard as most people think. Ingram Lightning Source has a number of fairly compelling tools that allow companies to publish and optimize eBooks. There are a number of free programs like Calibre, that provide a tremendous amount of freedom to simply upload a Microsoft Word document and utilize advanced settings to optimize it for both Kindle and EPUB. Major publishers all see 24% of their global revenue stem from eBooks and this number should increase during the next few years. Having more control over your print and digital content is something that everyone really wants. via Publishing Perspectives What is the Best Methodology for eBook Production? is a post from: E-Reader News |
OCR Raspberry Pi recipe card competition — win stuff just by thinking!
| You may be familiar with the Raspberry Pi recipe cards that we developed with the exam board OCR. These are a great way to start using your Raspberry Pi: quick, creative projects — such as traffic light LEDs, singing jelly babies and Twitter-aware doodhas — that teach one or two new concepts and encourage experimentation and hacking. They are a great classroom tool too and we use them at our programming workshops.  I said “sing!” Sing louder you little gelatine chappie or it’s off with your head! OCR want to make more recipe cards. Because they are nice like that. They know the best ideas for projects are living in your lovely little heads and they want to extract your weird and creative brain juices by means of a Trial of Creative Might. The challenge is to design your own recipe for Raspberry Pi. You can do this by yourself or in a team. One winner or winning team from each age category will win a Raspberry Pi bundle including a T-shirt and will have their winning recipe featured on the Raspberry Pi blog (this means that you will be fabulously famous!). The three age groups are 12 and under; 13-15 and 16-18. Your recipe must have fewer than 100 lines of code and cost less than £10 in parts. And no soldering allowed — we want to make this as accessible as possible. The competition will be judged purely on creativity and imagination rather than technical prowess — you don’t even need to submit any code — so everyone has a chance to enter. The closing date is 30 August 2013 so you have a few weeks to don those Winged Helmets of Ingenuity + 3 and impress us! Full details and terms plus the entry forms are on the OCR website. Good luck!
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Hisense Sero 7 Pro Now Only $129 at Walmart
| Back in June when I reviewed the Hisense Sero 7 Pro, I was surprised by how nice of a tablet it was for $149 (it’s basically the 1st gen Nexus 7 with an HDMI port, microSD card slot, and rear camera with flash) and now the price has dropped even lower down to $129. It’s […] |
New Business Model for Flooved Includes Open Access, Crowdsourcing
 Photo courtesy of velositor,com One of the frustrating hurdles of the publishing industry has been the inability to make a subscription-based model for reading work in a large-scale way. While companies like 24Symbols are still moving forward, the “Netflix of books” concept is still pretty elusive. While some of that rests on the shoulders of consumers who were not sure they were going to get the value of paying a flat-fee for the ability to read books, it was also the publishers who were wary of turning over their authors’ works without a clear understanding of how this was going to be profitable for them and for their authors. Flooved, who modeled itself as a subscription-based digital textbook provider–this time, the “Spotify of textbooks”–has taken a strong look at its business and decided to change its business model after failing to get major textbook publishers on board with its model. Seeing that there was no point in continuing a company who couldn’t offer the most widely used textbooks to its users, Flooved has now shifted its model, a complete malleable business decision made possible by the flexibility of digital publishing, into an open-access content provider and a crowdsourced book distributor. As the open access movement continues to grow, Flooved has brought as many as 800 professors to its site to self-publish their lecture notes and writings for its 8,000 student users to view for free. Flooved will profit from members’ use of the forum which will let students ask questions that professors will answer. The Bookseller conducted an interview with Flooved’s founder, Hamish Brocklebank, who said, “We pivoted our business model back in December and dropped the publishers as we realised students no longer had to be so dependent on overpriced textbooks . . . Along the lines of the Open Access movement, we source our content directly from the world's best professors in maths and physics who share our vision that access to educational materials should be free. These consist of either OA textbooks, unpublished textbooks or extremely high-quality lecture notes." For more on the interview with Flooved, click HERE.
