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Kindle MatchBook

amazon.com

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Re: Kindle MatchBook

#161

Post by dsuth »

mratzloff wrote: post #145
dsuth wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the negative affect they are having on authors? Isn't Amazon the reason we have access to such amazing new talents as Hugh Howey (Wool series)? The ability to independently publish into an established marketplace is a pretty great boon for aspiring authors.

That's like saying that the iOS App Store provides us with amazing games at a cheap price, so it hasn't been a net negative to the games industry on the whole. It has. A handful of creators can make a living from that model, but most can't, because the glut of games drives down the prices substantially. It's a race to the bottom. And the App Store pays out 70% of the proceeds to creators. Amazon's Kindle publishing p…

Then again, the iOS App Store has also allowed a huge number of amateur developers to produce apps, and has basically instantiated an entire industry around App development. Sure, it sucks for the incumbents like Nintendo, whose Gameboy devices are now a tough sell. But essentially this democratisation of the publishing chain has led to a widespread increase in publishing of creative works(apps, books, art & craft via etsy), and a better cut for the creators, whilst also increasing the size of the markets they sell to.

Creators who are dropped by publishers have the ability to then self-publish. Hugh Howey is not publishing sequels, just completing (IMO) a series which is now done. His other works are receiving a lot of interest on Amazon as well. Not seeing a lot of downsides here, except to traditional publishing models, and frankly good riddance to them.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#162

Post by zhemao »

Oh hey, that was my intern project this summer! Well, not all of it of course, but I worked on the accounting system that will handle the MatchBook transactions.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#163

Post by zhemao »

sliverstorm wrote: post #4
runn1ng wrote: post #3

I should dislike Amazon for closed-source software on Kindle and for its DRM, but... well, they have really nice offers.

Last I heard Kindle isn't closed-source, they just don't make it particularly easy to build- which was never a requirement for GPL.

The main issue is that the bootloader of the Kindle devices isn't particularly easy to unlock (at least, I couldn't figure it out), so even if you do get the kernel built, it would be hard to actually install it on the device itself.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#164

Post by clarky07 »

johnobrien1010 wrote: post #153
clarky07 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've never bought a Kindle because paying almost the same price for the Kindle version of a book vs. the paperback cost is ridiculous. You don't understand the economics of publishing. The paperback, and the hardcover for that matter cost almost nothing to produce. You are paying for the information. Perhaps the ebook should be a dollar cheaper.

For anyone interested in the average profit margins of books publishers and some what the percentage of the paper, print, and binding for a book is of the total cost, the Art & Science of Book Publishing by Herbert S. Jr Bailey ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0821409700/ref=wms_ohs_prod... ) is a good book. Print on Demand and ebooks have changed some aspects, but it is still largely true that, for most books, mar…

I have no idea who downvoted this comment, but it is very true. The cost of a book is the cost of making and marketing it. Paper is really cheap. Obviously it is more expensive than bits, but not significantly.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#165

Post by eric_the_read »

sgustard wrote: post #118
toddmorey wrote: post #9

That's one of the best product names I've come across in a long while.

Clever, but the fact that "Kindle X" can now mean either a hardware product (Paperwhite) or a service feature (MatchBook) is confusing.

"Kindle X" has meant both hardware and service for quite a while now. I own a few Kindle books, and have rented dozens from my library, but do not yet own a Kindle device.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#166

Post by eric_the_read »

sgustard wrote: post #118
toddmorey wrote: post #9

That's one of the best product names I've come across in a long while.

Clever, but the fact that "Kindle X" can now mean either a hardware product (Paperwhite) or a service feature (MatchBook) is confusing.

"Kindle X" has meant both hardware and service for quite a while now. I own a few Kindle books, and have rented dozens from my library, but do not yet own a Kindle device.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#167

Post by Tiktaalik »

That's nice, but I really want this at brick and mortar stores. I want the great, curated experience of shopping at my local independent stores, but I also want the convenience of having an ebook version. Record companies already give away MP3 download codes along with records and I find it bizarre that publishers haven't followed along with a similar idea.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#168

Post by dsuth »

wpietri wrote: post #138
dsuth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go through this a lot too. I've bought books in ebook format that I've regretted, because I can't lend them easily. Conversely I've bought physical books which I wish were ebooks, because I don't reference them that often, and they're really wasting space. Not being limited to one or the other format would be great! Although what happens when you buy the physical book, get the ebook for cheap, then on-sell the phys…

Yeah. Although that's an open loop with CDs that has existed for years, so I imagine Amazon has some reasonable notions on the magnitude of the problem. I'd guess it's much less of an issue with books; CDs have a much higher repeat use value than most books do. My guess is that some people will do it accidentally, but that the number of people doing it as a book cost-reduction strategy will be pretty low. The net yie…

It depends on the type of book. For fiction this is definitely true. For textbooks and technical books, there is a massive used market with high resale prices, which is more what I was thinking of. I suspect a lot of these vendors simply won't jump on the bandwagon without some kind of reassurance.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#169

Post by nandemo »

lukev wrote: post #66
ScottWhigham wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an interesting move, but not a "phenomenally important move". If I like print books but not ebooks, how does this affect me? It doesn't - not in the least. If I like both, I'm sort of happy - "Uh, I guess that's cool." I'm struggling to think of the person who needs both a printed copy of a book and an ebook version. The only person I can think of is someone with a textbook/learning book - you read the p…

The value proposition of an ebook is that (on average) it's a better reading experience. More portable, more comfortable, instantly accessible. The value proposition of a physical book is that is a physical artifact with concrete ownership; you can sell it, lend it, put it on a shelf for guests to see, forget it and rediscover it a decade later, or have your grandchildren find it in your attic in 80 years. These two…

That's subjective. My (first edition) Kindle doesn't make for a good experience to me. It's hard to browse the pages, searching is a pain (no real keyboard), the screen contrast isn't so good, etc.

However, the size, portability and lower price are worth it. It's hard to read thick books on the train, space is at premium in Tokyo, and foreign paper books are significantly more expensive here.

Re: Kindle MatchBook

#170

Post by yk »

VLM wrote: post #84
jlarocco wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised anybody could prefer paper books for reference... For me, full-text search, bookmarks, and copy/paste make ebooks far superior for referencing. Not to mention I don't have a bunch of books cluttering my desk. In any case, I completely agree this is awesome. I've been considering selling most of my old physical books and buying the ebook versions, and this will save me a bunch of money.

The almost stereotypical star trek DS9 scene where (anyone) is working on something complicated and has five PADDS on the desk all shuffling around. Relatively few people own and simultaneously use multiple ereaders. Probably much more common in the future.

Considering that the cheapeast tabletts did go from a $500 iPad 1 in 2010 to less than $50 [1] now, this seems probable. ( Extrapolating, we end up with roughly $1 in 2020 and tablets become essentially consumables one can throw away when the battery dies.)

[1] $35, http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/694599061/Cheapest_Dual_co...

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