SECOND Class Action Suit Against Apple, this time w/ the Big6. Apple accused of altering 2nd photo in Samsung suit.

"Finkelstein Thompson Files Class Action Suit Against Apple
Teleread's Chris Meadows points to the ebooknewser story today on the new lawsuit that, in this 2nd case, also includes Random House.

Finkelstein Thompson, a consumer rights and antitrust law firm, filed the new class action complaint in New York against Apple and the Big6 book publishers, alleging a conspiracy to fix eBook prices.  Details at the link.  Here's the press release


Earlier articles on the Class Action lawsuit:
. Class action lawsuit against Apple and Big 5 publishers re price fixing of ebooks.  History and sourcing provided.
. Reactions to Price-Fixing Lawsuit


"Apple Accused of Altering Second Photo in Samsung Suit"
Apple had been successful in halting Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in Europe and elsewhere, on the basis that Samsung had copied the Apple design, a large factor being the rounded corners of the device (!)

Later, the Injunction was lifted across Europe but the injunction still applied to Germany, for jurisdictional reasons.  August 25 is the court date set "for Apple and Samsung to plead their respective cases."

  On August 17, Tomsguide.com reported that "Researchers accused Apple of doctoring an image of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in an effort to make it look more like the iPad in terms of size. Some felt it could have been accidental.

  Today's news is about a second picture that was submitted as part of the IP suit, this one showing the iPhone and Galaxy S "looking almost exactly the same size," although the accompanying illustration shows it to be quite a bit larger.  It has those "rounded corners" though! :-)

  Tomsguide has a tough crowd commenting.  An amusing thought:

' "I'm going to have to take a second look at these Samsung products.  They must be pretty good for Apple to risk so much. '

  Another one pointed out that if you open both phones, they "have a lot of the same components" so therefore Samsung is copying Apple, he says.  He adds a PS that the components they have in common are made by Samsung.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Kindle News Roundup: Reactions to Kindle Cloud Reader and Price-Fixing Lawsuit

FIRST, two reports by Joel in the Comments area of the Kindle Cloud Reader announcement story, who has found that:
  1. he can run "multiple" instances of the Cloud Reader (reading one book while another is open for reference) and
  2. the Cloud Reader counts as one 'single' device.  He has the Kindle Cloud Reader app running on 3 PCs and one Linux box so far.

  I noted that my Kindle App for PC is shown on my ManageYourKindle as a total of 3 Kindle-compatible devices, one each for my desktop, a laptop and a netbook.  Cloud Reader acts as a true Web device then, as there's no installation and you can access the Web and your spaces on it from any Net-connected devices, so it's similar.

"Time to Rethink Every Website in the World"
TechCrunch's Cyan Banister, in his story titled, "Time to rethink every website in the world," writes (after opening with an assessment of "holy sh__") that another news analyst had written about the new reader but:

' ... he didn’t point out what an amazing technical advancement this is for all of us.  To me, it hardly matters that it looks great on my iPad. The coolest part is that it works beautifully OFFLINE.

Gmail and a few other sites have creaky offline modes, but they aren’t nearly as cool as what Amazon has done.  (For instance, Gmail doesn’t even have an offline Outbox.)  What Amazon has built is a sneak peek at our Internet future and this will change everything. '

ITWorld
ITWorld's Brian Proffitt points out that while it's not a true iOS [Apple] app, you can set the shortcut as an iPad, say, home screen icon, so it does have a direct way to the Kindle Store, in effect.

  [Tangential note by Andrys/Kindleworld:]
  100% of rival vendors' profit (net revenue), not 30% of that.
Almost all the news-sites have reported this new Web-app capability as a way to evade giving Apple 30% of Amazon and Barnes & Noble profits -- but, actually, since Apple itself created the 'Agency' model, which had Big5 publishers alloting online bookstores 30% of an ebook sale and taking 70% for themselves, Apple would actually have been trying to take 100% of Amazon's or BN's book-sale profits from sales on the iPad app.  We can see one reason why Apple does so well, profit-wise.

  That 100% of profit grab is a huge reality in it that many don't understand that it wasn't 30% of profit but 30% of a book sale.