New Business Model for Flooved Includes Open Access, Crowdsourcing is a post from: E-Reader News |
Brush Up Your Knowledge of the Outer Space With Free eBooks From NASA
| Here is one ebook collection that can be part of the treasure trove of every space junkie. Interestingly, the literary pieces themselves have been out for about a decade now, long before ebooks have caught on with the reading community; being a decade old also means those print books cannot provide as refined a reading experience as the newer ebooks do. However, those can still be enough to provide more than just a glimpse of how the various space program unfolded or what it was like for the highly competitive space programs between the two warring nations, the US and USSR, during the height of the Cold War. Interestingly, space research is said to have benefited immensely from the Cold War rivalry between the two then super powers. Beyond that, the ebooks also provide more than a passing glance on how space programs shaped up during the initial formative years. Some of the titles to look forward to include The Difficult Road to Mars: A Brief History of Mars Exploration in the Soviet Union, Wind Tunnels of NASA, Aerospace Food Technology, Life in the Universe: Proceedings of a conference held at NASA Ames Research Center Moffet Field, California, June 19-20, 1979, and many others. Worth mentioning here, it was only last December that NASA released two free ebooks, Hubble Space Telescope Discoveries and James Webb Space Telescope Science Guide, though both of these are iPad specific. Click here for more information on NASA’s series of ebooks.
Brush Up Your Knowledge of the Outer Space With Free eBooks From NASA is a post from: E-Reader News |
Nvidia CEO Confirms Development of Surface RT 2 Device
| We now know what chip the new Surface RT device will be built around. It's going to be Nvidia Tegra 4, of course, after the revelation by their Chief Executive claiming they are working hard with Microsoft on the successor of the present Surface RT device. That Microsoft is working on the next generation of the Surface RT has long been rumored, with some sources pointing out the Redmond-based company had started with Surface RT 2 even before the first gen device was launched. The rumors can be put to rest now that we have confirmation from someone as important as the CEO of Nvidia, though it's surprising that Microsoft's hardware partner revealed their future device development programs. Coming back to what CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said, it’s Outlook for Surface RT that could be the app which will turn around the fortunes of Surface RT. “Now we’re going to bring it with the second-generation Surface,” said Huang. “We’re working really hard on it, and we hope that it’s going to be a big success.” Microsoft's Surface venture has not paid off so far and despite a clamor from its hardware partners to the contrary, the software giant is adamant at pursuing a separate tablet program of its own. Brian Hall, the General Manager of Surface Marketing, has said to ZDnet that Microsoft remains “100 percent committed to Surface RT and Windows RT going forward.” While the failure of the Surface RT is attributed to its OS which lacks adequate support from a thriving application store, the fact remains that the Surface Pro too never made it big in the market. Windows 8 is compliant with the hundreds and thousands of programs already, though those could not save the Surface Pro from making a dismal show. The Surface RT is also said to have suffered from too high a price tag. Microsoft seems to be aware of these issues and there have been rumblings of a smaller 7 to 8 inch-sized Surface variant being put together, one that is likely to be cheap enough to take on the likes of the Nexus 7 or the iPad Minis. With the personal computing trend shifting towards tablet devices, Microsoft has no other choice but to ensure it has a firm footing in the tablet space.
