John Sargent

With no end in sight to the war between Amazon and Macmillan, the publisher fighting the retailer's pricing on digital books, rival publisher Hachette is taking Macmillan's side, adopting the agency model and releasing e-books simultaneously with the first print edition.

When publishers and literary agents haggle over authors' book contracts, the boilerplate is a starting point: a work-in-progress, by definition. But one publisher's plan for a new standardized contract, announced this week, suggests it's getting bolder about tightening its grip on authors' digital...