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Sleepy Hollow Man Leads Book Publishers' Amazon Fight

SLEEPY HOLLOW, N.Y. -- Michael Pietsch, the chief executive of Little, Brown & Co.’s parent company, Hachette Book Group, is engaged in a battle with Amazon publishers over e-book pricing, one that not only affects Hachette, but every publisher working with Amazon, The New York Times reports.

The specifics of the negotiations have not been discussed openly due to confidentiality agreements, but the core of the fight is based on pricing – Amazon wants to continue to offer discounts on Hachette’s e-books, something the company isn’t ready to acquiesce to without negotiating.

Certain Hachette book orders have been delayed or prevented by Amazon, which is suggesting that shoppers buy them somewhere else.

Hachette released a statement saying, “Amazon indicates that it considers books to be like any other consumer good. They are not.”

Pietsch, a Sleepy Hollow resident, joined Little,Brown as an editor in 1991. He eventually became editor in chief in 1998 and publisher in 2001.

Pietsch is married to children’s book editor Janet Vultee Pietsch. He oversees not just Little, Brown, but all of the imprints under Hachette, which produce about 1,000 books a year.

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