Sony eBook Store: Publishers Portal
Sony launched its redesigned eBook Store and wow — look at this:
The Sony eBook Store Publishers Portal
Sony is taking steps towards adding publishers and direct-publishing writers!
Scraping the text:
Find a new world of readers at the eBook Store from Sony
Whether you’re a tiny boutique operation or a mid-sized publisher already enjoying a wide readership, you can now sign up to have your books offered in the eBook Store from Sony.
Where to Begin?
If you would like to offer your titles in the eBook Store from Sony, please provide your company and catalogue information in the form to the right.* After you’ve signed up, we will send you an email when we launch our new self-publishing tools later this year.
Thank you in advance for giving us the opportunity to partner with you!
There’s an entire form at the left side for submission information.
What intrigues me is this:
Which file format(s) can you provide for your books?
# OPS
# Microsoft Word
# HTML
# BBEB
# OEB
# EPUB
# Other
One interesting thing right off: What is BBeB doing in there? No one outside of Sony (and perhaps its service bureau) has the tools to create BBeB! We peons (hey, Sony, that’s how we’ve felt all these years!) have been limited to LRF.
What really really worries me is this:
* Submission of eBooks will require your company’s agreement to enter a commercial relationship with Sony Connect Inc. that will be governed by the terms of Sony Connect’s Distribution Agreement available for review and acceptance during the registration process once the Publisher Portal launches. Sony Connect reserves the right to not publish eBooks at its discretion.
Emphasis added by me.
Hey, Sony! What the bloody hell is that?!!? Do you intend to be another Nanny State like Apple pulled with the App Store and comic books?!
I also object to the terminology there: Publish. Wait a minute! You’re supposed to be a Store. Are you going to slap “Sony Press” on submissions?! Or do you intend to be the Sony eBook Store for Goddammed Disney-like Rainbows and Unicorns eBooks? Have any of you ever heard of Derek Raymond? You not going to “publish” him?!
How can any part of Sony claim to be on any sort of moral artbiter high horse when the two recent James Bond movies from Sony were some of the most foul, brutal, degrading, and disgusting things I’ve yet seen committed to film?
Let me refresh your holier-than-thou memory:
Don’t get all moral with me, Sony! Not when you’ve “published” testicle torture as entertainment! And worse: Made it look like the “hero” actually enjoyed it! What kind of sick fuck shit is that?!
And now you’re going to set yourself up as a gatekeeper to words?! Going to judge what letter combinations of A-through-Z are “acceptable” for people to see?
Tropic of Cancer, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Lolita, and others sound familiar as precedent-setting “obscenity” cases?
In the 1960s, Sony, these Bond movies would have been slapped with X-ratings!
Where is your high ground?
Stop it.
You’re a store. Disclaim correctly and fulfill the store role. Don’t play Wal-Mart. That shit won’t fly. eBooks are too important for that.
As it is, Apple is looking at a restraint of trade suit a few years down the road. Don’t get in line behind them for that.
Remedial items for Sony Suits:
Grove Press
NPR: On the Media; Hot Off the Press
Previously here:
WHY Freedom Of Speech MATTERS, Dammit! Part Three
WHY Freedom Of Speech MATTERS, Dammit! Part Two
WHY Freedom Of Speech MATTERS, Dammit!
Apple And A Tale Of Two Bannings
Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book!
Mike Cane 2008 
November 15, 2008 at 7:03 pm
My company applied for the publisher’s portal, but I’ll admit that the use of the word “publish” really rubbed me the wrong way. The work is done. It’s already published. We simply want to have a normal wholesaler/retailer relationship.
I’ll let you know how it goes if you’re interested.
November 15, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Yes, thanks. And if they’re going to do a sensible split like the Apple App Store or the criminal split of the Kindle Store.
November 15, 2008 at 8:08 pm
What would I do without you? I get all my good info from you. I’ll let you know what I find.
November 16, 2008 at 9:22 am
eBooks are the future, Karen. And I know you want to be there with your writers!
November 16, 2008 at 9:46 pm
A portal does not determine content or in any way try to filter what’s available to be downloaded and read. A portal is just a delivery system, non-discriminating, apolitical. A portal denotes access NOT denial.
Etc.