 It's not similar to taking a fee for a lemonade stand in a mall.  It's telling the lemonade stand vendors, 'Sure, sell, here, but we want 100% of your profits if we let people try your wares here.'  There was no way the bookstore vendors would go for that.

  Taking a cut from sales from applications on a computer operating system
  Besides, others have made the point that Microsoft's computers do not insist on a 30% profit from products sold by websites using their "devices."
[End of side note]

  Chrome and Safari were chosen first, Proffitt opined, because it was the only way to get the new Web-based app onto an Apple device at a time when that became very useful.  Chrome and Safari browsers share a basic source in Webkit, and what works in one browser will tend to work in the other.
  As has happened in the past, more features will be added as it goes, and more browsers will be included, since at the moment neither Firefox nor Internet Explorer work with the Kindle Cloud Reader.

  Proffitt predicts browser wars, with each offering features the others don't have, and developers will have to keep making adjustments to their web applications, probably with browsers that have larger market share getting first attention.  Not in the initial case though!


Web apps galore
Bloomberg Businessweek's Om Malik focuses on the many Web-apps coming out of the cloud-space.

  We've already had Google's web app for books mentioned here in early December, at the same time that the competitive Amazon announced their Kindle for Web, which was meant to include full books eventually and now does, as Cloud Reader.  Amazon has finally changed that product page to show former Kindle for Web as Kindle Cloud Reader now.

  Malik also mentions Pandora's relaunching of its website for tablets in July.

  Twitter just launched an HTML5-based Web client that he feels is "as fantastic as the dedicated app itself."

  WalMart launched an HTML5 version of its VUDU video-streaming Web app, which streams not only to web browsers but also to TVs, Blu-ray players and game consoles.  However, as with normal websites, VUDU streaming is available only in standard definition.


Walmart's iPad-Optimized Movie Streaming
Mashable's Sarah Kessler shows how VUDU's Web app works and also mentions that the Financial Times released a web-based app in June and avoided the Apple app store, while ebook/ereader seller Kobo has announced it's also building an HTML5 ereader app.

The Globe and Mail's Associated Press story by Peter Svensson reports that
  "The site already works with PC browsers, but the Flash technology used doesn't work on the iPad. Instead, Vudu is using “Live Streaming” tools from Apple to reach the tablet.

  "Vudu.com's business model is similar to Apple's own iTunes. It rents out movies for $1 to $6 for a 24-hour or 48-hour viewing period.  It also sells them for $5 and up, which allows viewing any time. Its claim to fame is that it has many movies on the same day they're released on DVD."

Well, that particular new Web app was of interest to me because it is competition for Netflix, which has been steadily increasing its rates and of course it's also competition for Amazon's video-streaming.

  Svensson ends by saying that while the VUDU site will also work with iPhones and iPod Touches, navigation would be difficult as the Web app is designed for tablets.  The movies even stream over 3G, "but the image quality will suffer" and would also eat a lot of the monthly data allowance of any iPad plan.


What does it mean for Apple?
CBSNEWS techtalk references The Atlantic's Rebecca Greenfield whose harshly worded report (titled, The Beginning of the End for the Apple App Store) is surprising.

 First, I've not read The Atlantic for some time but to see the words "lame" and "stinks" is quite a change from the magazine I've read earlier.  I don't entirely agree with her headlined' take since I know Apple's app store will be affected negatively but not to the extent she predicts, but it's an entertaining, eyebrow-lifting read

If nothing else, what we've seen does look like the strong beginnings of a fairly huge media-vendor rebellion against Apple's policies.


THE LAWSUIT against Apple and the Big5 Publishers
IT Government's Grant Gross (delivered by Compuworld) writes that:

" One consumer advocate said the lawsuit makes sense. 'I have long been concerned about the apparent monopoly power Apple has been able to exercise through its Apps Store,' said John Simpson, consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog. 'I believe the plaintiffs in this class-action suit have a very strong case and [I] am pleased they brought the action. '

  "Apple didn't want to enter the e-book market at the prices Amazon.com offered, Berman said.  Instead of competing with Amazon, 'they decided to choke off competition through this anti-consumer scheme, he said.

  "The European Commission and several U.S. state attorneys general are also investigating e-book price fixing. "

  The question of "collusion"
InformationWeek's Thomas Claburn points out some factors in the accusations of "collusion":

' The complaint goes on to allege that the publishers were able to force Amazon to switch from the wholesale model to the agency model because each knew other publishers had also agreed to adopt the agency model to work with Apple.