Nvidia CEO Confirms Development of Surface RT 2 Device is a post from: E-Reader News |
Amazon Russia To Launch Soon, eBook Contracts Being Negotiated Now
| Amazon is in the process of launching its services in Russia and towards that, the retail giant has begun forging partnership with publishing houses to ensure it has enough ebooks to offer when it launches. The focus will be to offer ebooks initially though printed books too will be added to the catalogue at a later stage. Rosman, one of Russia's largest publishers of children's books has already been roped in to supply content when Amazon rolls out its service in that country. As publishingperspectives points out, it will be about 100 – 150 titles that will be on offer to begin with, that deals with 'reference, children's and YA titles'. The title count is expected to go up to twice the figure by the end of the year. Interestingly, Russians are already known to buy printed books worth millions of dollars from Amazon's overseas sites. Naturally, Russians will have a lot to save in reduced shipping costs once Amazon sets up shop in that country and begin offering printed books. What remains to be seen is how the US online retail giant copes up with the tyranny of Russian geography that is vast and equally varied, something that can easily be termed as a logistical nightmare. It is also this together with the lack of a pan Russian book sales network like Barnes &Noble that presents the perfect setting for ebooks to thrive, and as is evident elsewhere in the world, the digital version have already turned out to lure more readers than their printed counterparts. Amazon is known to have hired the services of former publisher of ABC-Atticus, Mr. Arkady Vitrukas to head its operations in Russia. Once launched, Amazon will be up against Litres who are the leading distributor of ebooks in the country. Meanwhile, Amazon is reported to be in discussion with several other domestic publishers though no other names are available as yet. Also not known is when Amazon is expected to launch its operation in Russia.
Amazon Russia To Launch Soon, eBook Contracts Being Negotiated Now is a post from: E-Reader News |
Google eTextbooks now Available via Play Books
| Google has just officially launched their new eTextbook rental and purchasing service in the USA. It does not currently have its own section, instead it is an integral part of Google Books. The new digital textbook section has offerings from most major publishers, such as Pearson, Wiley, Macmillian Higher Education, McGraw-Hill and Cengage Learning. The current textbooks only offer the ability to buy or rent, with only a handful allowing you to do both. Each edition as a free sample, that often covers a few chapters, to give you a sense on how the books look. When you purchase any digital edition, it is automatically delivered to you via the Google Books app. If the official e-reading app is not for you, there is a internet browser alternative and some even allow you to export it to your favorite reader, such as the Nook or Kobo. Google eTextbooks now Available via Play Books is a post from: E-Reader News |
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Viz Slashes Prices for Summer Manga Sale
| Viz’s summer sale has become an annual event, and it’s a good one: From now through September 5, all the manga on their digital service (web, iOS, Android) and on the Nook are on sale, up to 20% off the standard price (which starts at $4.99). That means there are a lot of manga you can read right now for $3.99 to $5.99. Bakuman: The ultimate manga about manga, Bakuman follows two would-be manga creators as they work their way up the ladder. They start out in high school, and it’s a bit manic, but this series really provides an interesting glimpse at the manga biz (some characters are supposedly based on real Shonen Jump editors) and the clean-lined art is a perfect fit with the subject matter. This book is by the team of Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba, who are also responsible for Death Note—another manga well worth checking out. Children of the Sea: A haunting and beautiful story of two boys who were raised at the bottom of the sea, and the ways that the sea and humans interact. Parts are like an adventure story, and parts are like folklore. The art is absolutely stunning. At $5.99 per volume, this one is a little pricey, but the volumes are 300 pages long and the series is only five volumes. Saturn Apartments: Splendidly drawn and cleverly thought out, this is a story about a ring-shaped apartment building that orbits the earth. The class structure of the apartments is defined by the physical space: Rich people live in the top level, and they are the healthiest because they have the greatest exposure to sunlight, while the poor and working classes live in darkness in the bottom level. The lead character, Mitsu, is a window washer who is one of the few who can travel between levels, and he and his compatriots see all sides of life in the complex. (The link is to a free preview.) Vampire Knight: We have to have a good shoujo manga in the mix, and Vampire Knight is a dark romance that really delivers the goods. It’s set in a special school that has a night class for vampires, and Yuki Cross is the only point of contact between the day and the night classes. There’s plenty of romance, melodrama, and angst in this splendid potboiler of a manga. Oishinbo: The ultimate Japanese foodie manga, Oishinbo is the story of a reporter on assignment to assemble a meal composed of Japan’s greatest foods. He takes his own sweet time about it, and each volume of this series is based on a specific type of food (except the first, which is a mix). Although there is a bit of a narrative thread—the reporter is the estranged son of a famous gourmet—each volume is a collection of self-contained short stories and can be read on its own. Viz Slashes Prices for Summer Manga Sale is a post from: E-Reader News |
Congratulations 2013 Digital Library Champions Contest Winners!
