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HarperCollins e-Books will no Longer be Available on Amazon

By 47 Comments

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HarperCollins is one of the largest publishers in the world and they might soon be pulling all of their e-books and print titles from Amazon. The contract between these two companies is set to expire soon and HC is refusing to sign the new deal.

The contract presented to HarperCollins was the same contract recently signed by Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan, Amazon confirmed.

It is very risky to  not sign a new deal with Amazon, since the Seattle company controls 75% of the digital book market in North America and 95% of the United Kingdom.

I think HarperCollins  may want the same publicity that Hachette got when their six month contract with Amazon dominated headlines and permeated into popular culture.

Likely the lack of HarperCollins e-books on Amazon will drive readers to their own website where they sell e-books. They established it in 2013 and sought to have some measure of control over their own titles. In order to read the e-books you buy  you have to download the HarperCollins Reader App for Android or iOS.

What is most interesting about the HarperCollins initiative to sell their own e-books is one of the formats they support is MOBI. This is compatible with the Kindle line of e-readers and what is most notable is that if you buy them from HC, the MOBI files are DRM-Free.

Michael Kozlowski

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.

  • JUDGE

    It’s so strange that the file format is the mobi. What’s more it’s that it’s a DRM-free too… Strange, did I say strange?? Anyway, as long as the prices are very attractive, it’s a good deal to have a new competitor vs Amazon.

  • lramesh

    Will prices be really attractive? Typically publishers keep the eBook prices equivalent to their print versions rather than being competitive.

  • JV

    As someone that is pretty much locked into the Amazon ecosystem…I was a little concerned…but it helps that they use MOBI files. Still sucks that you cant find everything in one place.

  • their MOBI files can be read on Amazon, they have digital watermarks, so you can sideload them on. Any other format and you need the HC e-Reading app for ios or android.

  • Its DRM-Free because they use digital watermarks. It helps track ownership, but not so unwieldy that you can’t sideload them.

  • Elizabeth Lang

    Awesome! I never buy from Amazon if I can help it so this is great.

  • Paul Robertson

    I will not buy from Harper Collins I guess. I have not had a reason to go to their site before, and I will probably not do so now. It seems to me that HC is just trying to keep prices on ebooks over inflated. There will still be thousands of books on Amazon, so my reading will not suffer at all.

  • Saranna DeWylde

    While it’s great that there will be more competition in the market, what does this mean for the authors while HC struggles to find its footing? It means that we’ll lose more than half our income.

  • The same thing that happened to Hachette authors, lost income, mad drama. Sides taken

  • I don’t know how many of me there are but I impulse bought a few Harper backlist ebooks last year solely because I found them quickly and easily on Amazon. I did not care enough about any of them to bother looking elsewhere and certainly not on an unfamiliar publisher shopping site where my credit card is not already set up. I even bought one for which I had a paperback copy but not with me. I hope this is just contract posturing as Harper has struck me as ahead of most publishers with digital strategies that seem to make sense.

  • Trish

    Looks like I won’t be reading HC anymore.

  • Lisa

    I find this a bit disconcerting. It seems like it really is just all about money and less about getting the books in the hands of the readers. I know many that will just not read titles by this publisher if they are no longer available on Amazon, so it may become counter-productive.

  • Chad Kook

    Of course its about money… publishers are the book world’s record labels… they could give less than two shits how much harder they are making it for you to get ahold of a book you want to read. If they think they can make a bigger profit, they will take those steps. Though it is only fair to point out Amazon is doing the same thing…. you know trying to make a bigger profit.

  • No Shit Sherlock

    What HC is really saying, “We want you to pirate our books because we’re too stupid to know that people don’t like jumping through unnecessary hoops.”

  • Molly Moody

    Not interested in another app for my computer so if they do this I won’t be getting any of their ebooks. If they also pull print books I’ll have to either get them from Walmart, provided they’re sold there, or from my favorite Half Price Books store.

  • Elizabeth Burton

    The MOBI files have to be DRM-free because if you want to read them on a Kindle or in the Kindle app they have to be sent to Amazon for conversion. Apparently, the irony of that hasn’t hit them yet. And considering I already have five reader apps on my various gadgets, I don’t see much incentive to installing another one just so a single publisher can keep the cost of the ebooks high.