What's more, the complaint says, if the publishers had not conspired to set prices, consumers would have voted with their wallets and bought books elsewhere. And that's apparently what happened: Random House, the only large U.S. publisher that didn't switch to the agency pricing model last year, saw its ebook sales surge 250% in the U.S. in 2010 and 800% in the U.K.

But in March 2011, Random House switched to the agency model because, the complaint states, Apple refused to carry its titles in its iBookstore.

Apple, the complaint asserts, conspired with its publishing partners to "cut into Amazon's substantial share of the market for ebooks and to prevent Amazon from emerging as a serious competitor to its mobile platforms for distribution, storage, and access of digital media." '

Getting back to the Kindle, specifically
Sys.con Media's Udayan Banerjee (CTO of NIIT Technologies, with 30 years' experience, focusing on emerging technologies) writes today about why he bought a Kindle and why not iPad or Galaxy, or any device with color, touch, easier browsing etc.  He writes from India and often is in the U.S.  It's a straightforward report of a more personal nature, and he ends it with "I just wish that I had a magic wand which I could use to transfer all my physical books into the Kindle."

 That would be true of any good e-Ink e-reader, but most of us who already have e-readers will recognize the wish, not that I don't still get paper-bound books as a B&N member who still values going to the brick and mortar within a mile of my home and hope it stays around.



Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Class action lawsuit against Apple and Big5 publishers re price fixing of ebooks. History and sourcing provided.

Per a story run by paidContent.org, Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman filed a class action lawsuit tonight against Apple and five of the “big 6” publishers (known as the Big5 when Random House declined to join the other five large publishers in fixed-pricing moves during the first year, explaining that bookstores probably understood pricing and customers more than RH did -- and as a result, Apple iBook Store did not allow the Random House eBooks in their store during that time).  Random House did join when the 2nd year started.

  The law firm claimed "that they illegally fixed e-book prices (through the agency model, in which case book publishers set their own e-book prices) in order to 'boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing."

Defendents named: Apple, Hachette, Simon & Schuster (NYSE: CBS), Macmillan, HarperCollins and Penguin.

Plaintiffs: Anthony Petru of Oakland, California and Marcus Mathis of Natchez, Mississippi.  Backgrounds on all can be read at Laura Hazard Owen's story at paidContent's website.  It's of interest that the law firm is based in Seattle (and Berkeley, California).

Here's more on "What's in it."

The complaint: Owens writes that the complaint begins by saying that Amazon's Kindle

' had "the potential to massively reduce distribution costs historically associated with brick-and-mortar publishing.  But publishers quickly realized that if market forces were allowed to prevail too quickly, these efficiency enhancing characteristics would rapidly lead to lower consumer prices, improved consumer welfare, and threaten the current business model and available surplus (profit margins).

  So, faced with disruptive eBook technology that threatened their inefficient and antiquated business model, several major book publishers, working with Apple Inc. (‘Apple’), decided free market competition should not be allowed to work -- together they coordinated their activities to fight back in an effort to restrain trade and retard innovation.  The largest book publishers and Apple were successful.” '   [Bolding was by Owen.]

This was of course considered more than potentially disruptive to the publishers' long-established way of doing things.

I've provided a history of stories and sources from that time, at the bottom of this blog article.

  The main complaint voiced by publishers was that the lower cost of Amazon's e-books (especially those on the NY Times bestseller lists) were "devaluing" their paper-bound books, especially the hardcover editions.  They openly wanted higher pricing on e-books and found not only an ally in Steve Jobs but an encourager (sourcing is in list of articles below).

  The complaint goes on to say that the publishers and Apple coordinated between themselves" to "force Amazon to abandon its proconsumer pricing" and that Apple "facilitated changing the traditional eBook pricing model due to what the plaintiffs describe as the Kindle's "competitive threat to Apple's business model."

