Jenna Petersen celebrated her zombie book sales with friends Saturday night.
She writes under her name, and steamy erotic historical romances under the name Jess Michaels for Avon's Red line.
Jenna also runs the Passionate Pen website.
Amazon Removes Macmillan Books
Amazon has removed the buy buttons for all of Macmillan's books - including bestsellers and top releases - and Kindle editions were removed from Amazon's site.
Macmillan books remain listed, but can be bought only through third-party Marketplace sellers. Macmillan Kindle titles lead to pages that read, "We're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site."
It is the first shot across the purchasing bow in big publishers' efforts to reset ebook pricing above Amazon's loss-leader top price of $9.99. Macmillan wants to move from the wholesale selling model to an agency selling model for ebooks published simultaneously with new hardcover releases.
Kindle customers reported Macmillan books on their "wish lists" disappeared with no explanation. Amazon also wiped out Macmillan sample chapters downloaded previously.
Macmillan has commented by way of a paid message to authors, illustrators and agents, reproduced below this story. Amazon has declined to comment thus far, either to the media or directly to their customers.
Among the books subject to the greatest potential short-term effect of Amazon's buy-button removal is Andrew Young's just-released THE POLITICIAN, which curiously still ranks at No. 9 on Amazon's bestseller list (and has been between No. 4 and No. 6 today at Barnes and Noble.com). Hilary Mantel's WOLF HALL was at 69 on Amazon last night, falling steadily today and now at No. 128. Atul Gawande's THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO: How to Get Things Right was at 34 last night on Amazon, now at No. 66,--and has risen from 112 up to 86 at BN.com in the same time period. (These numbers change slightly every hour we've been checking them.)
Co-head of the William Morris Endeavor books department Eric Simonoff, whose literary agency clients include Douglas Preston (author of the January Tor release Impact), said Macmillan has drawn a line in the sand.
"The current model of Amazon selling Kindle editions as a loss-leader is fair for publishers and authors in the short-term," Simonoff said, "but as we have told Amazon, we don't believe it is sustainable in the long term. Something had to give to prevent the ongoing devaluation of e-books. Macmillan is the first to draw a line in the sand, but we expect not the last."
Tina Bennett at Janklow & Nesbit, agent for Atul Gawande's new bestseller THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO: How to Get Things Right, said "This development is very unfortunate for my author, but it's also troubling for public health. The checklist approach that Gawande describes in his book is a major life-saving advance. It has been demonstrated to reduce harm to surgical patients by more than a third, but has yet to be widely adopted in U.S. hospitals. To make THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO unavailable for sale is the equivalent of blocking the distribution of a book announcing the discovery of penicillin."
Agent Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group also weighed in. "The agents I know feel the $9.99 price for new releases is not good for the business. They want the publishers to work with all the retailers in a peaceful manner. I don't think it is in any book retailer's interest both short and long term not to do business with companies like Macmillan, and at the same time Macmillan needs Amazon. What will Amazon do if S&S moves in this direction, or Hachette? If consumers can't get the books they want from Amazon they will move to other retail sites for what they want."
One senior publishing executive called the move by Amazon "fairly draconian," but added that his company had not received any threats of similar action from Amazon.
The agency model that publishers are trying to implement with Amazon and across their customer base actually lowers the publishers' proceeds from each ebook sale and gives more profit to sellers versus the current loss-leading model behind the $9.99 price point.
Another senior publishing executive said that "Amazon may 'spin' that the consumer is at the heart of the decision, but really their goal is a monopoly position in books. Publishers don't want a monopoly - they want consumers to have choice through a number of partners and channels. They want digital pricing which allows bricks and mortar retailers to survive and thrive alongside a growing digital market.
"This reaction proves what Amazon's true motives are. It is a signal to any other publishers not to change the model and weaken Amazon's pathway to a monopoly. I hope authors, agents and publishers see what these motives are and stand by Macmillan."
One Macmillan author expressed dismay at the situation. Sherrilyn Kenyon wrote on Facebook:
"All of you asking why you can't find my books on Amazon Kindle? It seems that Amazon is the one to blame. They are in a disagreement with my publisher and to prove a point, they have removed Macmillan books from their Kindles.
"You know, as a Kindle owner, I have problems with this. They're not cheap and I bought it so that I could download the books I wanted to read. I don't like a store taking something from me like this without warning. It's just like when Amazon removed books from my Kindle that I'd paid for because they didn't have permission to sell them."
Best selling Simon & Schuster author Scott Westerfeld had this to say on a blog:
"The real power we authors have is removing links to Amazon from our websites and such.... Random blackouts do not make customers happy."
Amazon's own forums have customers expressing a wide range of everything from support to dismay with the move. For some posters, the removal of Kindle "wish lists" and sample chapters echo the incident last summer when Amazon deleted copies of certain books from Kindle owner's libraries, in violation of the site's own terms of use.