  • Jim_Satterfield

    HarperCollins: “We want to be the publishing world’s version of RIAA.”

  • Jim_Satterfield

    Actually it probably means more than that. I don’t know that I’d want to install an app JUST for the books from one publisher.

  • calivianya

    I just browse on the Amazon store to find something to read next. I guess Harper Collins will never see any of my money ever again.

  • Its important to note that not all e-books sold by HC on their website have the MOBI format. I looked into this last night and I found less than 20% are sold in MOBI.

  • Well, i think the advantage HarperCollins has, is that they have their own method to sell e-books directly. This is something that Hachette did not have during their six month dispute with Amazon.

  • I am old enough and have worked in enough different industries where manufacturers have tried to sell direct and seen over and over again that the investment does not pay back for the simple reason not enough consumer transactions occur for the consumer to grow accustomed to shopping “there” — whichever there we are talking about. I simply cannot see a publisher of books (such a niche in the world of all goods purchased) ever making this work as a replacement for the major reseller channels with the complete product assortments they offer with simple shopping systems. Even Murdoch’s original bookshop chain in Australia had to be closed, Angus & Robertson, a publisher acting also as reseller. We have unique talents in forgetting past lessons and repeating them, which is how I see this. As corporate hubris. Gorilla ego fights with a lot of collateral damage. Harper will come to terms with Amazon.

  • Rachel Ingrid Robbins

    Thank you, Saranna…and I’m feeling your pain. Also, for us HC writers who found out about this from a link sent to us second-hand, it’s particularly upsetting! I. Can’t. Even.

  • AnnNonnieMouse

    Did you miss the DRM free part of that?

  • Jusywho

    I have a whole bunch of Mobi files that I got from the defunct Fictionwise several years ago. I can read them using the Kindle app. No conversion is necessary. Remember, Kindle started with the mobi format first before going to their AZW3 format. Amazon bought Mobipocket and then killed it.

  • Arial Burnz

    Publishers today just aren’t getting it. As a friend of an author who is signed on with HC, she does all the work to promote and struggles for price pulsing. She is NEVER going to sign with a publisher again unless they have a nice fat advance. Publishers are not only going about this all wrong, but they’re practically driving authors to self-pub. Idiots.

  • April Vaughan

    Yep exactly

  • Brita Addams

    When readers buy from the publisher’s site, the author earns more money at royalty time. Amazon’s cut is 70% if the title is $2.99 or less, and 35% if above $2.99. Then the author gets their % from what the publisher gets, for instance, 40% of the 70% or 35% (whatever the contract between publisher and author reads.) Everyone is in the publishing business to make money. Do people go to work each day just because they want to get a product out to consumers? No. They want the paycheck. Hopefully publishers feel that quality is a part of that equation, and most do. There is nothing difficult about buying from a publisher’s website or downloading the book you bought. Mobi format doesn’t require the publisher to go through Amazon for conversion. Publishers hire converters to do that, usually in a package with epub, pdf, html, etc.

  • Donnarie2

    And seeking out a pirated copy doesn’t involve jumping through any hoops?

  • Barbara Goodwin

    I convert many books on my own to mobi with Calibre and then download to my kindle. I do not have to use Amazon to convert. Also Amazon will start charging you for books sent to your acct. that you do not buy for them. It is part of their cloud, which they are now charging you to use.

  • Anonymous

    That percentage is for KDP. Publisher contracts are constantly being squeezed down, and are largely under 50%. That’s one of the reasons why agency was so appealing….Amazon is not paying them as much as authors directly.

  • JenniferDavisEwing

    That’s always been my biggest complaint with Kindle–the pricing (says the girl with more than 200 titles, but anyway). The e-book folx like to say “But look! It’s half the cost of a dead-tree hardcover!” That’s nice, but even for an author I really like, I’d rather wait another year for the paperback than spend twice as much on the hardcover right now anyway. I get a lot of my e-books from Bookbub, where the stock is free or greatly reduced. I can rarely bring myself to pay full Kindle price for a new e-book.

