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Harper Collins, Amazon Reach Agreement

Harper Collins and Amazon have agreed on terms, meaning the publisher's book will be sold by the mega-company at terms described as a "return to full agency." Publishers Weekly has what is known of the story. The agreement comes in time for the release of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman.

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This Is The Official Cover Of Harper Lee's New Novel, "Go Set A Watchman"

The Decline, If Not the Fall, of the ISBN

FutureBook reports on the decline of the ISBN, and how it is distorting the statistics on publishing successes and failures.

Algorithms and Book Recommendations

Publishers Weekly reports that Trajectory's Natural Language Processing Engine, NLPE, is a new way to generate book recommendations for libraries and other buyers.

Bryant said the book recommendations from the NLPE are dynamic—recommendations will change and grow as more titles are scanned into the system. He also said he hopes to reach bulk processing agreements with self-publishing platforms like Smashwords in an effort to market NLPE keywords and book recommendations to self-published authors as well as booksellers and libraries.

Categories, Growing, Shrinking

Publishers Weekly has data for the past year's sales. Science fiction, fantasy, and their cousins are down for adults, mostly up for juveniles.

Mass Market Paperbacks in Decline as Ebook Sales Rise

The Digital Reader parses Nielsen statistics and finds that fiction, mass market paperbacks in particular, is the area where sales are most often lost to ebooks.

Amazon & Kindle Unlimited

Many and bitter have been the complaints about KIndle UNlimited, and Amazon speaks out as reported by Publishers Weekly.

Next Monday Apple Will Attempt to Overturn Its Ebook Pricing Conviction

Monday, December 15th, 2014, they'll all meet and have another go at things. Publishers Weekly has the details.

If you’ve lost track, you’re not alone—there’s been a lot of legal wrangling over the last year. But Monday’s hearing is the main event: this is Apple’s appeal of Judge Denise Cote’s 2013 liability finding, in which the company was found to have conspired with five major publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster) to artificially inflate the e-book prices.

But even after the decision by the circuit court, the case could drag on. The settlement agreement allows the parties to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court an the full appeal process could take years.

We are not amazed.

Kindle Unlimited and the Seasonal Dip

The Digital Reader, having set the hare of speculation running, now wonders if the dip in sales seen by many authors is not due to the debut of Kindle Unlimited but might, instead, be similar to ones seen before in the pre-holiday season. Nate Hoffelder says:

When I reported on indie authors' drop in sales last year I attributed the decline to greater price competition from the major publishers, a plausible suggestion. This year we are looking at anecdotal evidence of a similar decline and attributing it to the effect of Kindle Unlimited.

DoJ, Apple Maneuver

As part of its ongoing effort to surpass The Mousetrap in longevity, the next showtime is December 15th, when Apple will appeal, etc. Publishers Weekly has the details.

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Apple Gets Final Approval on 'Highly Unusual' $450 Million E-Book Settlement

A settlement! But wait, there's more! Publishers Weekly gives the current state of play in the Apple lawsuit.

The Second Circuit is set to hear arguments on Apple’s appeal of Judge Cote’s 2013 liability finding on December 15. Still, the agreement affords the parties the opportunity to appeal her liability finding all the way to the Supreme Court, so a final payout could be many months, if not years away.

So no one will be buying holiday presents with their credits.