On the occasion of its 20th birthday, The Bookseller would like to wish Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos many happy returns. Amazon is a remarkable business led by a remarkable visionary. My colleague at The Bookseller, Philip Jones is right — party hats: on. In his leader piece for today’s edition of the magazine on… Read More
Is Amazon KDP Select's per-page payout better?
I’d like to be paid per-page for everything written about Amazon’s KDP Select since the 15th of the month. And certainly, I’ve tried to hold up my end. I wrote about it here. And then I wrote about it there. And now I’m writing about it once more, hoping that you’ll join us in this week’s #FutureChat on… Read More
Hugh Howey Calls A Ceasefire
‘No Need To Come Out On Top’ It’s time to back off a bit on the arguments for self-publishing. In a classic example of “burying your lead” — along with a hatchet –the author-activist Hugh Howey quietly has signaled a stand-down to his supporters this week And he’s doing it with the note of generosity… Read More
Seattle's Finest: Jon Fine Is Leaving Amazon
The Face Of The Company’s Publishing Platforms To Thousands After almost nine years at Amazon, I am sorry to announce that Jon Fine has decided to leave the company at the end of the year. When he wrote the internal memo that told the Amazon workforce of Jon Fine’s impending departure, Charles Kronbach, may have had the same… Read More
Publishing's Future: When Editors Eat Robots
The Quantified Self Of Richard Nash He is a podium prowler. He moves around during a conference presentation. He sets up gazelle-graceful concepts and wounds them quickly, before you get too comfortable. Lots of articulate gestures. Give him two flashlights and he could land a Dreamliner onstage as he talked. And his talks? They tend to work like… Read More
Running Smack Into The Garden Wall: That 'Perfect e-Bookstore' Project
What If The People Inside The Walled Garden Don’t Want Out? The problem with The Amazon Problem…is that to the customer, there are no problems. For once, Laura Dawson isn’t talking metadata. Bowker’s identifiers infanta is, instead, turning the precision of her observational gifts on a fundamental issue for the publishing industry in the shadow… Read More
Forget the Rubicon: #FutureChat crosses the Amazon
Each Friday, join us for a #FutureChat session, live on Twitter, at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, 8 a.m. Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Berlin, 3 p.m. GMT. As Philip Jones puts it in today’s The Bookseller lead editorial, All about Amazon, recent moves by Seattle “show the giant e-tailer striking out for new territory.”… Read More
3 Voices In The Age Of Amazon: Tech It To The Next Level
Is there a way to hack through the jungle of snarls and get a higher view on publishing’s struggle with and around Amazon? “Those who think the ground beneath the book business is not moving violently, look away now,” writes The Bookseller’sPhilip Jones in his editorial lead for Friday. And yeah, at ground level? Maintain a good… Read More
“Amazon Will Be Disrupted One Day”
What may have been the best lesson from the 60 Minutes interview getting so much traction this week is evident, finally, in Jason Del Rey’s piece at AllThingsD. And in bloggy-newsy tradition, it’s all in the piece’s long headline: Afraid Amazon Will Crush Your Small Business? “Complaining Is Not a Strategy,” Says CEO Jeff Bezos. Read More
Writing on the Ether | JaneFriedman.com
Even in the Battle for the Showroom, odd alliances may already be springing up. Barnes and Noble has issued a powerful condemnation of Amazon, claiming the Internet retailer has “undermined the industry as a whole and prevented millions of customers from having access to content…as they continue to pull content off the market for their own self interest.” But in an unexpected turn, authors may be in the first wave B&N has to fight. Read More