Amazon Digital Markup: 129,000% • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Digital Markup: 129,000%

#141

Post by smackfu » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 2:11 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #32

Personally, I'd be more depressed by something that says "Amazon charges authors $2.58 to deliver an e-book ( after 30% cut)" than some big fancy number like that 129,000%. It's more meaningful.

Actually, it seems like the delivery fee reduces the effective retail price of the book, like: royalty = 70% x ($10 - delivery fee)

He just has a really big delivery fee.

Re: Amazon Digital Markup: 129,000%

#142

Post by smackfu » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 2:13 PM UTC

tylerneylon wrote: post #44

Some commenters say the post is wrong to complain when the author is making money through amazon's distribution, or when amazon takes a loss on selling kindles. I disagree with both sentiments. Main point: It does not cost amazon an average of $2.58 to deliver the author's pdf. Amazon is being dishonest by calling this a delivery cost. I consider it unethical to name a fee something that it is not. "Be grateful for w…

So many commenters seem to see the $2.58 as Amazon saying "this is what it really costs us". I'd think it means something more like "this is punitively high so please make your book smaller."

Re: Amazon Digital Markup: 129,000%

#143

Post by smackfu » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 2:15 PM UTC

ricree wrote: post #116

cheatercheater wrote: post #107

Mathematician here. Anyone care to clarify how he came up with 129,000%? That is, one-hundred twenty-nine thousand percent? I'm not good with numbers. Thanks in advance.

He's comparing the stated delivery fee to Amazon's S3 costs for outgoing data, which he says costs $0.01 per 5 books.

Of course, if he had a 50 kB book that had a $0.01 delivery fee, it would still be the same percentage markup, but he wouldn't care. So I question whether percentage is useful here.