Stephen King’s new face of evil: predatory pricing: UPDATED

When you’re an author of Stephen King’s stature, you can afford to be direct. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly (where the mega-selling author is also a regular columnist), King had a message for retailers who are selling prestige titles at steep discounts: “It’s time to give the smaller bookstores a little breathing room (although not much chance of that, with Walmart offering Dome for nine bucks.)”

King’s new novel, Under the Dome, set for release Nov. 10, is indeed being sold for $8.98 at Wal-Mart and Target, which are engaged in a price war with online retailer Amazon. The big box stores are selling King’s hardcover (which has a cover price of $35 U.S.), along with nine other titles by brand-name authors, as loss leaders. The move is expected to adversely affect the bottom lines of independent booksellers, who are heading into the all-important Christmas selling season.

The American Booksellers Association has approached the Department of Justice about the matter, claiming that Wal-Mart and similar retailers are engaging in “illegal predatory pricing.” From EW:

In a letter released [last Thursday], the ABA went on to say that the practice was “damaging to the book industry and harmful to consumers.” A top publishing executive tells EW: “They had no choice. Bookstores are simply under siege. On one side, they’re facing the threat of e-books, and on the other they’re staring in the face of these three ugly superpowers.”

Meanwhile, the Toronto Star reported on Friday that similar deep discounting was not being implemented north of the 49th Parallel:

Andrew Pelletier, vice president of corporate affairs for Wal-Mart Canada, told the Star Friday morning that the company takes “a Canadian approach” to retailing based on “what is good for the Canadian market” that often differs from how Wal-Mart operates in the United States.

“We are two different countries. The U.S. approach is based on their marketplace,” he said. Wal-Mart Canada also doesn’t sell books online, he said.

Canadian politesse notwithstanding, it may be only a matter of time before consumers here start demanding similar price cuts. In any event, the ABA’s letter contains a dire warning: “The entire book industry is in danger of becoming collateral damage in this war.”

This post contains material that has been corrected. The quote concerning “collateral damage” was contained in the ABA’s letter to the Department of Justice. It was erroneously attributed to Canadian Booksellers Association executive director Susan Dayus. Quillblog regrets the error.

Bookmarks: Margaret Atwood on friendship, Stephen King in Toronto, and more

Sundry links from around the Web:

• Margaret  Atwood, who recently reviewed the novel of a close friend, reflects on weighing truth against friendship
• Introducing the vook, Simon & Schuster’s cleverly named hybrid of an e-book and video
• Stephen King is coming to Toronto
• The debate in Australia over parallel importation rages on. Now, publishers and booksellers are rejecting the “zero day” compromise, which would force publishers to release books at the same time as international editions
• Elmore Leonard receives another lifetime achievement award, this time from PEN U.S.A.
• Disgruntled booksellers in Hay-on-Wye stage an uprising

Super Thursday in Britain, and what U.S., U.K. publishers will be taking to Frankfurt

Americans have “Black Friday,” the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is the start of the Christmas shopping fiasco season, and which can, on occasion, lead to actual loss of life. It’s hard to imagine book buyers trampling store employees to death to get their hands on the new Audrey Niffenegger title, but British retailers are boning up for what they’re calling “Super Thursday” this Oct. 1, when a staggering 800 titles will publish in advance of the Christmas selling season.

With the months between October and December accounting for anywhere from 30% to 40% of annual sales, publishers obviously have a lot invested in the books that will drop this week. But one wonders how anyone hopes to break out of the pack with so many titles appearing on store shelves simultaneously. From the Guardian:

“It’s nice to have a day that feels quite special, because it is a rare title that is truly big enough to be a publishing event in itself,” says Julia Kingsford, head of marketing at bookseller Foyles. “But the inevitablility, with 800 books coming out on this one day, is that there will be things that are missed. There are an awful lot of books published, and not everything can be number one.”

