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Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

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Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#71

Post by gknoy »

pyoung wrote: post #65
jmedefind wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at a bookstore we would ship boxes full of un-sold books back to the publishers every month (Mostly consisting of cheap Romance novels). I imagine having to track and handle all of that to be a major cost to publishers.

I believe I re-call an internet comment (most likely on HN) about how some publishers would instruct bookstores to shred the unsold copies. Apparently it was cheaper than shipping them back and trying to re-sell them somewhere else.

Is there any way to find out when they're going to do this, so I can offer to buy a few? :D

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#72

Post by kamakazizuru »

bsder wrote: post #53
chatmasta wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

> Why would I pay $1000 for one when I can get so many others for $5? Because market data suggests that most people won't switch. They will buy book from "the new, hip writer X" or they won't buy at all . Someone who intends to buy something by Malcolm Gladwell is unlikely to buy something from somebody else just because it's a little cheaper. Amazon wants to maximize sales volume whereas the distributors and authors…

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.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#73

Post by mseebach »

bsder wrote: post #53
chatmasta wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

> Why would I pay $1000 for one when I can get so many others for $5? Because market data suggests that most people won't switch. They will buy book from "the new, hip writer X" or they won't buy at all . Someone who intends to buy something by Malcolm Gladwell is unlikely to buy something from somebody else just because it's a little cheaper. Amazon wants to maximize sales volume whereas the distributors and authors…

Anecdote, not data and all, but for me at least, if I hear about a book that might be interesting, I look it up and if it's below some cutoff price point (I'm not sure exactly what it is, probably around $10-$15), I just click buy and be done with it. I don't put it on a wish list or bookmark it, just get it. As a consequence, the (metaphorical, they're on my kindle) pile of books that I own but probably won't ever get around to read is bigger than ever, and my total spending on books is probably a lot higher than it would be if I carefully considered each more expensive purchase.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#74

Post by mseebach »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #54
bsder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your evidence that this isn't a zero-sum game, is, exactly, what? All of the evidence points to the fact that people have more than sufficient entertainment options and have set their budgets at a fixed point. It wasn't piracy that killed music. It was the fact that the prime purchasers of music had a fixed entertainment budget and switched to buying video games aka. zero-sum market.

And your evidence that this isn't a zero-sum game, is, exactly, what? Me probably. And all the folk I know with reading habits like mine who have not bothered getting an ebook reader yet, despite having problems seeing the floor for books sometimes. edit - I think Amazon are complete and utter [redacted] over DRM, the 1984 debacle, their general attitude, etc. That said, I think they are probably right that everyone…

>1984

Isn't the fact that we're still discussing a single screw up that was immediately rectified from 5 years ago evidence that Amazon is actually going about this DRM business in a pretty sensible way? Also, Amazons complete lack of interest in "fixing" the very easy DRM removal process seems to provide further evidence to the same end.

Sure, it'd be better if there was no DRM, but there's the perfect world and then there's the world we actually live in.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#75

Post by WalterBright »

gknoy wrote: post #69
WalterBright wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I buy books by the bushel at $1 each (from ebay). I buy almost none at $14.99.

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.

Go on ebay and search for "vintage sci fi book lot". You can usually get a box of 'em for a buck each, and if you're patient, even $.50 each.

Your local thrift shop often has a pile of books for sale, and if you take a load of them off their hands, they'll usually give you a deal. I sometimes fill a couple shopping bags with sci fi books that way.

The fun thing about buying them by the bushel is poking through them, and discovering great sci fi you never knew existed. I enjoy the lurid artwork on the older ones, too.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#76

Post by rtpg »

robbiemitchell wrote: post #47
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…

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.

I think this is one of those points where a lot of people on HN will think in terms of COGS, but because Amazon is effectively offering your products at such a large market, the 70% of revenue you'll get through amazon is worth a lot more than the 100% you'd get without going through them (and by definition, more than the 30% they're getting).

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#77

Post by simias »

kamakazizuru wrote: post #72
bsder wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would I pay $1000 for one when I can get so many others for $5? Because market data suggests that most people won't switch. They will buy book from "the new, hip writer X" or they won't buy at all . Someone who intends to buy something by Malcolm Gladwell is unlikely to buy something from somebody else just because it's a little cheaper. Amazon wants to maximize sales volume whereas the distributors and authors…

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 readers owning an e-reader is probably older and more wealthy than the average movie pirate.

The only numbers we have are those given by amazon, but we don't know exactly which books they used to make their statistics. We also don't know what the people who didn't buy the 15$ ebooks ended up doing, maybe they didn't buy anything at all, maybe they just bought the paperback...

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#78

Post by andor »

It's also important to understand that e-books are highly price-elastic. This means that when the price goes up, customers buy much less.

But what is the alternative for those customers: do they maybe buy the paperback version instead? If that's the case, Hachette might miss out on revenue, but they also keep their paper-based business running and stay somewhat independent of Amazon.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#79

Post by mhd »

pyoung wrote: post #65
jmedefind wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at a bookstore we would ship boxes full of un-sold books back to the publishers every month (Mostly consisting of cheap Romance novels). I imagine having to track and handle all of that to be a major cost to publishers.

I believe I re-call an internet comment (most likely on HN) about how some publishers would instruct bookstores to shred the unsold copies. Apparently it was cheaper than shipping them back and trying to re-sell them somewhere else.

Isn't this why you get the warning in every paperback book about covers being ripped off?
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