Three big publishers that inked new pacts with Amazon to be able to set prices for their titles are now scratching their heads. The prices went up, but the sales went down. Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group, News Corp’s HarperCollins Publishers and CBS Corporation’s Simon & Schuster all reported declining e-book revenues, despite the “win” of setting their own, considerably higher prices. Although the correlation between the two facts might seem obvious, some publishers insist lackluster books are to blame. Continue reading Publishers Raise Amazon Kindle E-Book Prices, Sales Plummet

Hachette Book Group, which publishes best-selling authors including Michael Connelly, Malcolm Gladwell and James Patterson, announced on Monday that it is partnering with Gumroad to determine whether author tweets can help push book sales. In today’s social media landscape, authors with significant Twitter followings — such as John Green and Paulo Coelho — have experienced major success. Gumroad enables creators to sell products directly to social media followers without leaving Twitter. Continue reading Hachette Launches Twitter Experiment to Boost its Book Sales

During its much-publicized dispute over a new e-book contract with the Hachette Book Group, Amazon has proposed letting the publisher’s authors keep 100 percent of their e-book sales revenue while the tense negotiations continue. The proposal is Amazon’s response to Hachette authors’ complaints that they have become collateral damage in the ongoing negotiations. Hachette immediately rejected the proposal, suggesting that accepting it would be “suicidal.” Continue reading Amazon and Hachette Continue Tense E-Book Negotiations