  In my own eyes, Apple wanted to now join the e-book march finally, once Steve Jobs realized people DO still read after all (will insert source later), but the idea was to join or enter the field as its leader and the publishers were more than willing, as Apple's bookstore gave them leverage over Amazon.  For me, that would be normal business -- if they hadn't set fixed pricing for all stores, and with no online store allowed to sell below Apple's pricing, a condition which the publishers accepted -- and when Amazon said that the publishers should not then allow another store to offer lower pricing than Amazon, some raged at Amazon's daring to set this return-condition.

  paidContent goes on to add that the complaint points out that

the publisher-defendents "almost simultaneously announced that they were switching from a wholesale pricing model to an Agency model for eBook sales" in January 2010 and “the announcements to shift to the Agency model coincided with the release by Apple of the iPad tablet computer.

"In fact, when Apple announced the launch of the iPad on January 27, 2010, the Publisher Defendants agreed to allow Apple to use their trademarks in connection therewith.

  The same day Apple announced launching the iPad, it was also announced that Apple already struck deals with Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillian, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster to switch to the Agency model for Apple’s iBookstore -- the application on Apple’s iPad that functions as an eBook reader (thus competing directly with the Amazon Kindle).”

Re the 5 publishers switching to the agency model, the complaint says:
  “As a direct result of this anticompetitive conduct as intended by the conspiracy, the price of eBooks has soared.  The price of new bestselling eBooks increased to an average of $12 - $15 -- an increase of 33 to 50 percent.  The price of an eBook in many cases now approaches -- or even exceeds -- the price of the same book in paper even though there are almost no incremental costs to produce each additional eBook unit.   The price of the Publisher Defendants’ eBooks sold on the iBookstore, facing no pricing competition from Amazon or other e-distributors for the exact same eBook titles, has remained at supra-competitive levels."

paidContent notes what appears to be an assumption on the part of the plaintiffs that the $9.99 pricing (or less) for NYTimes bestsellers Amazon used was the "correct" price for an e-book.

  They also note something generally known now by long-time Kindle users but not so much by those new to e-readers, who blame high pricing on Amazon and other online stores who must follow the same publisher policies:

  "The agency model requires publishers to price their e-books the same at all e-bookstores.  Publishers can also put their e-books on sale and extend sale prices across all e-bookstores."

I've left out portions of the article of course. Go to Owen's article to read the rest of it.  She'll have "More to come after I have interviewed the parties involved and done some more research on this."

You can download the full complaint in PDF format.


HISTORY OF THE PRICING WARS IN ARTICLES, WITH SOURCING
Background
For those new to the situation and interested in the background of the e-book pricing wars, earlier stories posted here include the following articles, which I'll later put on a separate page, with a bit more info.

  . Amazon removes Macmillan books - Jan. 30, 2010
  . Amazon surrenders to Macmillan and Steve Jobs - Jan. 31, 2010
  . Steve Jobs pulls his puppet strings but says too much (a key one) - Jan. 31, 2010
  . Amazon plays hardball to keep lower pricing option - Mar. 18, 2010
  . Amazon and Hachette e-books (and missing buy buttons) - Apr. 2, 2010
  . WashPost: State AG probes Apple, Amazon over e-Book prices. What? - Aug. 3, 2010
  . Why are some e-book prices higher than hardcover ones? - Oct. 6, 2010
  . Newspapers headline Amazon UK forum rebellion against Agency pricing - Nov. 3, 2010

"Have publishers already lost the war over agency pricing?"

Are publishers who raised e-book pricing the past year losing the ebook-pricing war?   I'd like to think so.

 The blog article's subject title is from the headline on the article by Philip Jones at Futurebook.net commenting on the higher-priced e-books not appearing very much in Amazon's topmost besteller lists (UK).

  Actually, he's commenting on The Guardian's article by Sam Jordison on "EU anger over ebook deal suggests hard times ahead for publishers."

  Describing again (1) the circumstances leading to the use of Apple's "Agency Plan" by the Big5 (and now Big6) publishers, which raised e-book prices by 30-50% average, this last year, and (2) the raids by the European Commission on publishing houses in the UK to investigate possible anti-trust violations, seizing not only paperwork but also "smart phones and laptops from senior executives," the Guardian's Jordison sides with the publishers against what he describes as a monopolist Amazon against angelic publishers who are just trying "to get a good deal for everyone."

  They do, however, have the sense to see a valid point in the complaint "The only reality we readers know is that we want to buy the book but can't."

