Amazon has announced a new publishing imprint called AmazonCrossing. The goal of this imprint is to publish foreign titles that will be translated into English. Readers in the US have a history of being weary of translated titles, which make up only a small percentage of overall book sales in this country.

The online retailer began its first imprint, AmazonEncore, as a way to give exposure to great writers who are more-than-worthy of being published. AmazonCrossing has the same goal, only at the international level. Jeff Belle, VP of Books, says in an Amazon press release:

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I always love to read author’s self-publishing success stories. They are not only very inspiring, but these stories chip away at the negative stigma of self-publishing. The route these authors take is a hard one, they don’t have the resources of a large publishing house and distributor behind them. Thus they often have to promote their work themselves using their own websites, Twitter, Facebook and other methods.

But one author has taken self-publishing to a whole new level. Christopher Herz decided to use the POD model with his book

One argument publishers like to use to justify higher ebook prices is that it will also benefit their authors by means of higher royalty payments. But now that publishers are switching to the agency model in an attempt to increase ebook prices, the amount of author royalties is actually going down.

Surprise! Higher ebook prices benefit only the publishers.

Author Michael Stackpole wrote a very eye-opening article for the Huffington Post entitled Who Benefits from High Ebook Prices? As a traditionally published author, he knows the ins and outs of the publishing world and how royalty payments are calculated and paid out.

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The other day I wrote the post Giving it away for free: Obscurity vs. Making Money as a Writer. In it, I argued that giving books away for free is not going to hurt a writer’s career. In fact, free books can give writers (especially unknown writers) a boost and increase sales of future books.

The post was prompted by an article I read by Angela Hoy from http://www.writersweekly.com entitled Think Twice Before Giving Away Your Entire Book Online for Free. While I have a lot of respect for Angela and read her weekly newsletter every week, I have to disagree on this point.

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The debate about whether or not it’s a good idea for authors to provide their work for free (especially back titles) continues to rage on around the internet. I usually think of this in terms of ebooks, as they are easier to give away for free without the burden of printing and shipping costs.

The main argument in favor of giving your works away for free goes something like this: You provide an ebook or two for free, and it will give readers a sampling of your work, enticing them to buy future ebooks that they would, of course, pay for. This has worked for many authors who claim that giving their stuff away does increase their sales of other books.

On the flip side, the argument against giving your work away for free is that readers will expect it for free and will expect the same thing with all of your books, thus no one will want to pay. Why pay when you can get it for free, right? The other issue that comes into play here is that authors should be fairly compensated for their work.

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The largest book retailer in the United States is making the bold move of considering bundling ebooks and print books. Barnes & Noble, who came out with their own ereader Nook last November, will begin testing the idea within the next few months. This is according to a recent article on Publishers Weekly and the Teleread blog.

I’ve been advocating for this type of bundling for a while now. The obvious advantage is that you can read the print version in the comfort of your own home, and then take the ebook version with you while you’re on the go. This would work especially well with dinosaur-sized books like Stephen King’s Under the Dome (which I’m currently reading as an ebook). If I had bought King’s latest magnum opus as a hardcover, you certainly wouldn’t see me lugging it around so I could read a few pages in the doctor’s office waiting room.

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Teleread might just be one of the oldest advocate of digital books on the net. David Rothman started Teleread back in 1992, advocating national digital library systems, and has kept it going ever since. The blog reached a new milestone after being sold to North American Publishing Company. The move is a very positive step, not just for Teleread, but for blogs everywhere. It’s one more example of how blogs are mainstream and won’t be going anywhere soon.

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This tip was sent to me from Simon Owens from Bloggasm. Thanks Simon!

The feud between Amazon and Macmillan has seemed to settle down, at least for now. Macmillan titles are again being sold on the online retailer. But the ripple effect still lingers and its anyone’s guess how the ripples created by this feud will play out in the long run.

A lot of attention has been given to Amazon and Macmillan. But what about the authors? Each party claims it has the best interest of the authors in mind, although after seeing the way Amazon and Macmillan acted, that’s a little hard to believe. I think the biggest and most direct hit on authors came from Amazon’s decision to suddenly pull all Macmillan titles from their site. Not cool.

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So far I’ve been silent about the recent feud between Amazon and the publisher Macmillan because there have been so many articles, blog posts, forum comments and other coverage, that I didn’t want to contribute to all the ‘noise.’ However, there is a slightly new development in this story that I do feel it’s worth writing about.

Today the Author’s Guild released a statement that pretty much supports Macmillan in the feud. There’s really nothing surprising about that since the Guild usually supports the large publishers and higher ebook prices. The Author’s Guild believes that if Macmillan succeeds in having more control over ebook prices, it will be good for the industry as a whole:

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It’s hard to ignore an author like James Patterson. His books, an estimated 14 million copies sold, are everywhere from airport bookstores, in the supermarket and featured on prominent shelves in bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders. I’ll confess that the only Patterson book I’ve read is Sail (aff link). The novel was okay. At best it was entertaining. But I’m unlikely to be buying another Patterson novel in the future.

However, being a mega-selling superstar author, James Patterson is someone all struggling novelists should pay attention to and learn a thing or two.

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