As one person wrote on an Amazon forum, "we do feel vulnerable, even if Amazon is right to fight. Wish lists disappeared, with no backup of what the titles were. Sample books we chose to download lead to links that say Error. It reminds us that we do not have control over the situation, even if we backup, since what is offered today may not be available tomorrow."
Macmillan books remain listed, but can be bought only through third-party Marketplace sellers. Macmillan Kindle titles lead to pages that read, "We're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site."
It is the first shot across the purchasing bow in big publishers' efforts to reset ebook pricing above Amazon's loss-leader top price of $9.99. Macmillan wants to move from the wholesale selling model to an agency selling model for ebooks published simultaneously with new hardcover releases.
Kindle customers reported Macmillan books on their "wish lists" disappeared with no explanation. Amazon also wiped out Macmillan sample chapters downloaded previously.
Macmillan has commented by way of a paid message to authors, illustrators and agents, reproduced below this story. Amazon has declined to comment thus far, either to the media or directly to their customers.
Among the books subject to the greatest potential short-term effect of Amazon's buy-button removal is Andrew Young's just-released THE POLITICIAN, which curiously still ranks at No. 9 on Amazon's bestseller list (and has been between No. 4 and No. 6 today at Barnes and Noble.com). Hilary Mantel's WOLF HALL was at 69 on Amazon last night, falling steadily today and now at No. 128. Atul Gawande's THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO: How to Get Things Right was at 34 last night on Amazon, now at No. 66,--and has risen from 112 up to 86 at BN.com in the same time period. (These numbers change slightly every hour we've been checking them.)
Co-head of the William Morris Endeavor books department Eric Simonoff, whose literary agency clients include Douglas Preston (author of the January Tor release Impact), said Macmillan has drawn a line in the sand.
"The current model of Amazon selling Kindle editions as a loss-leader is fair for publishers and authors in the short-term," Simonoff said, "but as we have told Amazon, we don't believe it is sustainable in the long term. Something had to give to prevent the ongoing devaluation of e-books. Macmillan is the first to draw a line in the sand, but we expect not the last."
Tina Bennett at Janklow & Nesbit, agent for Atul Gawande's new bestseller THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO: How to Get Things Right, said "This development is very unfortunate for my author, but it's also troubling for public health. The checklist approach that Gawande describes in his book is a major life-saving advance. It has been demonstrated to reduce harm to surgical patients by more than a third, but has yet to be widely adopted in U.S. hospitals. To make THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO unavailable for sale is the equivalent of blocking the distribution of a book announcing the discovery of penicillin."
Agent Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group also weighed in. "The agents I know feel the $9.99 price for new releases is not good for the business. They want the publishers to work with all the retailers in a peaceful manner. I don't think it is in any book retailer's interest both short and long term not to do business with companies like Macmillan, and at the same time Macmillan needs Amazon. What will Amazon do if S&S moves in this direction, or Hachette? If consumers can't get the books they want from Amazon they will move to other retail sites for what they want."
One senior publishing executive called the move by Amazon "fairly draconian," but added that his company had not received any threats of similar action from Amazon.
The agency model that publishers are trying to implement with Amazon and across their customer base actually lowers the publishers' proceeds from each ebook sale and gives more profit to sellers versus the current loss-leading model behind the $9.99 price point.
Another senior publishing executive said that "Amazon may 'spin' that the consumer is at the heart of the decision, but really their goal is a monopoly position in books. Publishers don't want a monopoly - they want consumers to have choice through a number of partners and channels. They want digital pricing which allows bricks and mortar retailers to survive and thrive alongside a growing digital market.
"This reaction proves what Amazon's true motives are. It is a signal to any other publishers not to change the model and weaken Amazon's pathway to a monopoly. I hope authors, agents and publishers see what these motives are and stand by Macmillan."
One Macmillan author expressed dismay at the situation. Sherrilyn Kenyon wrote on Facebook:
"All of you asking why you can't find my books on Amazon Kindle? It seems that Amazon is the one to blame. They are in a disagreement with my publisher and to prove a point, they have removed Macmillan books from their Kindles.
"You know, as a Kindle owner, I have problems with this. They're not cheap and I bought it so that I could download the books I wanted to read. I don't like a store taking something from me like this without warning. It's just like when Amazon removed books from my Kindle that I'd paid for because they didn't have permission to sell them."
Best selling Simon & Schuster author Scott Westerfeld had this to say on a blog:
"The real power we authors have is removing links to Amazon from our websites and such.... Random blackouts do not make customers happy."
Amazon's own forums have customers expressing a wide range of everything from support to dismay with the move. For some posters, the removal of Kindle "wish lists" and sample chapters echo the incident last summer when Amazon deleted copies of certain books from Kindle owner's libraries, in violation of the site's own terms of use.
As one person wrote on an Amazon forum, "we do feel vulnerable, even if Amazon is right to fight. Wish lists disappeared, with no backup of what the titles were. Sample books we chose to download lead to links that say Error. It reminds us that we do not have control over the situation, even if we backup, since what is offered today may not be available tomorrow."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
