Amazon content coup? E-tailer gets exclusive Roth, Mailer, Nabokov and Updike backlist

Amazon.com now has exclusive rights to sell the e-book versions of some of the best-known titles from top literary authors Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike and more. In an announcement late Wednesday -- shortly after midnight Thursday, East Coast time -- the online retailer revealed that a deal with the powerful Wylie Agency will give Amazon.com the exclusive e-book rights for two years to books such as "Lolita." The e-books will only be available through the Kindle store.

What's new? In the simmering conflict between Amazon's Kindle, Apple's iBookstore/iPad and everyone else, few exclusive content deals have been announced, and certainly none of this magnitude. While Mailer's enormous debut novel "The Naked and the Dead" may not sell as many copies as "The Help," it is generally considered an Important Work. To capture it for the Kindle means that, for at least two years, readers that count on other formats and devices will be lacking in an essential 20th century novel.

This is an early indication that now that the devices have staked their claims, what matters isn't how well they work, but what content they can deliver.  (VHS versus Beta, anyone?)

The titles will be offered through Odyssey Editions, a cooperative venture between Amazon.com and the Wylie Agency. Its first 20 titles are:

“London Fields” by Martin Amis
“The Adventures of Augie March” by Saul Bellow
“Ficciones” (Spanish Edition) by Jorge Luis Borges
“Junky” by William Burroughs
“The Stories of John Cheever” by John Cheever
“Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison
“Love Medicine” by Louise Erdrich
“The Naked and the Dead” by Norman Mailer
“Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov
“The Enigma of Arrival” by V.S. Naipaul
“The White Castle” by Orhan Pamuk
“Portnoy’s Complaint” by Philip Roth
“Midnight’s Children” by Salman Rushdie
“The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Oliver Sacks
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson
“Rabbit, Run” by John Updike
“Rabbit Redux” by John Updike
“Rabbit Is Rich” by John Updike
“Rabbit at Rest” by John Updike
“Brideshead Revisited” by Evelyn Waugh

The e-books can be purchased for the Kindle and Kindle applications on Thursday.

-- Carolyn Kellogg
twitter.com/paperhaus

Photo: Norman Mailer in 2003. Credit: Los Angeles Times

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Comments

[Graham Storrs]

This kind of deal is not good for readers and it is not good for the growth of ebooks. Tying up content with excusivity deals will only make people more disinclined to buy ebook readers and will retard the whole industry. Along with DRM, content exclusivity is perhaps the worst idea Amazon has had.

[Erv Edge]

100% agree with prior post by Storrs: this is NOT GOOD for readers; I myself have decided to no longer, automatically go to the easy online purchase at AMZ and I will not now or ever read via Kindle. PDF is fine; DRM and "exclusivity" is not my cup of tea, thank you very much.

[M. Francis]

It is true that the e-books sold by Amazon can't be read on e-readers other than the Kindle. However, it is also true that they can be read on iPod Touches, iPhones, iPads, BlackBerries, Android phones, PCs and Macs, all using free apps for those devices. The number of those devices in use completely dwarfs the number of all dedicated e-readers combined.

It also allows Amazon to set the prices for the books, as opposed to the agency model forced on Amazon by 5 of the biggest 6 publishers (at the instigation of Steve Jobs) which means the publishers set the prices. Amazingly, as soon as that took effect, prices for those books went up.

[Michael Austin]

I thought technology was supposed to INCREASE everybody's access to information, not LIMIT it. Guess I was wrong. When Amazon is the only store that can sell a certain book title that means Amazon can charge more and coerce people to use its Kindle. Seems to me like a monopolistic and unfair trade practice, certainly not "free enterprise." Looks like Amazon is trying own the whole book market, but that just isn't right. We should be able to buy these books anywhere, including the web sites of Barnes & Noble and great indie bookstores and Apple's iPad! So I'm gonna pass on these particular e-books and go over to my local bookstore and get PAPER COPIES!

[Rafael Francisco Fais]

Good comparison with the VHS versus Beta.
Rafael