I blogged a few weeks ago about how the Wylie Agency was putting all e-book contracts on hold–kind of take a ‘wait and see’ approach. Well, now it looks like they’ve negotiated an exclusive distribution deal for 20 of their books with Amazon.com. You can see the complete list of books here.
I have to admit, I don’t like this. Imagine if half of the pages on the internet were accessible only on a Mac, and the other half on a PC. You’d need both computers to experience the entire web. I’m buying an e-reader so I can read books, not to limit myself to just the books an e-reader company can secure. If Kindle pursues this strategy, will Apple follow suit? And Sony? And Barnes and Noble? Will I soon need eight different e-readers to read any book I want? It appears the deal is only two years, but still…come on.
And what about authors? I want to be in as any bookstores as possible, not just one. I want my books on all e-readers, not just one.
I think this is a mistake, for both Amazon and Wylie. Let’s hope we don’t see more of this kind of behavior.
