Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch wrote an wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal and stated that e-book sales have plateaued and he is no longer worried about them destroying the book selling business. He also mentioned how print has proved to be durable because, as a format, they’re simply hard to improve on.
People have accused the Hachete boss of writing a self-congratulatory piece in the Journal. He talked about how they beat Amazon, in a very public fashion and are a better alternative to self-publishing – “Writers like to be paid, in advance, for their work. Publishers are investors and risk takers. And a publishing company with longstanding media and marketing relationships is far more capable of getting attention for a new book than a writer working alone.”
One of his most humorous statements, was more or less a rhetorical statement, “What other American industry has companies still in existence after two centuries.” This all seems fine and well until you remember that all of the big publishing companies have merged with each other and squeezed everyone else out. It is easy to bid millions of dollars on new books by debut authors when you don’t have much competition.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