  They continue, nevertheless, "But the fact that customers have a distorted view of how much ebooks should cost is hardly the publishers' fault.  Especially since a new breed of "self-published" authors are starting to sell millions of the things at $0.99 or less on Amazon – which casts an interesting light on the recent declarations about ebooks outselling paper books."

  Imagine that!  But then, new technology has been a problem through the ages for those wedded to older technology and unwilling to adjust to it.

Futurebook's article
Philip Jones thinks that Sam Jordison is an advocate of publishers setting of bookseller prices "but he is concerned that publishers may lose the battle legally, and that they have already lost the battle in the hearts of the consumers."  

Yes, and Jordison might do a bit more wondering about why that is so, and it's not just about pricing.  It also says a lot about what publishers think of their reading customers.  I've seen publisher statements (and reprinted them) that anyone well-off enough to buy an e-reader can afford the high book prices.  (Thanks to Joe Besser for the correction.)

 In marking books up by almost 50% when new, and also OVER the price of their paper back copies too often, they display a real disdain for e-book customers who are expected to spend almost as much OR MORE on a product that cannot be resold, and in most cases still cannot be lent to anyone.

  This goes against the traditional attitude toward books.  The publishers prohibit, for the most part, lending as is normal with paper books, and prohibit entirely re-selling the books.  Yet they price them higher than paperback books, and often only a few dollars less than a hardcover.  And now they're targeting libraries, with e-books to be disabled after x number of loans.  And the latter is with publishers willing to lend e-books at all to public libraries.  Macmillian and Simon & Schuster won't.  Jones points out:

'... publishers such as Hachette, Harper, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster, should be getting their titles into the Kindle charts, even at higher prices.  But I just checked the hourly Kindle chart, and there are no agency priced books in the top 20.  The highest placed title is David Nicholls' One Day (Hodder/Hachette), which also happens to be the fourth most expensive Kindle Edition in the current top 50.

Furthermore, and this is even more worrying.  The average price of paid-for books in Amazon's Kindle top 50 chart today is £1.79.  It is little wonder Guardian commentators [people commenting on the article] think e-books should cost less than agency publishers are making them available: they do.

Read some of the reviews appended to those self-published titles in the Kindle chart, and we could be forgiven for thinking that price has superceded quality in the minds of Kindle users.  This is not just worrying it is tragic.  Agency publishers have a limited period of time to prove Amazon wrong by getting their titles up the Kindle bestseller chart, before the OFT rules one way or another. The concern must be that by then, the war may already have been lost. '

His numbers are from the Amazon UK Kindle store, but in the U.S. the UK site's Kindle book pricing is not displayed except in the Bestseller listings.

Actually, there ARE e-reader customers who give cost a very high weight in the economy we're in today.  Many are also finding quality writing although they may have to dig deep and wide, but when they find it, word of mouth is a huge factor in online book sales.

  The online community is important for those not wanting to wade through it all, and there is actually a way to find quality writing without depending on large publishing houses and publicity machines, to the extent that some writers discovered by price-conscious readers have been offered contracts by large publishing houses; an important trend now is seen in authors who are hesitating to go with the contracts offered, as it may be more beneficial for them to continue to 'self-publish' because the large publishers have not had a reputation for paying the authors/creators what they are due.

  For the Amazon UK customers' rather raw feelings on all this (and publishers should really pay more attention to what is said), see the Agency pricing thread on their Kindle forums.  It's similar to what is seen on the U.S. forums but UK customers are even more angry about it because the increases by the Big5 publishers have been quite outrageous in the UK where general e-book pricing had been lower than it had been Amazon US's Kindlestore.

BESTSELLER E-BOOK listings for UK and US stores
  Here is the current Bestseller listing (paid and free) for Amazon UK,
  and here's the current Bestseller listing for for Amazon US.



Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Newspapers headline Amazon UK forum rebellion against Agency pricing

KINDLE CUSTOMER ANGER AT AGENCY 'PRICE FIXING'

That was the big headline at The Bookseller.com site yesterday when reporter Graeme Neill reported on the Amazon UK forum message thread that I pointed to the day before.

