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Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

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Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#81

Post by rbehrends »

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?

First of all, ebooks still make up only a fraction of the book market (especially outside the US). Most big publishers will have to support hardcover, paperback, and ebook version in parallel and price them so that they make a profit for everything combined. Hardcover and paperback versions are not going to go away anytime soon, either.

Second, publishers also make losses on books that don't sell and that they have to recover. The majority of books don't actually sell a whole lot of copies, so the fixed costs associated with producing a book can be a pretty high percentage of revenues for the average book.

Finally, publishers provide editing, translation into foreign languages or negotiation with foreign publishers (assuming your agent didn't retain translation/foreign publication rights), production, marketing, accounting and sales services, distribution, and warehousing (for dead tree books).

Note also that you can equally ask what Amazon provides with regards to ebook distribution: In the end, it's just another middleman that got a head start because it was first to market with the Kindle, but is otherwise unnecessary. In some markets, publishers selling directly to readers (on non-Kindle platforms) makes up a significant part of sales.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#82

Post by gergles »

credo wrote: post #59

Amazon has mastered the art of saying nothing with a lot of self-serving words :) Their post is titled "Update re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption" . However, they don't state what their specific demands are and why the business was (in their words) interrupted. Amazon's proclaimed objectives aren't as important as knowing what their specific demands (from Hachette) are. I'm not a book-author, but as a develope…

You set your wholesale price. You don't get to set retail prices. If I want to buy something from you at $1000 and resell it at $1, that's my business. eBook publishers have this delusion where they get to set retail prices, and it's backwards and wrong.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#83

Post by bambax »

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,…

There is also the problem of cannibalization which is not mentioned in Amazon's post; it's obvious that some of the people who buy eBooks when they're So the "total revenue" figure is pretty abstract; publishers (or authors, or distributors, or anyone, really) don't need to consider media as completely separate; what matter is total sales, including paper, on-demand, and ebooks.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#84

Post by bambax »

The competitor of Amazon is Google.

If you're an author the absolute best you can hope to get is 35% of the sale price -- that is, the price your readers are willing to pay to read your work. Usually, it's even much less.

The publisher keeps at least 35%; the distributor, 30%. It's unclear to me what value these actors are offering, for this amount of money.

Disintermediation hasn't happened yet (what happened is, Amazon took the place of bookstores, and publishers are still around).

But disintermediation will happen eventually; when that day comes this discussion will sound silly and strange.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#87

Post by mendort »

bsder wrote: post #57
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,…

> specifically that lowering the price from $15 to $10 lead to a 74% increase in purchases So, if Amazon takes $5, then whoever provided the book lost money on that deal. (Profit went from $10 to $5 while sales did not double ). In fact, if Amazon takes more than about $4, it's a wash (which is actually a loss because some of those 75% more customers would likely have bought the book later at a different price point)…

You also assume that amazon is free to price ebooks however they want provided that they pay the publisher the right amount. They are not. This is one of the reasons that this conflict has developed. Amazon has traditionally been happy to sell many physical books at a loss. They are not permitted to do this with ebooks.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#88

Post by riffraff »

mseebach wrote: post #74
lotsofmangos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

FWIW, I just bought a book (sequel to "a fire upon the deep" by vernon vinge) on kindle yesterday and it came with a "this book has no DRM at the request of the publisher" disclaimer.

So maybe we should complain about publishers rather than amazon at this point?

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#89

Post by riffraff »

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.

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.

Re: Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption

#90

Post by spindritf »

ghshephard wrote: post #26

While I buy into many of the arguments being made here, Some of these points don't make sense. For example, ". And that 74% increase in copies sold makes it much more likely that the title will make it onto the national bestseller lists. (Any author who's trying to get on one of the national bestseller lists should insist to their publisher that their e-book be priced at $9.99 or lower.)" Well, that's all well and go…

Well, that's all well and good until everyone prices their e-books at $9.99 or lower, at which point we're back to square one.

No. At least not according to OP. They suggest that books compete against other forms of information and entertainment and that below $9.99 a larger share of that market would be occupied by ebooks.

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