The Wylie Agency and Amazon shocked the publishing world with a deal publish 20 eBooks through the literary agency’s brand new Odyssey Editions imprint–selling the books exclusively through the Amazon Kindle Store. We’ve collected some of the strongest responses below.
Random House spokesperson Stuart Applebaum spoke out this morning: “We are disappointed by Mr. Wylie’s actions, which we dispute. Last night, we sent a letter to Amazon disputing their rights to legally sell these titles, which are subject to active Random House publishing agreements. Upon assessing our business options, we will be taking appropriate action.”
Macmillan CEO John Sargent spoke out this afternoon: “I am appalled, however, that Andrew has chosen to give his list exclusively to a single retailer. A basic tenet of publishing is that our function is to reach as many readers as we can. We disseminate our books and the ideas within them as broadly as possible.”
Other publications also analyzed the news:
New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Teleread
Future Book
A Reading Odyssey
The first wave of eBooks from Wylie contain some of the 20th Century’s most important titles. These books will be sold for $9.99, all of them available for the first time in eBook format. Here is the complete list…
London Fields by Martin Amis
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
Ficciones 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
