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Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

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Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#41

Post by x0x0 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #31

While I believe they saw these numbers, specifically that lowering the price from $15 to $10 lead to a 74% increase in purchases, I don't believe that this is a good general rule of thumb. Here's the problem: there are only so many potential ebook readers out in the world, and they only have so much time. This means there will be market saturation at some point, or at least market movement. This elasticity is there,…

I initially thought as you do: cheaper ebooks cannibalize the more expensive. But remember books are competing with social networking, tv, radio, iphone games, console games, computer games, the outdoors, friends, pot, bars, etc. While a controlled study would be interesting, I bet books can steal some time share.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#42

Post by x0x0 »

fpgeek wrote: post #20

I'm a bit surprised that Amazon said listed "no returns" as one of the differences with ebooks. I have personal experience with their incredibly generous ebook return policy (right in line with their other generous return policies). Is this an implicit admission that Amazon is eating the cost of those returns? Or do they mean something specific like the physical infrastructure for returns?

not returns from consumers; returns of unsold books from a physical store to the publisher

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#43

Post by mentat »

isomorphic wrote: post #22

Amazon is using language like "e-book(s) sold" when the reality is that they mean "e-book license(s) sold." The difference may be subtle, but if an e-book comes with DRM, the buyer certainly does not "own" it. Amazon even makes that point themselves, as they promote e-books as having "no secondary market." This is an important point when you consider the vendor lock-in of the Kindle "ecosystem." Instead of "e-book,"…

It's trivially easy to strip Kindle DRM. They provide added value with WhisperSync and notes syncing in general that dissuade this.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#44

Post by jpatokal »

This old blog post of mine needs a refresh, but there's nothing magical or permanent about $9.99: the average price of an e-book bestseller (= Amazon Top 100) has been trending down roughly by a dollar a year, and was already at $7 last year. Likewise, the share of $5 books in the top 100 is already close to 50%.

http://gyrovague.com/2013/03/26/down-down-down-books-e-books...

Some crappy code for pulling these stats from Amazon:

https://github.com/jpatokal/amazon-price-watcher

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#45

Post by chatmasta »

IgorPartola wrote: post #31

While I believe they saw these numbers, specifically that lowering the price from $15 to $10 lead to a 74% increase in purchases, I don't believe that this is a good general rule of thumb. Here's the problem: there are only so many potential ebook readers out in the world, and they only have so much time. This means there will be market saturation at some point, or at least market movement. This elasticity is there,…

I don't know exactly what you mean by market saturation in this case, as your logic seems to imply that each book has a finite market of N customers, and enough of a subset of them, M, are willing to pay $1000 (or whatever), such that M(1000) > N(5).

The error in your logic is that the size of the market for a given book actually depends on the price of that book. There's millions of books out there. Why would I pay $1000 for one when I can get so many others for $5? By lowering the price of books, Amazon increases the market size of each one.

There's also some behavioral economics involved, as I would assume people are far more likely to make a $5 impulse purchase (and look at that, Amazon has "one click send to Kindle!") than a $15 one.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#46

Post by rahimnathwani »

isomorphic wrote: post #39
rahimnathwani wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM vs. no DRM Sale vs. licence These are two separate issues.

Theoretically yes, but technologically no. I can't "own" something with server-based DRM on it. DRM creates a right (or an ability) of revocation for the seller.

It's not DRM that prevents you from owning the book. It's the licence. The DRM just makes it easier for the licensor to enforce the terms of the licence.

I 'buy' DRM-free books from O'Reilly. The lack of DRM means that O'Reilly won't ever be able to remove my ability to read those books on a new device. However, I still don't own the books, and have no second-sale rights.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#47

Post by robbiemitchell »

krschultz wrote: post #5
coryl wrote: post #4

We believe 35% should go to the author, 35% to the publisher and 30% to Amazon. What do publishers even do with regards to e-book distribution? Are they going the way of the record label company?

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…

It seems Amazon is effectively the entire market: customers, distribution, payment.

If Amazon were worth only 10%, it would be irrelevant and publishers would go elsewhere.

If the combined value to an author of a publisher and Amazon were only 30%, they wouldn't rely on either so heavily. But here we are.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#49

Post by idunno246 »

isomorphic wrote: post #22

Amazon is using language like "e-book(s) sold" when the reality is that they mean "e-book license(s) sold." The difference may be subtle, but if an e-book comes with DRM, the buyer certainly does not "own" it. Amazon even makes that point themselves, as they promote e-books as having "no secondary market." This is an important point when you consider the vendor lock-in of the Kindle "ecosystem." Instead of "e-book,"…

And one of the reasons they list for the value being lower is it cant be resold (ie, it has drm)

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#50

Post by ashr »

IgorPartola wrote: post #31

While I believe they saw these numbers, specifically that lowering the price from $15 to $10 lead to a 74% increase in purchases, I don't believe that this is a good general rule of thumb. Here's the problem: there are only so many potential ebook readers out in the world, and they only have so much time. This means there will be market saturation at some point, or at least market movement. This elasticity is there,…

All I see in your argument is preconceived opinions with speculative statements and nothing to back them up. Sorry but you did not add anything to this discussion, not even in the form of new questions or pointing out flaws in the post's arguments using evidence.
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