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Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

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Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#111

Post by terrywilcox »

moistgorilla wrote: post #103
romaniv wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therefore owning a library is a cost. Owning a library has a higher value than owning a library of ebooks: social, decorative, nostalgic, works without power, easy share, can resell, etc. It more than evens out. But there is Steam effect - people will stockpile ebooks they don't read.

> social, decorative, nostalgic This is subjective and not monetary value. The only people that care about social, decorative, and nostalgic value of books are also the people who probably wont resell books. > works without power finding a place to charge your device is easy and ereaders last months without recharging > easy to share, resell Sure but the money you save by reselling a book is probably less than what y…

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” - Oscar Wilde

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#112

Post by cstross »

opendais wrote: post #102
cstross wrote: post #99

John Scalzi's response to this piece of self-serving agitprop is worth reading in full: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/07/30/amazons-latest-volley/ (Shorter Scalzi: Amazon are presenting as "good for authors" policies which, in fact, are only indisputably "good for Amazon"; the only authors they might be good for are those who cleave unto Amazon like limpets and don't do business with the other 70% of the book distr…

Scalzi, like usual is ~90% correct and what little he is off about is easy enough to ignore. ;) I easily see #3 resulting in the bottom end selling at $5 and the top end selling at $9.99 because I suspect the reason Amazon picked that number is, overall, it generates more total sales [by dollar volume]. One of the few things Amazon is good at is accurately pricing products to maximize gross revenue. That being the ca…

Ebooks, once created, are a sunk cost...not an ongoing one so maximizing gross revenue works in everyone's favor.

What you're missing is that, from the author's point of view, ebooks are not interchangeable. A unit of my sales is not usefully interchangeable with a unit of Scalzi's. To Amazon we're fungible produce, but to us we're suppliers of bespoke one-of-a-kind products. The Amazon move squeezes those of us who are able to sell at a higher price point -- like me (current lead title priced at $12.99 on Amazon and selling jolly well; and at £7.99 in the UK, and doing well there, too).

Amazon's proposed $9.99 guillotine on pricing would basically impose a 30% cut in my income if sales volume of my titles remains static. And I haven't seen any evidence that the price elasticity of demand for novels by Charles Stross will respond to crude pricing signals the way that aggregate demands for all books will do across the board.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#113

Post by tjl »

walterbell wrote: post #30
Anechoic wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is R&D'ing and manufacturing tablet/e-reader devices Which shouldn't that be built into the price of those devices?

If it was, there would be a healthy e-reader market with competing devices and choices for consumers, which would deprive Amazon of business leverage over content distribution. Barnes & Noble had a brief moment of glory when their first Nook color tablet was cheaper, better and unlocked. Devs were selling rooted Android SD cards on eBay. If BN had opened up the hardware, they had a chance of gaining the scale needed…

A big problem with the competing device market is that books aren't portable between Amazon and alternatives (but they are between the alternatives). So, if you've bought a number of e-books on Amazon, switching becomes much more difficult.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#114

Post by tjl »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #6
krschultz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The publishers and record labels are doing the same thing they were before - curation and editing. The book printers & CD burners are out of the mix, but they were never that expensive anyway. There are still fixed costs associated with a book (editor) or an album (studio time), not to mention the marketing costs. Are they worth 35% of the profit? I don't think so. But probably more than 0%. I personally think it sho…

The publisher can always sell directly as an unencrypted EPUB and MOBI (works on Kindle) to the consumer and set their own pricing and percentages.

Do you know which publisher sells for all your favourite authors? I certainly know for some of them, but not others. What about when you just hear about a book from someone? This is why people go to bookstores.

I'd be a lot happier if everyone went to no-DRM or at least interchangeable DRM so you could move to a different e-reader. Amazon and iBooks are the odd ones out. iBooks doesn't have a big marketshare, but Amazon definitely does.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#115

Post by opendais »

cstross wrote: post #112
opendais wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalzi, like usual is ~90% correct and what little he is off about is easy enough to ignore. ;) I easily see #3 resulting in the bottom end selling at $5 and the top end selling at $9.99 because I suspect the reason Amazon picked that number is, overall, it generates more total sales [by dollar volume]. One of the few things Amazon is good at is accurately pricing products to maximize gross revenue. That being the ca…

Ebooks, once created, are a sunk cost...not an ongoing one so maximizing gross revenue works in everyone's favor. What you're missing is that, from the author's point of view, ebooks are not interchangeable. A unit of my sales is not usefully interchangeable with a unit of Scalzi's. To Amazon we're fungible produce, but to us we're suppliers of bespoke one-of-a-kind products. The Amazon move squeezes those of us who…

> What you're missing is that, from the author's point of view, ebooks are not interchangeable.

