Welcome to this week’s news post! And this week has certainly been eventful with major publishing and book news. From the Department of Justice in the US suing and settling with the Big 5 publishers and Apple about Agency pricing,  publishers pulling out of Amazon and J.K Rowling unveiling the details and publication dates for her first adult book.

Yesterday, my twitter feed exploded when news emerged that the Department of Justice will be suing  Macmillon, Hachette, Penguin, Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins over alleged collusion with Apple and price fixing with the Agency model. However it looks like that Hachette, Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins will settle with the DOJ  but Macmillon and Penguin along with Apple will be facing a lawsuit over alleged collusion over Agency pricing.

However this isn’t the end of the whole issue. 16 states in the US will also have their own lawsuits and it looks like that Hachette and HarperCollins have already settled by paying over $50 million. There is also reports with the EU and the publishers settling over there about the Agency agreement and it looks like Penguin is the only one who will be defending the Agency model.

For a fantastic concise write up about this check out Dear Author’s Jane summary.

It also looks like there is another battle over the horizon between Amazon and the major publishers, with reports of two of the big 6 publishers refusing to sign a new renewal contract. It looks like that Amazon’s new terms for promotion and marketing is the sticking point which led to the departure of the IPG – (the Independent Publishers Group) removed their books from Amazon due to the same reasons. At this point, there’s no signs any of the big publishers books have been removed but I suspect the next few months will be very interesting to follow about how this fares especially with the ongoing investigations and settlements due to Agency pricing.

J.K Rowling has released details of her first adult book, The Casual Vacancy, and is described as a black comedy set in a small village in England. Little Brown synopsis –

“blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising” tale of what happens in the English village of Pagford after parish council member Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly.

“Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war,” the publisher said.

“Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?”

The book is slated for release in September 27.  J.K Rowling has also released a new author site which has more news about the worldwide release of her new book.

News in Brief:

Huge thanks to Heroes and Heartbreakers  twitter stream yesterday – there’s some tidbits from the Romantic Times con in Chicago with news from Jeaniene Frost and Nalini Singh and Charlaine Harris –

Charlaine Harris has signed a new 3 book deal which is a PNR and will have violence and mystery and she has also stated that Sookie will face a cataclysmic problem in the series.

Jeaniene Frost has said the next Night Huntress book might be titled Up from the Grave, and that there should be 2 books with the Vlad spinnoff.

Nalini Singh hasn’t said who will be the hero in the next Psy/Changeling book and no news on who the Ghost is (I hear there was pressure to get some info and clues but no joy!) and that she is contracted three more books and she will see how it goes.

And now for the books to watch out for the coming months!

This looks AWESOME!!!! Stormdancer, the first book in the Lotus War series by Jay Krisoff

 

A DYING LAND
The Shima Imperium verges on the brink of environmental collapse; decimated by clockwork industrialization and the machine-worshipers of the Lotus Guild. The skies are red as blood, land choked with toxic pollution, wildlife ravaged by mass extinctions.

AN IMPOSSIBLE QUEST
The hunters of Shima’s imperial court are charged by their Shōgun to capture a thunder tiger – a legendary beast, half-eagle, half-tiger. But any fool knows thunder tigers have been extinct for more than a century, and the price of failing the Shōgun is death.

A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL
Yukiko is a child of the Fox clan, possessed of a hidden gift that would see her executed by the Lotus Guild. Accompanying her father on the Shōgun’s hunt, she finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in Shima’s last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled thunder tiger for company. Even though she can hear his thoughts, even though she saved his life, all she knows for certain is he’d rather see her dead than help her.

But together, the pair will form an indomitable friendship, and rise to challenge the might of an empire.

This book also also caught my eye – Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

 

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.
Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha…and the secrets of her heart.

And I love the sound of the premise of Monument 14, by Emmy Laybourne – which looks like a Breakfast Club meets the apocaylpse.

 

Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don’t stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not—you hurdle down the stairs and make a run for the corner.

Only, if it’s the last time you’ll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you’d stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.

But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.

Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong.

In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world—as they know it—apart.

 

 

The big question for this week – what do you think will happen with ebook pricing? Do you think the DOJ and the EU investigations had to happen? And what do you think will happen next? 

I am going to leave you with this fun video which was picked up on the Carina Blog! Thanks to Stella for the headsup – I so agree with this guy! 😀

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuRuwR2JSXI]

About Has

Has is a bookaholic and feeds her addiction whenever she can. She usually can be found lost in a Romance or an Urban Fantasy novel. Her favourite sub genres are Paranormal, Fantasy and some Scifi. Her most treasured authors are, Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, Ann Aguirre, Lisa Kleypas and Tamora Pierce. She loves that discovery of finding a brand new author and falling in love with their books. Has also blogs a The Book Pushers - Book chatter and reviews

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