Amazon Tries to Drive Wedge Between Hachette and Its Authors
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Amazon.com Inc. is offering authors caught up in its dispute with Hachette Book Group all proceeds from the sale of any digital book, seeking to bypass the publisher and appeal directly to writers.
Amazon sent a letter to authors, including Douglas Preston, proposing to extract them from the spat by giving them all e-book revenue, Mr. Preston said in an interview. Mr. Preston, co-author of the Pendergast series of books, led an effort to rally writers and readers to petition Amazon to end the dispute.
The world’s largest online retailer blocked pre-orders for some of Hachette’s books earlier this year, including “The Silkworm,” a new novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Amazon and Hachette are each seeking a greater share of e-book income. While physical book sales in the U.S. are projected to fall to $19.5 billion this year from $26 billion in 2010, e-book revenue is anticipated to jump more than eightfold to $8.7 billion, according to Forrester Research. The growth is being spurred by the increasing consumer use of tablets and smartphones, through which people read e-books.
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