For all the hot and humid “how dare they?” rants greeting Amazon’s standoff over sales terms with Hachette, our more sensitive spines may be feeling a chill.
Cooler heads are trying to remind the anti-Amazonian forces that Barnes & Noble created a very similar crisis for authors last year without suffering nearly so much criticism. In that skirmish, B&N declined to carry many Simon & Schuster releases whilst in contract skirmishes with that publisher.
”This is yet another moment where big publishing could have chosen to partner with authors and agents by explaining the truth behind Amazon’s muscle flexing.” That’s the agent Kristin Nelson, writing about misleading signals from Hachette, not Amazon. Nelson goes on: “My Hachette authors and I noticed this ‘shipping issue’ multiple times and brought it to our Hachette editors’ attention. Multiple times. Repeated emails. We were assured that all was fine…Hachette chose to go with [a] ‘we don’t discuss contract negotiations’ tactic, which leaves their authors in the dark, agents like me fuming, and fosters a general atmosphere of distrust that the publisher is not being forthright.” By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson Read the full story at The Bookseller’s The FutureBook: BEA on Ice! Google+
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