Besides accusing the publishers of "greediness" and vociferously suggesting that the actions of Hachette, Penguin and HarperCollins could lead to piracy when people had been happy to pay the earlier prices, they have started a boycott which seems a bit stronger than the one already causing innocent authors no small distress in the U.S.:

' "I can't believe I'm saying this . . . because I have never ever downloaded files illegally. Not even once. And now I'm considering it. Because if publishers want to rip ME off, maybe it's not so wrong to rip them off?" '

That, by Caroline P was a popular sentiment.  As I mentioned in the earlier report, one forum writer had been upset that "One book, Just After Sunset bought at under £5 the other day, was seen to be £17.99 today, a price shown as 'set by the publisher' as they decided to do in the U.S. (where some customers ignore it and still blame Amazon for the pricing)."

The Bookseller picked up that message (out of 452 that were there when I last looked -- and there are right now about 700 postings there).  After some forum members decided to give Kindle book reviews 1-star ratings due to what they considered sudden, heavy overpricing, Neill reports:

' The move by Hachette, Penguin and HarperCollins has lead [sic] to Amazon.co.uk's Kindle chart being dominated by non-agency publishers.

  Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles (Penguin, £12.99) has tumbled out of the top 20, while his first memoir, Moab is my Washpot (Random House, £2.69) was in the top 15 this morning (2nd November). '

While some of us feel this method of protesting is unfair to authors, there's little question that it's effective in bringing to the attention of the world the depth of unhappiness over the current raised pricing which is to be the same at all online e-book stores.

  To make it worse, a spokesperson at HarperCollins uttered an inept, meaningless statement that was like throwing oil on water:

' Experience has shown in the US, where the market is more mature, this is the best way to stimulate competition by offering good value to consumers and maximising the number of channels to market." '

  Stimulate competition? By making sure all online e-book stores charge the same higher price for an e-book ?  The UK has stronger regulations against what could be seen as price-fixing, and reporting the situation to agencies has been another method some forumners have used in the last week.

  However, in a posting that was just made as I write this, forumner Neilleeds advises the forum that, on the £17.99 book Just After Sunset "...the price has dropped to 50p below paperback for this now so the point is not as valid as it was!"  Maybe the many reports to regulatory agencies are having an effect.

  In the meantime, The Guardian's headline was "Kindle users revolt against delays to ebook editions."   Their focus is on "Angry Kindle fans" who "have sabotaged the Amazon rating of a bestselling new book, Game Change, an exposé of the 2008 US presidential elections, to punish its publisher for delaying the digital edition of the book until February.

  The newspaper reviews on that book have been highly positive but, the Guardian says, "the book has been punished with one-star reviews at Amazon.com from frustrated Kindle users" and Neill counted about 142 forum reviewers giving the book one star and writing that the publishers are shaming themselves by "excluding and alienating a huge market that would have bought your book if you weren't so shortsighted" and advising that topical books released later and no longer timely will never be bought now.

  Last year Amazon had predicted, during the U.S. equivalent of this reaction in the UK, that "authors get the most publicity at launch and need to strike while the iron is hot.  If readers can't get their preferred format at that moment, they may buy a different book or just not buy a book at all."

  For one thing, that also leaves time for would-be-readers to see any bad reviews or to find that this is no longer a book others are talking about and they drop the impulse to buy it.

  At that time last year, Simon & Schuster chief executive Carolyn Reidy had told the WSJ, "We believe some people will be disappointed.  But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of ebook reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible."

Random House, who said No to the new fixed-higher-pricing of the Agency Plan and therefore was not allowed into the Apple iBook Store, is the largest publisher of all and has not joined the other large publishers in this UK phase of the Agency plan and appears to be thriving.

Background
For those new to the situation and interested in the background of the e-book pricing wars, the earlier stories posted here include:

  . WashPost: State AG probes Apple, Amazon over e-Book prices. What?
  . Amazon removes Macmillan books
  . Amazon surrenders to Macmillan and Steve Jobs
  . Steve Jobs pulls his puppet strings but says too much
  . Amazon plays hardball to keep lower pricing option
  . Why are some e-book prices higher than hardcover ones?


