Okay, thanks to random.org, I’ve picked the big winner:

#93: One title I am reading right now is Genesis by Bernard Beckett.
by Carol on February 19th, 2010 at 12:03 pm

Congratulations, Carol! Please email me, via the contact form here on my website, with your postal address, and I’ll ship you the books and the bear.

Many thanks again, folks! And no worries: I promise there will be more contests to come.

“I can honestly say that I wasn’t expecting HELL’S ANGEL to be anything other than a fun and sexy novella set in the world of author Jackie Kessler’s HELL ON EARTH series…and boy, was I wrong. [Ms. Kessler] manages to pack in an entire novel’s worth of conflict, emotion and sexual tension in this story and the result is such a powerful and beautiful read that I really don’t know how to describe it other than as a perfectly satisfying romance. For anyone who has never read this author before, even if you’re not a huge fan of paranormal romance, I highly recommend picking up a copy of HELL’S ANGEL this Valentine’s Day and find out what you’ve been missing.”

As you know, HELL’S ANGEL is part of All Romance eBooks’ 28 DAYS OF HEART series running all through February. All proceeds will go to the American Heart Association. If you’d like to order HELL’S ANGEL, you can do so here. $1.99, available as HTML, Microsoft Reader, Adobe Acrobat, Mobipocket and EPub formats.

I have the first books of each of the Magnificent Seven:

Devlin’s Luck by Patricia Bray
Reiffen’s Choice by S.C. Butler
Heartwood by Barbara Campbell
Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman
The Skewed Throne by Joshua Palmatier
Dead to Me by Anton Strout

And Hell’s Belles, by yours truly.

Each of the books is signed by its author. And I’ll also include an adorable stuffed panda bear named Beckett.

All you have to do is leave a comment here, telling me what book you’re currently reading. The winner will receive all seven books and the panda bear. I’ll pick the winner at random on Friday, February 19, 2010.

Have at it! What are you currently reading?

But no Kindle editions.

Heh.

You know, Amazon, if you would have done this initially, this would be very, very, very different. That would have come across as reasonable, if aggressive. But now? Sorry. Much too late for you to appear reasonable. Now you just are acting spoiled. Stop it. Put the Kindle buy buttons back.

Better yet, be consistent. If you’re going to keep the Macmillan Kindle buy buttons down because Macmillan wants you to embrace the agency model, take down the Hachette Kindle buy buttons too. And better start eyeballing the HarperCollins buy buttons.

Because while that won’t earn you any sympathy — and will probably score you even more ire against you — at least you’d be standing by your “conviction.”

What do you say, Amazon?

First, Macmillan took out a full-page NYT ad for one of its new hardcover releases…and let the reading public know that the book is available everywhere except Amazon: Macmillan NYT Ad: “Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon”. For the record, I think this is utterly brilliant. I am now crushing on the Macmillan marketing folks who dreamed this up.

Second, Hachette Book Group USA is following in Macmillan’s footsteps regarding e-book pricing: Hachette Book Group to Transition to Agency Model. In this article, there is a link to Macmillan CEO John Sargent’s definition of an agency model:

“Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.”

Everyone clear on this? In the agency model, instead of most e-books getting capped at $9.99, the price would have a range over time, from a high of $14.99 to a low of $5.99. When the new content is first available, it will cost more — same as in pretty much any retail store for a new product. E-books would also be released around the same day as their hardcover print counterparts, instead of waiting days, weeks, months after the hardcover releases before releasing the e-book version.

Now, many folks have been commenting about the pricing structure, as well as the situation overall. I’ve previously referred you to folks like John Scalzi and Tobias Buckell and Jay Lake. I’ve commented too. What I initially said, when Amazon first pulled the plug one week ago, was: “Now, I don’t like that Macmillan is demanding that Amazon raise its ebook prices. I think it’s ridiculous for an ebook to cost the same as a print-version trade paperback.”

But now I’ve had time to look at the so-called agency model of pricing…and I think it makes sense. Why? Well, I’ll answer a question with a question: Why is it OK for Amazon to charge almost $500 for the Kindle initially and drop the price over time to under $300, but it’s not OK for Macmillan to charge almost $15 for books initially and drop the price over time to under $6?

Really — why? Please explain it to me.

Yes, of course I’ve heard the arguments that e-books don’t have paper/distribution costs and therefore should not cost the same as their print versions. And I agree: if you’re paying $24 for a hardcover, part of what you’re paying for is the actual hard-backed cover…and you don’t get that on an e-book version. As far as I know, no one is suggesting that an e-book should be the same price as a hardcover copy, or even the same price as a mass-market paperback. What Macmillan and Hachette and HarperCollins are saying is that the $9.99 “loss leader” Kindle model is not tenable — either for the publishers or for Amazon. (Indeed, Amazon stands to make more money from the agency model; right now, it loses money on e-book sales, which it makes up for in Kindle sales.)

