Publishing News: B&N closes doors on Amazon Publishing

B&N shuns Amazon, Goodreads shuns Amazon, Jonathan Franzen shuns ebooks.

Here are a few of the stories that caught my attention this week in the publishing space.

Barnes & Noble puts its foot down on Amazon

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Last week, Amazon teamed up with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to print and distribute the Amazon Publishing East Coast’s adult titles under a new imprint, New Harvest. Some speculated the move might get Amazon through the brick-and-mortar doors of B&N. This week, B&N made it clear that not only would HMH’s New Harvest imprint not make it in the door, but that no Amazon Publishing title would. In a post for the New York Times, Julie Bosman quoted from a statement made by Jaime Carey, B&N’s chief merchandising officer:

“Our decision is based on Amazon’s continued push for exclusivity with publishers, agents and the authors they represent. These exclusives have prohibited us from offering certain e-books to our customers. Their actions have undermined the industry as a whole and have prevented millions of customers from having access to content. It’s clear to us that Amazon has proven they would not be a good publishing partner to Barnes & Noble as they continue to pull content off the market for their own self interest.”

O’Reilly’s general manager and publisher Joe Wikert called on B&N this week to disrupt the industry — maybe this is its first move. Bosman also took a look at B&N’s position in the industry and its importance to the publishing ecosystem, especially in the face of a competitor like Amazon. Jordan Weissmann at The Atlantic mulled the prospects of Amazon killing publishing and argued: “In a financial arms race, publishers simply can’t beat Amazon’s arsenal.”

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Breaking up is hard to do

Amazon had issues with a social networking partner this week as well. As of Monday, Goodreads no longer displayed book data from the Amazon Product Advertising API, opting instead to move its data partnership to the Ingram Book Company. A Goodread’s representative told Laura Hazard Owen that “the [API license agreement] terms now required by Amazon have become so restrictive that it makes better business sense to work with other data sources.” Owen outlined some of the specifics on the restrictions:

“Amazon requires sites that use its API to link that content back to the Amazon site exclusively — so a book page on Goodreads would have to link only to its product page on Amazon and not to any other source or retailer … Amazon also does not allow any content from its API to be used on mobile sites and apps.”

Jon Mitchell at ReadWriteWeb took a deeper look into the situation — and explained why Goodreads will survive its breakup with Amazon.

The news caused some readers to worry about their cultivated Goodreads bookshelves. GalleyCat detailed potential data issues and offered up a Goodreads link that allows users to check on the state of their shelves to see if any tidying up is necessary.

Jonathan Franzen waxes absurd on ebooks

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There’s no shortage of things slated to be destroying society, and this week, author Jonathan Franzen added ebooks to the list. The Telegraph quoted Franzen speaking at a book festival in Cartagena, Colombia:

“I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change. Will there still be readers 50 years from now who feel that way? Who have that hunger for something permanent and unalterable? I don’t have a crystal ball. But I do fear that it’s going to be very hard to make the world work if there’s no permanence like that.”

Chenda Ngak at CBS’s techt@lk took offense at Franzen’s remarks, stating: “Even if I agree with him, as a book lover, his statements are too condescending to take seriously.” Jonathan Segura at NPR chimed in as well, calling Franzen’s comments “absurd” and pleading that we “get past the e-books versus print books thing.” Segura’s final comment pretty much summed up the overarching sentiment:

“We should worry less about how people get their books and — say it with me now! — just be glad that people are reading.”

Photo (top): Kiftsgate Court, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire – No Entry – sign by ell brown, on Flickr

Photo (bottom): Broken Kindle by kodomut, on Flickr

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