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Amazon UK Switches to Agency Plan with 3 Publishers

As mentioned here on Oct. 15, Amazon told its UK customers about its battles to avoid the 'Agency Plan' created by Apple with the larger publishers and that the latter would 'require' online booksellers to accept the plan to fix prices to be the same at all online stores (notably higher in most cases).  See the recent story for details of what Amazon said to its customers in a posting on the Kindle forums.  The short version is:

' Recently, you may have heard that a small group of UK publishers will require booksellers to adopt an "agency model" for selling e-books. Under this model, publishers set the consumer price for each e-book and require any bookseller to sell at that price. This is unlike the traditional wholesale model that's been in place for decades, where booksellers set consumer prices.

It is indeed correct that this group of publishers will require Amazon and other UK booksellers to accept an agency model for e-books. We believe they will raise prices on e-books for consumers almost across the board. For a number of reasons, we think this is a damaging approach for readers, authors, booksellers and publishers alike. ... '

  But Bookseller.com reports it's come to pass in the U.K. now, also, with "publishers Hachette, HarperCollins and Penguin now setting their own e-book prices.  Customers buying an e-book from the Kindle store from any of the three publishers are told: "This price was set by the publisher." A Penguin spokesperson said: "I can confirm we are now on the agency model with Amazon as of today."

  Hachette, the leader of the 3 (or the one who required this first) switched to agency pricing in September. Bookseller says that Amazon is the first online e-bookseller to make the switch and that no Penguin or Hachette e-books are yet available for sale on either Waterstones.com or W H Smith's website.

  It seems they just withhold the e-books if the retailer refuses to go on the Agency plan.  With Amazon, the customers tend to blame Amazon, as they did in the U.S., if the e-books are not in the store and many posted on forums they'd rather have a choice and pay more than not have access to the books at all or have to find them elsewhere.  Most posted though that they didn't intend to pay the publishers' new higher prices, since they were often 50% higher.

  The reaction in the UK's forums is more angry than even what we saw in the U.S. forums.  One book, Just After Sunset bought at under £5 the other day, was seen to be £17.99 today, a price shown as 'set by the publisher' as they decided to do in the U.S. (where some customers ignore it and still blame Amazon for the pricing).  However, I just looked and they're removed the price for the Kindle edition and haven't replaced it yet. Also, Bookseller.com adds:

'A small number of HarperCollins' e-books are available at Waterstones.com and W H Smith, with a note from Waterstones.com indicating that loyalty card points do not now apply to e-book purchases.

  It is believed that an issue over loyalty card payments was behind the removal of Hachette titles from sale at Waterstones.com when the publishers switched to agency in September, suggesting that the wrinkes [sic] in the transition may soon be ironed out across all booksellers who agree to the new terms.  One retailer said: "It's still a bit fluid.  Everything is still being resolved."

The only publishers who have signed up to the agency model but have yet to implement its pricing are Canongate, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. '

See the earlier story for more details and links to sourcing for the history of the e-book pricing wars.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

WashPost: State AG probes Apple, Amazon over e-Book prices. What?

I was startled to see Amazon considered a price-raising or price-fixing culprit in this investigation by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal over e-book prices (though some of us did expect an investigation or two sooner or later over the high-price agreements (with prices that were mandatory for some like Amazon).

 Amazon fought the price increases and when they lost, made a public statement about having to 'capitulate' and were said to be insisting on assurances that if they agreed to raise prices to KEEP the publishers' books at Amazon (because the Apple Agency contracts insisted on the publishers not giving lower pricing elsewhere) that Amazon would not then be undercut in pricing by another online store.

I wrote quite a bit about this while it was happening and sourced anything remotely controversial.

If you're interested in the background, the main stories posted here were:

  . Amazon removes Macmillan books

  . Amazon surrenders to Macmillan and Steve Jobs

  . Steve Jobs pulls his puppet strings but says too much

  . Amazon plays hardball to keep lower pricing option


(I'm now staying in a hotel after the flooding in the apartment meant that 7 monster furnace-like humidifers and liquid suction machines and all their hoses and heavy vacuum-cleaner sounds made the place uninhabitable.  It was 97 degrees in the apartment when I left last night, and contractors said no windows were to be opened as that would prevent the drying needed.  I'm moved after packing in 97-degree heat, so this blog article had to be short, but the links given should give an idea of the history of this pricing battle.)

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Check often:  Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.