Why doesn’t the $9.99 e-book model work for publishers? Author Susan Piver has a phenomenal article that everyone should read: The Macmillan vs. Amazon Throwdown. For another look at the $9.99, check out Amazon losing money on $9.99 e-books. And look:

Even though e-books do not have the printing and shipping costs associated with a book, publishers insist that these are only a fraction of the cost that goes into a book: “The pricing in publishing has very little to do with manufacturing costs and most to do with the cost of author talent. That does not go away when you sell an e-book,” the head of one house asserted.

Oh, right. Gotta pay the **authors.** (To say nothing of the editors who work with the authors.) When you buy an e-book, you’re not buying the format. You’re buying the **content.** I don’t know about you, but I have a handful of authors who are on my Gotta Buy It Now list. And yeah, I pony up the money for hardcovers for those authors, because I am a huge fan of their work and **I don’t want to wait the better part of a year for the mass-market paperback reissue.** I pay more, and I get the book sooner. Why shouldn’t the same rule apply to e-books?

So what if we don’t move to an agency model? If I understand this correctly, the other option is called “windowing,” and we saw a prominent example of this late last year, with the release of Stephen King’s Under the Dome. Basically, in the windowing model (again, if I’m understanding this correctly), the e-book versions, priced significantly cheaper than their print versions, would not be available until weeks, maybe even months, after the print versions have hit the shelves.

You know. Sort of like how a hardcover comes out first, and then you have to wait months, maybe even years, for an alternate format. Hey, I had that with my Hell books from Kensington: 17 months to two years after the trade paperback version of the books, the mass-market editions became available. So it would be the same thing for the e-book versions. In the windowing model, e-books are the mass-market paperbacks of the digital age.

Frankly, I think the agency model is better than the windowing model, by a long shot. With the agency model, you get the ebooks available around when the print versions first release. And at the end of the day, it’s all about readers getting to read the stories they want when they want…and how they want.

As for poor Amazon, the tiny e-tailer who’s in the middle of all this? According to Macmillan’s Sargent:

“The agency model would allow Amazon to make more money selling our books, not less.”

Ah. Yup, okay, I see why Amazon is upset.

Wait, no I don’t.

Oh, wait, yes I do! This isn’t about the content at all. It’s not about the authors, or the readers. It’s about Amazon sweating over the Kindle not being the only e-kid on the block. B&N’s got its Nook. Sony has its e-Reader. And gamechanger Apple will have its iPad. So Amazon, with its monopoly on its Kindles, suddenly won’t be making a killing on its e-reader hardware. Oh noes! What’s Amazon to do? I’ve got it! Amazon should make a big, fat stink about the publishers demanding that Amazon raise its e-book prices! Consumers won’t stand for that, no sir! Consumers will demand that their e-books are no more than $9.99! And if other e-tailers (like Apple) are going with the agency model, then Amazon will still make a boatload of money from its Kindle, all thanks to consumer outrage! It’s a brilliant plan!

And it also won’t work. Want to know why? Amazon overstepped. If it had dismantled the buy buttons only on Macmillan e-books, this would probably be a very different conversation. But it didn’t. It dismantled buy buttons on BOTH e-book and print formats for Macmillan books. Which, by the way, are STILL not back up, one week later.

After all is said and done, Amazon looks either like a bully or a tantruming toddler, and its **still** going to profit once all the publishers switch over to the agency model. So don’t you worry about poor Amazon. It’s going to be fine. (Amazon could stop selling books completely, and it would be fine.)

So enough with the drama already. Amazon, put back the buy buttons.

Readers, remember, as much as Amazon has a monopoly on the Kindle, it doesn’t have a monopoly on e-book availability. You can still purchase e-books from the publishers directly, and from Amazon’s competitors (such as B&N.com, Borders.com, Walmart.com…the list goes on). And heck, you can always walk into an actual bookstore. Or library. Looking for a local independent bookstore? Check out Indie Bound.

Author Laura Ann Gilman has pointed out that Wall Street is getting ticked off at Amazon. Go figure.

Something to think about: We’ve heard from Macmillan CEO Sargent. And we’ve heard from New Corp. CEO Murdoch (who owns HarperCollins). Why haven’t we heard from Amazon CEO Bezos?

“We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $US9.99,” Murdoch said when asked about electronic books during a conference call with analysts on Tuesday.

“They pay us the wholesale price of $US14 or whatever we charge,” he said. “But I think it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hard cover books.”

What does Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation own? Oh, you know. A teensy publisher called HarperCollins.

