Amazon vs. Apple: Why writers drink, part four million

[rolanni]

Well, at least it's become clear that the War is between Amazon and Apple, for marketshare, and only peripherally about publishers, publishing, authors, or even books.

Author's careers? Just collateral damage.

I feel sooooo much better.

From the New York Times, we have:

Amazon Threatens Publishers as Apple Looms
By MOTOKO RICH and BRAD STONE
Published: March 17, 2010

Amazon.com has threatened to stop directly selling the books of some publishers online unless they agree to a detailed list of concessions regarding the sale of electronic books, according to two industry executives with direct knowledge of the discussions.

Read all about it.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't that anti-competitive somehow? Though I would be the first to admit that my knowledge of Anti-trust law is almost non-existent.

--Susan

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Yes it is anti-competitive, but by the time the case has ground through the court system the battlefield will lie in ruins.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

I have to say apart from a couple of DVDs years ago I've not bought anything from amazon. Bookdepository yes, baen via webscriptions lots recently :) and local bookstores, both large chains and small speciality, but not the A

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Amazon are free to not sell if they want to. There's nothing anti-competitive about that (indeed, if they pull more publishers then their competitors will be very pleased, because more customers will go to them instead of Amazon). I think that Amazon will be fools if they do try that again, really annoying even more of their customers, but that's their problem.

I was more interested in the comment about Apple: "to do business with Apple, publishers must export Apple’s business model to all retailers". That seems anti-competitive to me, and puts the 'viral' nature of software licensing (see the GPL) in the shade.

I don't know what effect it would actually have on authors. There is certainly the loss of exposure if Amazon pull the entries completely, but if they keep them and just disable the "buy" buttons I suspect that most customers will just go elsewhere. Amazon may be the biggest but they aren't the only online bookstore. The big danger is if othe bookstores follow Amazon's lead, making it impossible to buy the books at all.

[mardott.livejournal.com]

I already know that when I buy an e-reader, it won't be a Kindle. For now, I'm trying other places to purchase books. This is a hassle - we use Amazon a LOT, including wish lists for us and other family members. But manipulative behavior pisses me off. Especially when it's the Big Guy doing the manipulating.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

I've pretty much stopped using Amazon for most purchases. I really don't like the way they do business. For books these days, I generally use bookfinder.com. Which give me access to a broad network of independent booksellers for both new and used copies of durned near anything.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

You know things are getting bad when you start thinking wistfully about Microsoft getting into the fight. It's kind of like when the worst days of the Bush II administration made me start thinking nostalgic thoughts about Richard M. Nixon (who at least was an Evil Genius and not an Evil Idiot.)

Yea, saw this too, didya?

[(Anonymous)]

I blogged about it, then put pointers on Facebook and Twitter. It smells a bit of price-fixing but then again, price-fixing is nothing new to the book industry.

I still see the authors and readers as the losers - caught in the cross-fire of the Cold War between Amazon/Apple.

Sigh
Lauretta (Constellation Books)

[angela-n-hunt.livejournal.com]

Oh for f--

As a small publisher (micropress), this makes me utterly livid.

*headdesk* is right.

[dhw.livejournal.com]

No one is thinking about the Authors.

Amazon and Apple both want to control the online eBook market. Apple has reaped enormous rewards over their enormous market share in online Music, and wants to repeat this.

The publishers want to keep eBooks from cannibalizing their paper book sales (which I'm not sure is wise, but that's another matter), and so want to keep the consumer prices for eBooks higher on release.

The end result is that the publishers are fighting for the Apple model in which they get to control prices, but actually get significantly less revenue than they do from Amazon per book.

To what degree the Publisher revenue correlates to the Author revenue is not something I have visibility into.

I don't see a Good Guy in this fight.

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

I totally agree. I've gone out of my way to install alternatives to Apple software on my machine, because it's so grabby and intrusive. When the Apple site tried to force me to install iTunes just to buy a flipping GIFT card for a teen relative "blessed" with an iPod, I chose another gift. I'm not quite annoyed enough with Bill Gates to ditch Microsoft and go entirely over to the Penguin, but it's been close a time or two.

