While publishers are entitled to their profits, consumers are equally entitled to a fair and open marketplace. This settlement will provide restitution to those customers who were harmed by this price-fixing scheme, but it also will restore competition in the eBook market for consumers’ long-term benefit.

Details are still scarce, but sources say Apple and Macmillan refused to participate in settlement talks while some of the other publishers are still hoping to avoid a drawn out legal battle, and may settle soon. Update: Bloomberg is now reporting that S&S, HarperCollins and Hachette have settled. It will be interesting to see what kind of defense Apple brings, because the evidence of collusion doesn't look good for them at all. Despite Authors Guild president Scott Turow's self-serving claim that this will somehow hurt culture, this is good news for readers: busting Apple's and the publishers' iron grip on ebook prices will likely reduce them across the board.

Here is this the government's complete filing (pdf and embedded below).

"My writing has been shoehorned into a place that's not right for it," she said this morning. "It is commercial fiction, it is not literary, but the real issue I have is that it has been completely defined as women's fiction … Yes it is page turning, no it's not War and Peace. But it shouldn't be portrayed as chick lit."

[....]

"I'm not averse to the term chick lit," said Courtney, "but I don't think that's what my book is. The implication with chick lit is that it's about a girl wanting to meet the man of her dreams. [My books] are about social issues – this time about a woman in a lads' mag environment and the impact of media on society, and feminism."

The jacket, which displays the chick-lit staple of a pair of slender legs, misrepresents the novel, Courtney believes. "The titles and covers have been a problem with all three of my HarperCollins books, right from the start," she said. "If I had my time again I certainly wouldn't have signed with them. There's a feeling that any author should be grateful for any attention they can get from any publisher – that they should take what they can get. But I don't think they should have looked to sign me on the basis of what I'd written so far."

Her decision to publicly ditch her publisher was the result of "three years of pent–up frustration", she said. "People are looking at my books and saying 'you've turned chick lit'," she said. "The irony is that what's inside the books hasn't changed. To give Avon their due, in terms of the editorial process they didn't try to change what's inside into something different. It's the packaging. From the reader's perspective, they'll see it on the shelf and think this is chick lit, and it's not."

HarperCollins is committed to the library channel. We believe this change balances the value libraries get from our titles with the need to protect our authors and ensure a presence in public libraries and the communities they serve for years to come.