Facing the first truly electronic Christmas as an Independent Publisher

Steve Emecz runs independent London publishers MX Publishing specialising in NLP and therapy books. He talks us through the huge growth in e-book sales over 2010, what he anticipates for Christmas and into 2011: We are facing the first truly electronic Christmas trading period in the book publishing industry, and looking back on the last twelve months it has been an incredible period of change.

Agency backlash

For the past couple of months we have been reporting the ongoing struggle over the adoption of the agency model in the UK, with retailers and publishers seemingly on opposing sides of an argument that will govern the way we think about and sell e-books for years to come. One party we've hitherto neglected to mention in greater detail are the agents, but without these literary gatekeepers on side the model will surely collapse—even before the Competition Commission swats it down. Read more »

More From the Crow's Nest

Following on from my discussions with Andrew Robinson, then leader of the Pirate Party UK, I have had a brief exchange with his successor, Loz Kaye. Thanks to both for being prepared to come to what is surely foreign territory and give their views.

I have - as you might imagine - questions and disagreements I'd love to pursue, but that's a conversation which will run and run over the next few decades. So here you are: more from the Crow's Nest. Read more »

The agency question

No prizes for guessing that the question I am currently being asked more than any other is whether the agency e-book sales model is legal.

The simple answer is that an agency arrangement, where publisher appoints agent to sell e-books on publisher's behalf at prices determined by publisher, can be legal. However, the arrangement must avoid certain potential pitfalls to comply with competition laws. Read more »

FutureBook 2010 Conference: Fully booked

I'm thrilled to say our digital conference FutureBook 2010 is now fully booked. It sold out in 10 days. Many thanks to our great line-up of speakers and 'Question Time' panellists who have made this happen. We have started a waiting list, please email sally.poulier@bookseller.co.uk for more information. Read more »

Keeping sight of your target market

Denise Dwyer, Development Officer Access to Publishing at RNIB talks us through what publishers should be considering: a big political memoir was published recently to lots of comment and column inches. The day after publication I came across a post on an online forum by a keen reader who is blind. He would have loved, he said, to have been able to buy an electronic version of the book the previous day, so he could read it at the same time as everyone else and join in the debate. Read more »

Publishers should be stirred, but not shaken by Bond move

The news that the Fleming estate is to cut out the book publisher Penguin with a deal to make Ian Fleming's 14 James Bond books available digitally direct to consumers shows just how fragile the current publishing structure really is. Read more »

Ebook economies of scale

Tim Spalding from LibraryThing writes provocatively about what will happen to the industry as ebooks make up an increasing proportion of our sales. In particular, he's interested in the feedback effects that kick in as ebook sales go up - leading to an ever-higher ebook proportion. Read more »

Ready, steady, agency

And so finally, almost six weeks after Hachette embarked on its "short" transition to agency terms, Amazon has acquiesced.

A short note next to Kindle Editions published by Hachette, Penguin and HarperCollins now reads: "This price was set by the publisher." Read more »