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The time has come to publicly congratulate our winners for the 2013 Digital Library Champions contest! Dozens of entries were submitted from library and school partners all over the world and 12 great semi-finalists were selected. The final winners were handpicked by members of the editorial staff at Library Journal, who graciously partnered with us to find the best of the best for this year's contest. Thank you Library Journal for your involvement!
As announced on stage during this year's Digipalooza, our winners are:
Online Oregon Digital Library Consortium – Jackson County Library Services (OR)
JCLS created a fun video to promote the Next Generation website design changes! Check it out on YouTube.
Inside the Library
With custom eBook handouts for patrons and several eReader Kits prepared for staff use during training classes, Hennepin has seen growing success with their digital collection. Their eReader Kits each include at least 6 popular tablets and eReaders; a laptop loaded with appropriate software and library card information; a practice guide for staff who need additional help; and adapters that allow the iPads to be used with a projector.
Outside the Library North Carolina Digital Library – High Point Public Library (NC)
To promote the library’s eBooks to new eReader and tablet owners, High Point Public Library provided complimentary gift boxes (with tissue paper, ribbon and gift tag included) that were perfect for wrapping up new devices. In the gift box, they included information on how to use the library’s digital resources and customized the information in the box based on the type of device being given. This popular campaign ran during the winter holidays and again around Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation.
Test Drive Rapid City Public Library (SD)
In addition to eReader classes and displaying and loaning devices within the library, the Rapid City Public Libraries offers a homebound delivery service where patrons that are unable to travel to the library can have library materials delivered to their homes, including Sony eReaders through the Test Drive program.
Excellent eBook Educator (K-12 Schools/Colleges)
Frisco Independent School District did a big month long push to promote OverDrive in a district-wide effort during February 2012. A wide variety of displays, promotional videos, community events, contests, and classroom presentations boosted checkouts by 375% for the month. Each school tailored promotion efforts to their campus featuring different mascots, school specific incentives and more.
OverDrive Allstar Award (Grand Prize) Kenton County Public Library (KY)
The grand prize winner, Kenton County Public Library, introduced a new mascot that represented their digital resources. Their mascot KC was used across multiple platforms to promote their eBooks. Some examples of where KC popped up include their OverDrive website logo, Pinterest, Twitter, screens and displays inside of the library and on cards handed out in the community with information about their eBook collection.
All of the winners of this year's Digital Library Champions contest will receive content credit to build their digital collection; an Android tablet, including a protective case or cover; and a plaque, to display in their library or school to celebrate their win.
We're proud to honor these creative and effective marketing campaigns and look forward to sharing their ideas in future Librarian's Share blog posts. Congratulations again to our winners!
Melissa Marin is a Marketing Specialist at OverDrive.