Of course, British publishers can breathe (somewhat) easier knowing that the behemoth blockbuster of the fall, Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, has already dropped, so they’ll only have the ripple effects of its publication to deal with. Still, with new books from Terry Pratchett, Kate Mosse, Ozzy Osborne, and Stieg Larsson among those set to appear on Thursday, it’s a tight field.

Meanwhile, publishers in both the U.S. and Britain are gearing up for that other fall ritual: the Frankfurt Book Fair. Publisher’s Weekly gives a rundown of some of the big titles that reps will be taking with them to the annual fair, and it’s another cornucopia of big names and potential blockbusters. Some highlights:

• Imperial Bedrooms, Bret Easton Ellis’s sequel to Less than Zero
• 1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s doorstopper of a novel
• The Living Dead, zombie maestro George A. Romero’s first novel
• Stones into Schools, Greg Mortenson’s follow-up to the best-selling Three Cups of Tea
• Insatiable, a modern-day sequel to Dracula by chick-lit mainstay Meg Cabot
• Horns, by best-selling Stephen King progeny Joe Hill
• The Memory, an adult novel from “Sisterpants” author Ann Brashares
• Committed, the new book from Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame
• The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a typically uncontroversial novel from Philip Pullman
• Revenge, the fiction debut from Sharon Osbourne (what’s good for the goose…)

Court rules against S&S in Stephen King text messaging case

The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against Simon & Schuster today, saying that the publishing firm violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act in its advertising campaign for Stephen King’s horror novel The Cell. According to PRNewsChannel:

In an unprecedented ruling, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit announced that publishing giant Simon & Schuster could be on the hook for as much as $90 million for sending unwanted text messages to tens of thousands of people. The unanimous decision, which was announced on Friday, held that text messages were under the purview of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which makes it unlawful to make automated calls to cellular telephones.

The court based its ruling on a prior interpretation by the Federal Communications Commission:  “The FCC has explicitly stated that the TCPA’s prohibition…‘encompasses both voice calls and text calls to wireless numbers including, for example, short message service (SMS) calls,’” the opinion explained, “[W]e find that the FCC’s interpretation of the TCPA is reasonable, and therefore afford it deference to hold that a text message is a ‘call’ within the TCPA.”

The case was brought by Laci Statterfield, whose young son received a text in the middle of the night warning him that the “next call you take may be your last.” It turned out the text message was a promotion for the Stephen King horror book The Cell. The district court initially dismissed the case, finding that the TCPA did not apply to these text messages and further that Satterfield had consented to receive text messages by downloading a free ringtone from an unrelated website.  The appellate court rejected both arguments.

How you know you’re in a recession, Part MMCXIIV

Quillblog is well aware that hard economic times have a disproportionate effect on writers (who aren’t usually in the top earning brackets to begin with) but it’s a sign that things have become untenable when authors are auctioning off characters in their upcoming books. It sounds unbelievable, but that’s exactly what Nathan Tyree is doing. The author of Zombie Lust and the New Flesh and How to Make Love Like a Zombie is offering some lucky bidder the opportunity to appear as “a major character” in an upcoming novel.

This is not the first time an author has auctioned off a character in a novel. Stephen King, Amy Tan, Lemony Snicket, and John Grisham did so for charity back in 2005, as did Margaret Atwood in a 2007 fundraiser (that one went to Rebecca Eckler, who worried that Atwood might turn her “into a crack-whore-murderer”). But, to Quillblog’s knowledge, this is the first time an author has offered a chance to appear as a major character in a novel, complete with physical description and character traits.

According to Tyree’s seller’s description on eBay:

The winner will have to provide me with their name, a photo of themselves, a description of their personality and mannerisms, a bio (background info and such). I will write the novel and guarantee publication within one year of the end of the auction. Then they will also receive a free copy of the book.

No word as to whether the character will be a hero or a villain (or a zombie), or will survive to the end of the book without being viciously decapitated.

As of this morning, the top bid was $40.

