The e-book wars have been heating up with the main companies involved releasing new apps, adding new features when possible, and lowering device prices. For the most part, with the arguable exception of the switch to the “agency model,” the war has been good for readers. Now it looks like we might be on the brink of a new battle which could end up being bad for consumers.
Amazon has announced that is has a new deal with the literary agent Andrew Wylie. The deal would give Amazon an exclusive for e-books from all authors the agent represents. The full list is here, and includes notable names such as Al Gore and Phillip Roth, it also includes the estates of popular authors including John Updike, William Burroughs and Hunter Thompson. So, if in any time in the next two years you wish to purchase an ebook of classics such as “Naked Lunch” or “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas” or current books like “An Inconvenient Truth” or Roth’s upcoming “Nemesis,” you need a Kindle or a device with Kindle software.
Random House, a publisher of many Wylier-represented books isn’t happy about the situation, and will not purchase any more rights from Wylier until a truce is put into place. This is the first time Amazon has worked directly with an agent, and it seems to make sense for the company. With the possible exception of marketing, e-books don’t seem to require a publisher. As long as they’ve been edited and approved by all involved, e-books can just be pushed out. There’s little overhead involved in e-book publishers as there is in ink-and-paper publishing.
For consumers, it means that if this becomes a trend a tablet such as the iPad or a smartphone might be the platform of choice for reading e-books. There’s no point in choosing a specific company’s hardware to purchase if you don’t know if the books you want will be on the device. It might become confusing, but simply launching a different app is much easier than having to switch to a different device, cheaper as well. Or, we could just switch back to books and save the complaints about possible eye-strain and batteries running out. Yeah, the tablet or smartphone idea seems much better, it saves a lot of space and trees.
Read [Electronista] Via [CrunchGear]
Wow excellent concept men. Just want to say perfect work.