July 7-12
Issue 1
Authors Take Issue with Amazon
The Bookseller reports that a group of writers have written and signed a letter urging internet giant Amazon to rectify its practices, and urging their readers to join them. The letter states that Amazon, in a dispute with Hachette, has “done something unusual. It has directly targeted Hachette’s authors in an effort to force their publisher to agree to its terms.”
Many authors are said to have signed this letter, including David Baldacci, Lee Child, Amanda Foreman, John Grisham, James Patterson, Anita Shreve, Scott Turow, Anne Applebaum, Clive Cussler, Richard North Patterson, and Simon Winchester.
Their letter also states: “As writers—some but not all published by Hachette—we feel strongly that no bookseller should block the sale of books or otherwise prevent or discourage customers from ordering or receiving the books they want. It is not right for Amazon to single out a group of authors, who are not involved in the dispute, for selective retaliation. Moreover, by inconveniencing and misleading its own customers with unfair pricing and delayed delivery, Amazon is contradicting its own written promise to be 'Earth's most customer-centric company’."
Read The Bookseller’s report and the full letter here.
Since this letter was published, Amazon offered to give %100 of ebook sale profits to Hachette authors until the dispute is resolved. However, this might seem at first to be generous, but Amazon would get a 30% commission, and Hachette would get nothing. This would seem to be to put pressure on Hachette.
Douglas Preston, the author who drafted the afore mentioned letter, told The Wall Street Journal that this deal would prove to be "devastating" to Hachette while "barely hurting Amazon at all. He told them that Hatchette supported his career and he was morally obligated to them: "There's something wrong with this. My publisher gave me a very large advance for the book they are about to publish. Morally, I would have to turn over that [Amazon] money to them."
Author Declines Award Sponsored by Amazon
According to The Bookerseller, children’s author Allen Ahlberg has turned down the first Booktrust Best Book Awards‘ Lifetime Achievement Award because it is sponsored by Amazon. This distinguished author—who has written 150 children’s books—declined the award because he does not agree with Amazon’s tax evading practices. In a letter to The Bookseller he is quoted as saying: “Tax, fairly applied to us all, is a good thing. It pays for schools, hospitals— libraries! When companies like Amazon cheat— paying 0.1% on billions, pretending it is earning money not in the UK, but in Luxembourg—that’s a bad thing. We should surely, at the very least, say that it is bad and on no account give them any support or, by association, respectability.” He also said that, “For [his] part, the idea that [his] ’lifetime achievement’ … should have the Amazon tag attached to it is unacceptable.” By standing by his principles and declining this award, he also declined the attached £5,000 prize!
Amazon Circumventing French Laws
A new French legislation has come into force disallowing online retailers to offer free shipping on books. This is in line with their legislation that books may not be discounted more than 5%. Amazon continues to frustrate book sellers, publishers, and now, the French government, by trying to subvert laws and propriety at every turn. They defy the new French legislation by offering shipping at a fixed rate of one centime (1.4 cents). This is likely to anger those behind the French legislation, which is aimed at supporting bookshops. Newsweek quotes French culture minister Aurelie Filippetti as saying at a conference last year, "Once [Amazon is] in a dominant position and will have crushed our network of bookshops, they will bring prices back up.”
Newsweek also says that, “France is highly protective of its bookshops, enshrining measures to preserve them in law since 1981 when discounts above 5% were banned to prevent big chains from using bulk orders to undercut smaller independent bookshops. France has 3,500 bookshops compared to just 1,000 in the U.K., of which roughly 700 are independent.”
JK Rowling
The Harry Potter author has recently posted a 1,500 word story on Pottermore. This is reportedly the first time that Rowling has written about her beloved Harry Potter heroes has adults since the final chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This story is written as a piece in the Daily Prophet penned by character Rita Skeeter.
Sharp Objects
Deadline.com reports that it has been announced by eOne Television that Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn is being adapted into a one-hour drama TV series. Flynn seems to be gaining speed as her bestselling novels Dark Places and Gone Girl come to the big screen later this year.
The Magicians
Deadline.com reports that SyFy has a pilot episode in the works for a TV series based on Lev Grossman’s The Magicians.
The Queen of Tearling
The futuristic YA novel by Erika Johansen is being made into a movie series with Harry Potter star Emma Watson as executive producer and leading lady. Read more here.
Interest
Top Ten Book Club Picks This Week
The following were the most popular book club books this week based on votes from more than 100,000 book club readers from more than 39,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:
1. Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
3. The Goldfinch: A Novel by Donna Tartt
4. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
5. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
6. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
9. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
10.The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