Gargantuan Stephen King novel emerges after 25-year incubation

It took him 25 years from conception to completion, but Stephen King is finally ready to publish his hulking unwieldy boulder-like epic novel Under the Dome, described as an allegorical tale about a town in Maine that is surrounded one day by an invisible force field (hate it when that happens). From The Guardian:

Set in the town of Chester’s Mills, Maine, “on an entirely normal, beautiful fall day,” inhabitants suddenly find that the town has been sealed off by an invisible force field. “Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as ‘the dome’ comes down on it, people running errands in the neighbouring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact,” King revealed on his website. “No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when – or if – it will go away.”

The book clocks in at a wrist-straining 1,120 pages and, according to the author, deals “with some of the same issues” that his 1978 post-Apocalyptic novel The Stand did. Readers may remember that King rereleased that earlier novel in 1990 in a “Complete & Uncut” edition. One can only imagine how long Under the Dome will run should he ever decide to do the same with it.

Kindle 2 not coming to Canada

This week, Amazon unveiled Kindle 2, but the thinner, sleeker e-reader is still not available in Canada. That means Canadians will have to wait to read Stephen King’s lastest novella, which is a Kindle-only exclusive. The National Post reports:

The company still has a number of issues to solve before the device can be sold [in Canada], including Canadian digital publishing rights and electronic distribution negotiations.

“The book publishing industry in Canada is not up to speed in terms of what is available in the number of titles [online],”  [Amazon.ca spokesperson Margaret] Antkowski said. “Secondly, because it has WiFi capabilities, there has to be an agreement with the providers – the Bells of the world, the Rogers of the world. That’s one of the things that’s standing in the way, and they’re working on that.”

New Kindle may come with King-sized content

Today, Amazon has announced the release of Kindle 2, the new version of its popular Kindle e-reader. Priced at U.S.$359, the new version of the device includes an improved display, with 16 different shades of grey (who knew?), 25% longer battery life, and the capability of storing 1,500 books.

And, according to the Wall Street Journal, one selling point may be a new work of fiction by Stephen King, produced exclusively (at least in the short term) for the device.

It is possible that the King work — in which a Kindle-like device plays a role in the story — could be published as part of a physical book at a later date by the author’s current publisher, Scribner, an imprint of CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster publishing arm. Scribner last November published Mr. King’s most recent book, “Just After Sunset: Stories.”

Efforts to elicit an email response from Mr. King were unsuccessful. Spokesmen for Amazon and Simon & Schuster both declined to comment.

This Quillblogger has in the past got into some hot water for daring to criticize the unchallenged ascendency of e-readers, and will refrain from doing so here. Presumably Oprah’s endorsement last fall (which, according to the WSJ might have contributed to the device’s unavailability over the crucial Christmas selling season), along with the King story, will result in healthy sales for Kindle 2.

Take that, Stephenie Meyer!

It may not star the young wizard from Hogwarts, but J.K. Rowling’s latest book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, has become the fastest-selling title of 2008. According to Reuters (by way of the National Post):

Since it was released on December 4, The Tales of Beedle the Bard has also become the top selling book of 2008 on both sides of the Atlantic, topping the USA Today and Daily Telegraph charts and raising 4.2 million pounds ($6.5 million) for charity.

Proceeds from sales of the book, which has a global print run of eight million copies, will go to the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG), a charity for vulnerable children in Eastern Europe co-founded by Rowling.

The book does have a Potter connection, having been mentioned briefly in the series finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Rowling is now the world’s richest author, beating out Stephen King, Danielle Steel, and Conrad Black.

Stephen King, book trailer judge

Dorchester Publishing and Circle of Seven productions are joining forces to create a contest for book-loving amateur filmmakers. Participants will create a “book trailer” for their favorite novel in Dorchester’s imprint, SHOMI, a genre-blending, speculative romance line. The winning trailer will be chosen by veteran novel-cum-film dude Stephen King and shown in New York City and the winner’s hometown. The contest closes on December 30, 2008.

In the spirit of this post, check out this blog dedicated to book trailers – some of them are quite good.