Andrew Wylie, at his big, empty desk

It was a fun day in the book world yesterday.

First, the man everybody loves to hate, and with good reason, superagent Andrew “The Jackal” Wylie, shocked big publishing when he announced he’d formed his own publishing company, Odyssey Editions, to publish ebook version of titles from major authors such as John Updike, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, and Vladimir Nabokov, and that he’d struck a deal to sell them exclusively on Amazon.com for two years.

Who knew the anti-Christ would have two heads?

As a Wall Street Journal report noted, this was “the latest round in a battle between the online retailer and Apple Inc. for market leadership.” But as one anonymous source tells the paper, “It’s a controversial decision because some authors involved may now be at a disadvantage with other retailers because of the exclusivity with Amazon.” It could also put authors in dutch with publishers who want their marketing efforts to cover all editions — and especially not competitive editions — of a title.

As a New York Times report observed, it’s pretty clearly an even more hostile and complicated challenge to publishers than that: “In making the announcement Mr. Wylie opened a new front, and a possible negotiating tool, in a debate over e-book rights for what are called backlist titles. Many traditional publishers have said they own the electronic rights to those books, but some authors and their estates have disagreed, arguing that since the books were published before e-books existed, the digital rights were not explicitly sold to the publishers.”

And indeed, big publishing responded quickly. As Michael Cader notes in a smart Publisher’s Lunch report,

A large portion of the 20 titles Odyssey Editions will distribute via Kindle are available in print editions from Random House, and especially from Knopf and/or its paperback arm Vintage. Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum told us this morning, “We are disappointed by Mr. Wylie’s actions, which we dispute. Last night, we sent a letter to Amazon disputing their rights to legally sell these titles, which are subject to active Random House publishing agreements. Upon assessing our business options, we will be taking appropriate action.”

What that action might be was left unclear, but anyway Wylie disagreed that what he was doing was illegal, saying that, “The fact remains that backlist digital rights were not conveyed to publishers, and so there’s an opportunity to do something with those rights.”

A few hours later, MacMillan head John Sargent attacked the deal far more vociferously, in a statement on the MacMillan website:

I am appalled … that Andrew has chosen to give his list exclusively to a single retailer. A basic tenet of publishing is that our function is to reach as many readers as we can. We disseminate our books and the ideas within them as broadly as possible. I understand why Amazon wants an exclusive deal with Andrew. They have asked us too for exclusive product, as has every major retailer we deal with. This is smart retailing, and a great deal for Amazon. But it is an extraordinarily bad deal for writers, illustrators, publishers, other booksellers, and for anyone who believes that books should be as widely available as possible.

And just a little while later, A Publishers Weekly report by Rachel Deahl broke the bombshell about what Random House’s “action” was going to be, in the form of the following statement from Applebaum:

The Wylie Agency’s decision to sell e-books exclusively to Amazon for titles which are subject to active Random House agreements undermines our longstanding commitments to and investments in our authors, and it establishes this Agency as our direct competitor. Therefore, regrettably, Random House on a worldwide basis will not be entering into any new English-language business agreements with the Wylie Agency until this situation is resolved.

Who’s your money on?