Some comments about the comments received, from Shelf Awareness:
Quote:
In some detail, the Department described the comments it received. Among highlights:
Only one consumer organization, the Consumer Federation of America, commented--and it was so favorable that the Department quoted its studies at length and even reproduced one of its graphs concerning e-book price trends.
52 "readers and consumers" wrote favorable comments, some of which "echoed the themes of a form letter suggested by online publisher Wordpress.com."
A group of 186 authors "noted the growth of the e-book industry and the opportunities it gave them to bypass traditional distribution channels and successfully self-publish e-books at lower prices."
The Department said several favorable comments expressed the view that the final judgment was not harsh enough.
While many Authors Guild members wrote to criticize the settlement, several members and consumers knocked the idea that major publishers are a bastion of high-quality literature and writing. The Department noted: "One reader observed anecdotally that Publisher Defendants recently granted an advance to reality television personality 'Snooki' for a ghost-written book, implying the move was in response to commercial potential rather than literary quality."
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