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Hachette and Amazon reach agreement on e-book sales

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Hachette Book Group and Amazon.com Inc said on Thursday they reached a multi-year agreement for e-book and print book sales after months of fighting that pitted authors, agents and publishers against the world's largest online retail store.

Hachette, a unit of France's Lagardere SCA and the fourth-largest US book publisher, said the new e-book terms will take effect early next year and that it will have the
responsibility for setting consumer prices.

Amazon, which pulled several of Hachette's books from its inventory, will immediately resume selling all of Hachette's catalog. The books will be prominently featured in promotions.

The high-profile fight started earlier this year when Amazon and Hachette began negotiations on a new agreement. The center of the dispute involved which party controlled the right to set prices for e-books.

While the negotiations played out, Amazon delayed the delivery and removed pre-order options for several of Hachette's titles, including "The Silkworm," by Harry Potter author JK Rowling, writing under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

Amazon is the undisputed main outlet for consumers buying e-books, and the stand-off provoked an outcry from authors and agents.

Lagardere CFO Dominique D'Hinnin said during the company's quarterly earnings call with analysts, "We are very happy to have this discussion behind us."

The French media conglomerate said the deal with Amazon on e-book pricing will not have an impact on margins and it expects "significant lift" in book sales in November and December.

Lagardere has said that Amazon accounts for about 60 percent of Hachette's digital sales.

In a statement that did not provide further details, Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch said, "This is great news for writers. The new agreement will benefit Hachette authors for years to come. It gives Hachette enormous marketing capability with one of our most important bookselling partners."

Amazon Vice President of Kindle David Naggar said in a statement, "We are pleased with this new agreement as it includes specific financial incentives for Hachette to deliver lower prices, which we believe will be a great win for readers and authors alike."

The agreement was reached a day after Amazon directors and executives, including founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, held a board meeting in Las Vegas, coinciding with its third annual cloud computing summit.

Shares of Amazon were up 1.4 % at US$ 315.79 in midday Nasdaq trading. Lagardere shares closed flat in Paris.

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