The eNews

Far from being the death of traditional publishing, eBooks have helped Random House to make record profits -  Revenues at Random House grew to €947 million ($1.19 billion) in the first half of 2012, up from €787 million in the first half of 2011 on the strength of selling 30 million copies of Fifty Shades of Grey, half of which were e-books.
Company profits also rose precipitously to €113 million, up from €69 million in the first half of 2011, the company announced today in a statement.


Reeling from the US DOJ case against price fixing, Apple have made an attempt to avoid a similar European Union case - Apple and four major publishers have offered to allow retailers such as Amazon to sell e-books at a discount for two years in a bid to end an EU antitrust investigation and stave off possible fines, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The EU antitrust watchdog opened an investigation into Apple's e-book pricing deals with the publishers last December, saying these may hamper competition in Europe.

The four publishers are Simon & Schuster, News Corp unit HarperCollins, French group Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, which owns Macmillan in Germany.

The publishers have agreed deals with Apple under which online versions of their books sell for set prices on Apple's iTunes, with Apple taking 30 percent of the proceeds. The deals specified that other retailers, such as Amazon, could not sell the e-books at a lower price.

The Commission said in April that the five companies had offered concessions in a bid to end the investigation and avert penalties which could reach 10 percent of their global turnover, but it did not give details.

Later this week it is expected that Amazon will announce their new range of Kindle products.