  • neurogami

    “Also Amazon will start charging you for books sent to your acct. that you do not buy for them.”

    Do you have a link to support this?

  • Eugenia

    Amazon sent a letter where it was explained. The information probably is on the site somewhere.

  • neurogami

    I checked. They charge for data usage on Whispersync, otherwise the transfer is free.

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200767340

    “Amazon doesn’t charge fees for delivery of personal documents to Fire & Kindle devices over Wi-Fi, that are transferred via USB, or that are delivered to Kindle reading apps. However, there is a document processing fee for Kindle Personal Document Service if you use Whispernet on Kindle devices.”

  • Barbara Goodwin

    I received an email from Amazon that they are now charging for the use of the cloud. Books sent to your Amazon email are on the cloud. If you download from the cloud you will have to start paying a yearly fee unless you have amazon prime. I checked all.my books sent to my amazon email are on the cloud. So yes if you download those books, you will have to pay a yearly fee to use the cloud.

  • neurogami

    Amazon seems to botched their announcement. (I have Prime so the E-mail receive said nothing to concern me.)

    http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/03/27/amazon-launches-unlimited-cloud-storage-kicks-kindle-owners-to-the-curb/

    ” Kindle owners now have a separate place to store the personal documents they SendToKindle which Amazon says ‘will no longer count against your Cloud Drive storage limits'”

    Kindle owners should sign into Cloud Drive to check for themselves what space they are allotted and what they have already used and under what conditions they would need to pay for more storage space.

    What I’m still looking for is an Amazon page that clearly explains all this.

    I’ve sent E-mail to Amazon to ask them for clarification.

    I get 5GB free storage because of Prime, but my “send to Kindle” docs are apparently counted against that storage space.

  • Author Destiny Carter

    I think this is a good move and I’m a publisher. Amazon is long over due for an overhaul on how they sell e-books.

  • neurogami

    An update. Amazon told me that Kindle docs should not count against storage space. At first I thought something was borked because I was not seeing 5 GB of free space (I have this due to Prime). I poked around and realized I had purchased music from Amazon and those MP3 files were also in my Cloud Drive, and apparently *those* Amazon purchases count against storage space.

    I have no idea what happens if you do not have Prime but expect to have your digital music purchase available in the cloud.

    I am also unclear on how Kindle storage works for those without Prime. Presumably it is free.

    On the bright side Amazon was pretty quick in replying to my E-mail inquiries so if you have questions contact them (and makes sure they didn’t auto-enroll you into some program that will start billing you in 3 months,)

  • Sorano

    GOOD.

    Buy your ebooks through Barnes & Noble instead and support a company that actually cares about readers, writers, and publishers.

  • Stuart Aken

    It’s always struck me as a little odd that the major publishers don’t get together, cut out the middleman (Amazon) and operate their own retail online outlet. Seems the sensible thing to do if they wish to bypass Amazon’s odd and sometimes restrictive practices.

  • agclaymore

    Digital watermarks bring some disturbing privacy issues. Each customer copy has a unique watermark and Harper Collins will be keeping an eye on what happens to each eBook sold…

  • Elizabeth Burton

    Ebooks from traditional publishers have DRM and can’t be converted—I know this because I tried converting some of MY old Fictionwise files and was informed it wasn’t doable. MOBI is the convertible Mobipocket format. The Kindle version with DRM is AZW. Are you saying you can convert AZW files without first cracking the DRM?

  • Elizabeth Burton

    We aren’t talking about EPUB or files in other formats. The only convertible format for Kindle is MOBI. Actual Kindle files from traditional publishers are in AZW format, which you can’t convert for reading anywhere other than Kindle without first cracking the DRM.

  • Barbara Goodwin

    Books sent to your kindle email are already in mobi format. If you get books from Kobo or Netgalley for example they will send it to your kindle email in mobi format, this is then on your Amazon cloud. You can convert other forms , like epub on your computer using the Calibre program to mobi and other formats. So I will now do that instead of using my kindle email.