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Good e-Reader Radio Show – DOJ Apple News, Washington Post Sold and Sony eBook Changes
| Welcome to another edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today we have Good e-Reader editor in chief Michael Kozlowski talking to Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World! They discuss the proposed Justice Department terms that would see Apple losing 30% royalties on eBooks and everything else. Initially, when the publishers settled with the courts, as part of the disbanded agency pricing model, they were told it would be two years before they could revisit this sales model. The DOJ is proposing that it be extended to five years, which is ruffling feathers. In other news, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon has purchased the Washington Post. Obviously, the newspaper industry is sagging right now and a fresh new direction could be in store very soon. The Washington Post is considered one of the most valued newspapers in America. Finally, Sony has launched pre-orders for eBooks and a bunch of new discovery engines, is it just a gimmick? The Good e-Reader Radio Show is a weekly broadcast that focuses on the trends and major news items of the digital publishing, eBook and e-Reader industry! Good e-Reader Radio Show – DOJ Apple News, Washington Post Sold and Sony eBook Changes is a post from: E-Reader News |
Final Chapters of Prizoner of Azkaban Released on Pottermore
| Pottermore, the free interactive website that invites Harry Potter fans to more fully explore the in-depth world of the boy wizard, announced recently that the final chapters of book three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, are available for users to explore. Registered users get a street’s eye view of Harry’s world, including the prestigious Hogwarts school and Diagon Alley. But more than just the chapters are new on the fan site. The Pottermore designers unveiled a host of new features on the site to make the experience more engaging and fulfilling. Features like a status bar help users know if they have completed all of the possible explorations, fully-illustrated Moments give fans a whole new perspective on Harry’s life, and even a fully updated home page where users sign in creates a brand-new experience. Other features include previously unpublished background information on some of the author’s favorite characters, an interactive map to help users navigate the sections of the site that have already been discovered, a new top and side bar with user data, and more. fe One new feature that will potentially enhance the experience for a variety of users is the ability to comment on individual pages of the site. This level of sharing brings the experience to a whole new level, as users are able to interact with one another and discuss insights gleaned from their explorations. This update marks the first time since the departure of CEO Charlie Redmayne for a return to HarperCollins that Pottermore has unveiled this much new content. A more complete explanation of the new upgrades can be found on the Pottermore Insider blog.
Final Chapters of Prizoner of Azkaban Released on Pottermore is a post from: E-Reader News |
Overdrive Media Console Update to be Released August 20th
| Overdrive is putting the finishing touches on the largest singular update they have ever released for their Media Console. The entirely redesigned user experience focuses around taps and swipes. It also syncs bookmarks and reading progress across multiple devices using a free, opt-in registration service called OverDrive One. If you are a fan of audiobooks, there is a new veritable speed controller now, that will allow you to increase the speed in which a book is being read aloud. Finally, there is lots of new social media integration with GoodReads and other networks.
Overdrive Media Console Update to be Released August 20th is a post from: E-Reader News |
Flipkart Launches e-Platform For Aspiring Authors in India
| Online retailer Flipkart is out to woo debutant authors in India by announcing the launch of a new e-platform which will serve as a launch pad for authors in the country. This should be seen as a boon to the author community, and particularly the aspiring and to-be authors which in any case contribute about 30 percent of the entire publishing task undertaken in India. However, the benefits of such an effort are both ways as it's not only the authors who get to enjoy a worldwide launch of their literary works, but the portal too has much to earn (along with the authors too) from the sale of the ebooks. Also, such a development on part of Flipkart does make a lot of sense considering the steep popularity curve that ebooks have hit upon in India. Such a trend is attributed to the growing popularity of smart connected devices such as smartphones and tablet devices together with the ease that these devices provide for towards ebook reading. Interestingly, Flipkart holds a sway over 40 – 45 percent of the printed books market, something that could come under strain once ebook sales pick up. Printed books have been witnessing a decrease in its appeal with the emergence of ebooks and the same could be seen getting repeated in India as well in the long run. Publishers though have stated they are witnessing a rise in demand for printed books which they have attributed to the increasing popularity of ebooks in the country. However, the immediate focus for Flipkart seems to be on ebooks and have stated they intend to increase their ebook count to a million from the current 2.5 lakhs. The retailer now has an app for iOS, Android and Windows platform and is keen to ramp up its efforts against piracy and security. Worth noting, Flipkart had started retailing books in India in Dec 2012.