Free Kindle books (non-classics). See them easily anytime. UPDATE2

UPDATED April 12, 2010 - Original posting April 4, at 10:42 PM
  I added a 2nd method of seeing latest free non-classics (latest free contemporary) but also needed to add that some international Kindle users in Europe, Canada and some other countries are in high wireless-cost areas, so Amazon charges about $2.30 for the otherwise free book, sorry to say.  Amazon hopes to be able to change this someday with low-cost local arrangements.

If you want to always be able to see the latest currently free non-classics Kindle books without waiting for someone to tell you which are free today, do bookmark these two pages:
  (1) the Latest Free Nonclassics page (shortcut http://bit.ly/latestfreenonclassics)) and
  (2) the Late-Listed Free Nonclassics page (shortcut http://bit.ly/latelistedfreenonclassics), to see the 55 to 65 non-classics or non-public domain books that are free at any particular time (very often only briefly)

 This set, in two views, is the main source for free-book information used for blogs though many will prefer newest ones pointed out daily.  However, you can catch them even earlier this way if you use the link before the new books are reported.  The free non-classics usually last a few days, some less, and some stay on for quite some time.

  While I omit the hundreds of 'excerpts' for the ongoing Amazon contest, be aware that a very few of the new free non-classics displayed on these pages are promoting a "Chapter" or two.  They are clearly marked but can still be missed.

  Although the first group is sorted by 'publication date,' Amazon's publishers will sometimes offer for free -- suddenly and temporarily -- books that were published even a year to 3 years ago.  So latest free ones can be in the middle.
  Often they're so new that they're listed as least-selling of course, so I've added a link for that method also.  Use these links whenever you want to, and you'll see quickly which ones are new though.

ALTERNATE VIEWS OF THE SET
  While at the page, you can choose at top right to see them sorted by Bestselling and Average Customer Rating as well.  I've used only one image for this article, as you will quickly see which currently free e-books might be of interest depending on genre and product descriptions there.

The new free books are dominated by the Christian Fiction genre, and some will find those inspiring while others are looking for more general-interest books or for other genres.

FREE BOOK HIGHLIGHTED IN IMAGE ABOVE
The book whose image you see for this blog article is Bite Me, by Parker Blue who is offering the book free as a promo for his more recent book.  Bite Me has 9 customer reviews averaging 4-1/2 stars.  The paperback is listed at $12.78 and the Audible audio version at $13.10.

The book is described as "An edgy book for teens that spans the gap between YA and adult fiction..." and, as with so many bestseller books today, it has a vampire-hunter theme.

[From original posting, unchanged]
FREE BOOKS THAT DISAPPEARED WITHIN A DAY, AND AGENCY-PLAN SOFTWARE CHANGES
There were temporarily-free Kindle books released as free the last couple of days which are currently missing from the Kindlestore lists -- there may have been a glitch that caused the listing of a bunch of HarperCollins free-books that are currently missing.  There are also longer-term free books that are temporarily missing due to the rather huge programming changes needed to convert the store price calculations to Agency for the Big5 publishers and all their many imprints, not easily identifiable usually as under the big tent of the larger publishers.

 So, missing books are likely due to programming changes being made (or errors) in the rush to program store-wide price calculation changes needed by the time of Applestore's opening Saturday to make sure prices are as high as Apple and Big 5 publishers insist they be from now on.

  The big switchover to Apple's Agency plan requires that iBookstore publishers get all other online bookstores to change to the higher-pricing Agency plan for their e-books as a condition for their inclusion in Apple's store.
  In previous blog entries I've noted there will be taxes on these also, as that is based on states where the publisher of the book has a presence.

 The larger publishers have been very pleased to find a new bookstore willing to (and even recommending that publishers) raise prices 30-50% while demanding that other online e-bookstores do as well.

 But that meant that other bookstores like Amazon's and Fictionwise are having to switch to the Agency plan with its higher customer-pricing.
 "Competition" has brought on non-competitive prices that are, coincidentally considerably higher.

 Therefore it's not super likely that HarperCollins, who just made an Agency agreement with Amazon, would be likely to have lots of free books for more than a day or two.  If they do bring those back, as a promo, it'll be a nice surprise, but they disappeared after one day -- and if they're not brought back, then it was entirely a network programming error.   We'll see.

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See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
 There is also a page of links that confine searches to mid-range priced e-books for those looking for a larger selection of non-classics below $7.