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Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#111

Post by Perdition »

nikbackm wrote: post #108
Perdition wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that nobody has come up with a good way to filter through the self-published dross to find the gold. Without the publishers filtering you can't just pick a book at random and be ensured it probably won't make you want to claw your eyes out (at least publishers would clean up the major spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and incoherent plots). So what is left is popularity, and as already established…

Wouldn't a system like Goodreads be a good start for that?

I don't see how it is better than Amazon reviews.

Reader reviews are okay for the best sellers if you read a lot of reviews (but I find it tends to heavily skew towards those who loved the book, with a handful of haters), but I find it is pretty much worthless when it comes to average books which only have a handful of reviews.

I'm thinking of a more objective system. It could be based on reader reviews but would need to do something like making the review rank the book on a a set of criteria and then figuring out if the reviewer is trustworthy by cross comparison. eHarmony for books.

Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#112

Post by davidf18 »

The publishers are taking a far greater proportion of profits leaving authors a far less proportion of the profits with e-books compared with hardcopy books. Amazon is attempting to increase the author's share of profits on e-books while reducing the publisher's share. This is what Krugman is criticizing.

From the article linked below: $27.99 hardcover generates $5.67 profit to publisher and $4.20 royalty to author

$14.99 agency priced e-book generates $7.87 profit to publisher and $2.62 royalty to author.

Hardcopy: $9.87 total profit: approx 57.8% to publisher

e-book: $10.49 total profit: 75% to publisher

https://web.archive.org/web/20130713080118/http://aardvarkno...

Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#113

Post by wiredfool »

davidf18 wrote: post #112

The publishers are taking a far greater proportion of profits leaving authors a far less proportion of the profits with e-books compared with hardcopy books. Amazon is attempting to increase the author's share of profits on e-books while reducing the publisher's share. This is what Krugman is criticizing. From the article linked below: $27.99 hardcover generates $5.67 profit to publisher and $4.20 royalty to author $…

There's a difference between profit and revenue.

Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#114

Post by msandford »

JackC wrote: post #92
gadders wrote: post #54

It looks like Hachette's PR department has stepped up a gear. This subject has been covered several times before and I think this comment [1] did a good job of explaining Hachette and Amazon's positions. To summarise: When Hachette's contract with Amazon expired, Amazon (rightfully) stopped ordering advance inventory for stocking, but continued taking orders for available titles and transmitted those orders to Hachet…

Krugman's point is summed up in another quote from the comment you linked to: "Hachette failed to come to mutually agreeable terms with [Amazon]. That's their most important job as a publisher, and they blew it, to the tune of permanently costing their authors 50-60%+ of sales they'll never recover." When one buyer represents 50-60% of sales, the "most important job" of any seller is to come to "mutually agreeable te…

I would posit that Hachette failing to see the direction that the world was headed in is a large failing on their part. OK, it's too much to expect a publisher to see how the world will be in a decade and react accordingly.

But the idea that they could see Amazon becoming a bigger and bigger buyer and fail to do anything to diversify their wholesale and retail outlets should also be a strike against Hachette.

Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#116

Post by vertex-four »

Entirely ignoring whether or not a monopsony is OK or a good thing, or the exact details of this situation - are there any retail book sellers organised as co-ops operated by authors or independent publishers themselves?

Even if the co-op doesn't actually do any of the technical side itself, and outsources that, they could easily retain control over the code and the customer base, which would be a good thing for them.

Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#117

Post by icelancer »

gadders wrote: post #68
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that Nobel Prize Winner Paul Krugman is speaking out against Amazon because Hachette have drafted him for some sort of PR campaign?

I am suggesting that Paul Krugman is speaking as a New York Times Op Ed writer whose duty is to sell newspapers, rather than as an academic.

This has been true for years.

Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#118

Post by icelancer »

fpgeek wrote: post #57
rubinelli wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many ways, publishing houses are to new authors what accelerators and VCs are to startups. They not only vet and fund them, they give guidance, access to contacts, and specialized help in areas like law and marketing. They pick riskier, less proven concepts, knowing that the hits will compensate for the busts. Well-known authors don't need publishing houses as much, but most of them would rather spend their time w…

Unless you're talking about predatory VCs, comparing them to publishers is an insult. Publishers routinely demand that authors submit their next book (or even everything you write in the same genre for years) to them first and even if they reject it they have the right to match any offer you get later. How many VCs demand rights over your next N years of startups? Or we could talk about high-discount clauses: Where p…

Well said. As a niche writer, I look at publishers like complete ripoff artists. Looking at their term sheets compared to what I got with self-pub plus retaining other services is a joke.

Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#119

Post by jasode »

JackC wrote: post #92
gadders wrote: post #54

It looks like Hachette's PR department has stepped up a gear. This subject has been covered several times before and I think this comment [1] did a good job of explaining Hachette and Amazon's positions. To summarise: When Hachette's contract with Amazon expired, Amazon (rightfully) stopped ordering advance inventory for stocking, but continued taking orders for available titles and transmitted those orders to Hachet…

Krugman's point is summed up in another quote from the comment you linked to: "Hachette failed to come to mutually agreeable terms with [Amazon]. That's their most important job as a publisher, and they blew it, to the tune of permanently costing their authors 50-60%+ of sales they'll never recover." When one buyer represents 50-60% of sales, the "most important job" of any seller is to come to "mutually agreeable te…

>When one buyer represents 50-60% of sales, ... One party to the negotiation can walk away; the other cannot.

I don't follow the logic here. Your fatalistic assessment assumes Hachette (and other publishers) are paralyzed and cannot adapt. However, the business world isn't static therefore Hachette can walk away. (If not this particular contract renewal because of timing pressure then at least the next one -- if they have a smart strategy.)

If amazon has 60% of sales, it was the book publishers who willingly signed previous business deals to allow amazon to become that dominant. Likewise, those book publishers can put on their business-thinking hats and figure out how to make amazon less powerful.

Victim thinking: ok, amazon wants to pay us less for our books. Since we're helpless deer in the headlights, what do we do?

Business thinking: ok, we got our executive team in a conference room here. The CEO says, "this is where all you vice presidents and MBAs earn your salaries. Give me a business plan to lessen amazon's pricing power over us." Options:

1) Rethink/reprioritize other reseller relationships and offer better terms to Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, etc

2) Open our own online book store. Talk to other publishers about starting a consortium or joint venture to create a new online book store to sell direct.

3) Maybe Google Inc is also interested in partnering with us to beat amazon.

4) Call CEO of Sony and tell him we want help his eReader beat Kindle by offering exclusive titles just for that device.

5) dozens of other creative business ideas...

If all the big publishers want to, they can join forces and pull all their book titles from amazon. Amazon is then left with just the self-published CreateSpace titles. The book publishers made voluntary deals to get them into this position of weakness and likewise, they can start making voluntary strategic moves to get them out of it.

Airlines used to pay a big commission to travel agents. The airlines used the emergence of the internet to reduce commissions to agents. In this case the vendor (airlines) got more leverage than the reseller (travel agents). However, cruise ships still rely on travel agents for the bulk of their bookings. Maybe the relative positions of market power will change. Maybe not. Businesses can adapt and change if they want to.

All the articles from New York Times, salon.com, author blogs, etc sympathizing with the book publishers have not convinced me that Hachette is a helpless victim of amazon dominance.

Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

#120

Post by [deleted] »

cstross wrote: post #72
davidw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather read works by people who are creating for the sake of art, and not money. So basically the independently wealthy.

Point of information: back before I got the opportunity to write novels for a living, it took me 3-4 years to write one on a part-time/hobbyist/learning-the-art basis. That's because I had a day job, which came first. As someone who is earning a living by writing, I typically produce a book a year, plus change (sometimes up to two books per year). If downward pressure on production costs results in me having to seek…

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