Flipkart Launches e-Platform For Aspiring Authors in India is a post from: E-Reader News |
Guest post #5: Raspberry Pi tutorials for complete beginners
| When Henry asked us for a camera module to write a beginners’ tutorial we knew that he would put it to good use. We weren’t disappointed — keep up the good work Henry, we look forward to seeing more tutorials in future. My Name is Henry Budden and I am a 13 year old Pi enthusiast. Since the Raspberry Pi came out, I have been very busy programming, tinkering and teaching in all of my spare time. I am the owner of the site www.raspberrypitutorials.yolasite.com. This site is designed to teach computing beginners how to use the raspberry pi to the max! On this site I have tutorials on gaming, printing, and lots more!  Raspberry Pi stuff in the post — happy days! I set up my site about half a year ago, and I have been very successful, as I have 255 followers at this moment, and about 100 people visit my site each day. Recently, I received an email from a computing teacher from Jersey. He told me that he was running an after-school club and that he has put a link to my site on the school's page. This will be used in all of the after-school sessions. I felt pretty proud of myself when I read this! I have also made a holder / case for my camera module (very kindly donated by the foundation) which you can view on my twitter account [and above], and judge my woodwork skills! If you wish to contact me for any reason at all, then please do not hesitate. I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. I also have a separate email address: raspberrypitutorials@hotmail.com Thank you very much for taking your time to read my short blog post. Henry |
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Take our latest poll to offer feedback about what tutorials you'd most like to see. |
Podcast: New and Featured Content for August
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Head over to OverDrive's Learning Center to listen to our brand-new collection highlights podcast for the month of August. We'll give you the low-down on the newest publishers in OverDrive Marketplace, and we'll also highlight this month's featured publishers and share news about publishers who'll be joining us soon.
This month's publishers include purveyors of genre romance, career development titles, educational eBook series for kids and teens, award-winning eBooks and audiobooks, indie films, and much more.
You can access this month's podcast all month on our Learning Center, where you can also find additional training about collection development and placing orders in OverDrive Marketplace. Happy listening!
Carrie Smith is a Technical Writer at OverDrive.  |
Review: Asus Travel Cover for 2nd Gen Nexus 7 (Video)
| Last week I posted an article with a list of 10 covers and cases for the 2nd gen Google Nexus 7 tablet. Before posting the article I had already ordered the official travel cover for the Nexus 7 that is made by Asus. At the time there weren’t any reviews for it so it was […] |
Publishers Displeased with DOJ Terms against Apple
 Photo courtesy of tablet-news.com The first stage in the Department of Justice anti-trust lawsuit against Apple and five of the Big Six publishers was to secure settlements from the publishers involved. The publishers, who at the time were Penguin, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette but who only now include Random House due to its merger with Penguin (Random House took no part in the price fixing allegations), settled for around $166 million without admitting to any wrongdoing, only agreeing to the settlement terms because it would have been far more expensive to go to trial to defend themselves. Following the recent ruling that found Apple guilty of the allegations, in which Apple is believed to be responsible for as much as $500 million in damages, the publishers have now had to come forward to voice their complaint against some of the terms in the ruling. A brief submitted on behalf of those publishers contends that the terms set forth by the Department of Justice will prevent Apple from entering into agency-model pricing for five years, thereby eliminating any chance of discounting ebooks. And who still gets to discount ebooks? Amazon. Part of the publishers’ settlement terms included allowing retailers like Amazon to discount new releases for certain time periods, but the DOJ’s terms have severed Apple’s contracts on agency pricing for five years. Apple also isn’t allowed to enter into new agreements during that time period. Given that the terms also included requiring Apple to hire its own inside person to oversee anti-trust behaviors, as well as hire a “court appointed” outside person to look over their shoulder, this portion of the terms might actually have merit. Is the DOJ really looking out for the consumers with this section of the ruling, or is it looking to make an example of Apple by being overly punitive? And isn’t it really the publishers who will be affected by a major retailer’s inability to sell ebooks at comparable prices, effectively hurting the authors as well? According to the publishers, they’ve paid their dues. They agreed to their settlement terms and the amount, yet they feel this measure will punish them all over again.
Publishers Displeased with DOJ Terms against Apple is a post from: E-Reader News |