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Digital
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Written by Michael Bhaskar
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 07:00 |
Michael Bhaskar outlines why publishers believe 25% of receipts to be a fair ebook royalty
It can hardly have escaped Bookbrunch readers' notice that even for the exposure-hungry world of digital publishing things have kicked off in a big way. First, The Wylie Agency launches its own imprint, Odyssey Editions, selling backlist titles of big name writers exclusively through Amazon Kindle, by-passing publishers en route. Then publishers, enraged at a move seen as undermining their investment and work (from editorial to publicity and everything in between) hit back, with Random House publicly announcing that it is curtailing business with the agency, and Macmillan US CEO John Sergent denouncing the move on his company blog. HarperCollins has expressed anger over the move. This is not to say the noise has been one sided – on the Futurebook blog, agents have been making the case that this development is actually largely the fault of publishers. An unfolding game of strategic plays and counter-plays is unfolding on the chessboard of Anglo-American publishing, with no clear sides, rules or outcomes yet apparent.
At the heart of this is one question: what is a fair way to split digital revenue? |
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Publishing
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Written by Trevor Dolby
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Friday, 16 July 2010 07:00 |
So it's tough and the future's unknown - but let's think blue sky, suggests Trevor Dolby
Psychiatrist: Tell me, Harold, how many of these, uh, suicides have you performed?
Harold: An accurate number would be difficult to gauge.
Psychiatrist: Well, just give me a rough estimate.
Harold: A rough estimate? I'd say... fifteen.
Psychiatrist: Fifteen?
Harold: That’s a rough estimate.
Psychiatrist: Were they all done for your mother's benefit?
Harold: No. No, I would not say "benefit."
Harold and Maude 1971, Collin Higgins
I was brushing the old toothy-pegs on Friday morning when up pops David “Two Brains” Willetts on the wireless, rattling on about a lecture he was to give at the Royal Institution that day about how public spending cuts might affect science research. Evan “Gollum” Davis (I’ll stop now) introduced, outlining the 25%/40% cuts scenario. |
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Publishing
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Written by Toby Mundy
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Friday, 09 July 2010 09:19 |
As a general rule, I'm sure it is better to let journalists do their job
and not respond to articles with which one disagrees. But your lead
item of 6 June - "Atlantic: clouds on the horizon?" - contains
inaccuracies that are potentially damaging to the company. Because
everything lasts forever online, I have no choice but to respond to it.
The article implies, as BookBrunch has done before, that there is a
possible conflict of interest at work in the company, because one of its
executives, Anthony Cheetham, is married to an important literary
agent, Georgina Capel.
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Children's
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Written by Nicolette Jones
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Friday, 09 July 2010 08:48 |
Rosemary Stones, editor of Books for Keeps, chaired a Talking Pictures event at Random House this week for librarians, teachers, booksellers and press, with Chris Wormell, Mini Grey, Sue Hendra (above left) and newcomer Nadia Shireen (r).
Wormell talked of his admiration from his youth for engraver Thomas Beswick, and how he had to read his first story, Blue Rabbit and Friends, aloud to Tom Maschler, who could not read Wormell's writing. Wormell and his wife, he revealed, are the protagonists in Two Frogs - his wife being a worrier, inclined to wonder "What if?", And his latest, One Smart Fish, began with the image of one fish playing chess against a whole school; it was some years, appropriately, before it evolved into a story about evolution.
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Digital
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Written by Michael Bhaskar
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Thursday, 08 July 2010 09:15 |
With everyone feeling the pinch, now is not a good time for the book industry to complain about its lot, says Michael Bhaskar
By now we all know that the Budget spared books the hammer blow of VAT, but that audiobooks and ebooks were still included and will rise to the new 20% VAT rate as of next year.
Given that margins for digital products are, as with their print relations, already constrained, what amounts to a 2.5% reduction in margin is wholly unwelcome. Effectively, ebooks and audiobooks are from 2011 priced 20% cheaper than print, a price drop that would no doubt appeal to consumers; but this difference is eaten by the Exchequer. It harms an emergent area, stymies growth and prevents digital revenue security for everyone in the book trade.
There are already renewed calls for a campaign against the tax. Virtually every audiobook carries a sticker that aggressively asks that VAT be scrapped. Mutterings of an industry-wide effort are abroad. However I believe that right now any such move would be wrong. |
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