Can you see it now? Let’s say Amazon does the same whoops-no-HarperCollins-titles-on-Amazon thing that they did (and as of this blog post at 7:35 am Eastern on Wednesday Feb. 3, are still doing) with Macmillan titles and removes the buy buttons for all formats (including print) and drops HarperCollins books from customers’ wish lists. I call right now that the entire right-wing-leaning world would learn about this via Fox News. Yeah, they’d have to say that Fox News is owned (like most of the entire world) by News Corporation. But I’m guessing that wouldn’t bother people too much.

And then…here’s the brilliant part…you know that if Fox News would be discussing this, MSNBC, CNN and The Daily Show wouldn’t be far behind.

All right, now I’m just giddy!

So go ahead, Amazon. I dare you to pull the plug on HarperCollins titles. I double-dog dare you.

Wild Child by Shelley Munro
Contemporary / Erotica

Zoë Underwood loved Matt Cantrell from the moment her mother married his father. She definitely thinks of him as more than a big brother and even though he moved away from home the moment their parents got married, her feelings for him have grown stronger, bigger. More. No one presses her buttons like the tall, dark and gorgeous Matt. If only he can get over the eight-year age difference.

Now, Zoë is determined to snare her man. She wants one thing—Matt’s love. It’s time for her to make a move, stir things up a little and take a chance on love.

You can buy the enovella from www.AllRomance.com and www.OmniLit.com. All proceeds benefit the American Heart Association.

About the author
Shelley lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Typical New Zealanders, Shelley and her husband left home for their big OE soon after they married (translation of New Zealand speak—big overseas experience). A year-long adventure lengthened to six years of roaming the world. Enduring memories include being almost sat on by a mountain gorilla in Rwanda, lazing on white sandy beaches in India, whale watching in Alaska, searching for leprechauns in Ireland, and dealing with ghosts in an English pub. While travel is still a big attraction, these days Shelley is most likely found in front of her computer following another love—that of writing stories of romance and adventure. Other interests include watching rugby (strictly for research purposes), cycling, walking, and curling up with a good book.

Visit the author’s website at www.ShelleyMunro.com

Yeah, poor mega-ginormous online retailer. No one loves you anymore. All because you proceeded to anger your supplier, your supplier’s suppliers, your supplier’s supplier’s customers, and, oh right, your own customers. Details? See John Scalzi’s fantabulous post.

Poor little etail giant, who pulled all Macmillan buy buttons — except for Macmillan’s Palgrave line (which includes both scholarly and trade titles). And hey, according to this must-read Publisher’s Lunch update: “Not only did the buy buttons stay active for the Palgrave trade titles, for those new releases with Kindle editions, Amazon was already selling the ebook versions for the “needlessly high” as they would put it price $15 in many cases.”

Take a moment. Reread that last sentence.

So all of Amazon’s kvetching about it being unreasonable to pay $14.99 for an e-book is just sound and fury. Amazon is just fine with selling ebooks for the Kindle at prices higher than $9.99.

As Publisher’s Lunch says: “As we have written many times before, while Amazon creates the impression that all new releases and hardcovers are available in ebook for $9.99 or less, about 30 percent of their offerings have consistently listed above that price point.”

Poor Amazon. No one understands you, especially when you’re caught with your pants on the ground.

Every day this month, a new e-novella will be available from All Romance eBooks. All proceeds will go to the American Heart Association. I’m thrilled to be part of this project. You can preorder and order all of the e-novellas at All Romance eBooks: http://www.allromanceebooks.com

February 1, 2010:

Exchange of Hearts by By G.A. Hauser
10,906 words; Contemporary/Gay/Erotica - 4 Flames

Sometimes love hits you when you least expect it…

Exchange student Elia Gianni arrives at the Dayton airport ready to soak up everything American. When the young Italian was offered a placement with the Steele family, he knew he’d been given the chance of a lifetime. What he didn’t anticipate was the Steele’s blond, blue-eyed son, Rick. The instant Rick sets eyes on the fantastic foreigner he falls head over heels. But the big, macho athlete was used to hiding his feelings and desperately wanting things he couldn’t have. Revealing the truth would change everything and throw his family into a tailspin.

Reality, however, becomes harder to deny when Rick is forced to share his bedroom with Elia. The summer immersion experience turns out to be more than anyone was prepared for as the two young men become lost in one another,
sharing an exchange…of hearts.

About the author

Award-winning author G.A. Hauser was born in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, USA and attended university in New York City. She moved to Seattle, Washington where she worked as a patrol officer with the Seattle Police Department. In early 2000 G.A. moved to Hertfordshire, England where she began her writing in earnest and published her first book, In the Shadow of Alexander. Now a full-time writer in Ohio, G.A. has written dozens of novels, including several best-sellers of gay fiction. Visit the author’s website at www.AuthorGAHauser.com