The Wall Street Journal | Chicago Reader | Mother Jones
The Justice Department has threatened an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five major book publishers for colluding to raise e-book prices, the Journal reports. At issue was the decision by booksellers, led by Apple, to let book publishers set a single retail price for their e-books. Previously, sellers such as Amazon had offered discount prices to compete for customers.
In other e-books news, Steve Bogira at Chicago Reader agrees with Dwight Garner’s praise of Kindle Singles, but adds, “I’m not crazy about the ‘long-form’ label. Long-form doesn’t bring to mind much that’s positive. Would you rather file the long-form 1040, or the short-form 1040EZ?”
Meanwhile, Kevin Drum at Mother Jones takes a closer look at Matter, a crowdfunded startup that will produce a weekly long-form journalism piece for 99 cents. “Their delivery mechanism is beside the point… Basically, if they’re able to consistently produce spectacular pieces of journalism that generate a lot of online buzz, they’ll succeed. If they can’t, they won’t.”
Earlier: Direct publishing of e-books offers hope for long-form journalists (Poynter)