> we're suppliers of bespoke one-of-a-kind products

People who make specialty designer products all think this way, it isn't just authors. I'm well aware of the mindset, I just don't subscribe to it. Many software products are as unique as two different ebooks, however, they meet the same general need/desire for products of that category and are ultimately interchangeable under the right market conditions.

> Amazon's proposed $9.99 guillotine on pricing would basically impose a 30% cut in my income if sales volume of my titles remains static. And I haven't seen any evidence that the price elasticity of demand for novels by Charles Stross will respond to crude pricing signals the way that aggregate demands for all books will do across the board.

The number of authors I don't buy on price is a very, very small list compared to the majority of my ebook purchases. FWIW, I've never bought any of your books precisely for this reason.

So, if you accept Amazon's premise that aggregate demand for all ebooks will increase, that leads to the basic question of:

Why should I specifically value the net outcome for Charles Stross over any other author that benefits from the increase in demand?

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#116

Post by tjl »

larrys wrote: post #35
ghshephard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point I'm trying to make is that Bezos is suggesting that number because it drives a wedge between the authors and the publishers. It's entire purpose is to weaken the solidarity (such as it is) that exists between hachette and their authors.

What is interesting is that the technique (wedge) will work even if the authors are fully aware that that is what Amazon is doing.

If you read the John Scalzi piece on this, it's not working with him.

Everyone is talking about the price, but that's not the only thing they're negotiating. We've heard about some of Amazon's demands from some of their other negotiations, so I'm not surprised that Hachette is holding the line.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#117

Post by mcguire »

moistgorilla wrote: post #103
romaniv wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therefore owning a library is a cost. Owning a library has a higher value than owning a library of ebooks: social, decorative, nostalgic, works without power, easy share, can resell, etc. It more than evens out. But there is Steam effect - people will stockpile ebooks they don't read.

> social, decorative, nostalgic This is subjective and not monetary value. The only people that care about social, decorative, and nostalgic value of books are also the people who probably wont resell books. > works without power finding a place to charge your device is easy and ereaders last months without recharging > easy to share, resell Sure but the money you save by reselling a book is probably less than what y…

"Sure but the money you save by reselling a book is probably less than what you save by buying the ebook"

Not under the publisher's model.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#118

Post by kamakazizuru »

simias wrote: post #77
kamakazizuru wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - but a person looking to buy the Malcolm Gladwell book - willing to buy it at 10$ - but who can only buy it at 15$ or more - will probably end up then either borrowing it from a friend or in the worst case downloading it as a PDF illegally. Both of which are a lost sale for the publisher and author.

Do you have any numbers to back that up though? I mean, I know that with e-readers book piracy is now potentially practical but is it really a concern for publisher? I'm really curious to know how mainstream it is. I wouldn't be surprised if the main cause of piracy for ebooks was not the price but rather that the book is not available on a particular platform or only in paperback. Besides the demographics for book r…

A kindle costs I dont have numbers to back it up - but plenty of anecdotal evidence and just common sense too. I myself have borrowed that malcolm gladwell book or the other - because the cheapest I could buy it was 20$ - and while I was interested in reading it - not enough to spend that much. Had it been 10$ - it would be worth it for me to just buy it rather than ask around friends if someone had a copy I could borrow. (You can also "borrow" books from friends on Kindle)

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#119

Post by kamakazizuru »

moistgorilla wrote: post #103
romaniv wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therefore owning a library is a cost. Owning a library has a higher value than owning a library of ebooks: social, decorative, nostalgic, works without power, easy share, can resell, etc. It more than evens out. But there is Steam effect - people will stockpile ebooks they don't read.

> social, decorative, nostalgic This is subjective and not monetary value. The only people that care about social, decorative, and nostalgic value of books are also the people who probably wont resell books. > works without power finding a place to charge your device is easy and ereaders last months without recharging > easy to share, resell Sure but the money you save by reselling a book is probably less than what y…

"Sure but the money you save by reselling a book is probably less than what you save by buying the ebook"

This is what I had hoped for when Kindle came around and Amazon started pushing Ebooks - but unfortunately it just isnt true. The difference between ebook and paperback is currently low enough that if you maintain your paperbacks well - you'll still end up spending less (net) on the book - in quite a few cases. (Heck you can even resell the paperbacks using Amazon ;))

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#120

Post by WalterBright »

riffraff wrote: post #89
gknoy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an interesting model. Do you have tips you'd be willing to share? I wouldn't mind having books to read which I won't mind my young kids destroying accidentally.

FWIW, I've gotten dozens of used books from amazon UK in the 2£ range, which is higher but still in the destroyable-without-drama range. I'd expect your local amazon has the same kind of resellers.

The minimum price for a physical book from Amazon is $4.00 plus sales tax. ($.01 for the book, $3.99 shipping)
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