As for Amazon, I do buy some goods from them and their Marketplace. But as far as ebooks go, I've downloaded one freebie from them. All of my other ebooks, I've bought from Baen, Fictionwise and Book View Cafe.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Amazon and Apple both want to control the online eBook market.

Not exactly true.

Apple is primarily a hardware vendor. They want to sell you iPods, iPhones, and now iPads to consume media on. They need copious media on their platform if people are to be induced to buy them. Sure they'd be happy to own the ebook market if they could -- but it's not worth wrecking their existing business model to do so.

Amazon probably makes a loss on each Kindle sold. They probably make a loss on most Kindle ebooks sold, too. They even make a loss on most of their books.

Where Amazon make their profit is on white goods and clothes and food and similar stuff, which is worth oodles more than books. Books are merely the deep-discounted draw to get punters through the door -- same as they are at Tesco when they get a new Harry Potter title and discount it to 25% of SRP.

Amazon want to own the ebook market because ebooks threaten paper books, and paper books are their draw.

Amazon are like WalMart, only via mail order, and more evil.

(Luckily they're probably going to lose, because in this fight Amazon resemble a chihuahua trying to hump a leonberger.)

[laurahcory1.livejournal.com]

Hey Dave,

Not all publishers think that e-book sales cannibalize other sales. Toni makes a good point about that in her recent interview regarding the way Baen does e-books:

http://www.teleread.org/2010/03/11/interview-toni-weisskopf-publisher-of-baen-books/

[dhw.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely.

But Baen isn't afraid of eBooks, and the other Publishers are.

For that matter, Baen's model of capturing the market is excellent. Sometimes I'll see a couple of books I want, and get a Webscription for a month. Other times, I'll see a book that I want, and just grab it for $5 or $6.

Other times, (cough) Mouse and Dragon (cough), I'm willing to pay the premium to have the book now-now-now rather than waiting for the proofed (and cheaper) version.

[laurahcory1.livejournal.com]

But Baen isn't afraid of eBooks, and the other Publishers are.

Great, now I'm having visions of a gigantic eBook (as drawn by John Kovalic, natch) brandishing a knife and chasing Other Publishers down the street. ;)

But seriously, what are the other publishers afraid of?

[dhw.livejournal.com]

But seriously, what are the other publishers afraid of?

They are afraid of what happened to Newspapers.

The majority of people reading newspapers now read them online. They don't subscribe, and the online advertising revenue has not kept up with the lost advertising revenue from the print editions.

In fairness, much of the lost revenue isn't because people are reading online, it is because the lucrative classifieds are not nearly as important in the days of Craigslist and online job sites.

But that's what they are afraid of.

They know how to make money (more or less) with bound books, and they know how to stagger the pricing to capture more of the revenue stream by making early releases more expensive.

What they are afraid of is cannibalizing their hardcover sales, and discovering that the revenue from the online books is insufficient to make up for it.

I think they are wrong, but it isn't an unreasonable worry. And since I don't have any skin in the game, what I think about their business model isn't something that is terribly compelling either way.

((In part, they're also trying to take advantage of the zero-cost of online inventory to have even greater control over price. In the physical world, I cannot tell you "you can't sell it for a price below X" (that would be price fixing), I can only sell it to you for Y, and let you pick X. I could use you as a selling agent, but that means I absorb the entire inventory risk (and the inventory taxes). But for online books, a commissioned agency model (which is what they are looking for) lets me set the price, because technically, I'm selling it.))

Amazon

[(Anonymous)]

Mouse and Dragon is now available for pre-order on Amazon with a date of June 15. A change of heart?
peggy

[laurajunderwood.livejournal.com]

So let me get this straight. Amazon is threatening publishers? Is Amazon insane?

Wait, never mind--corporate mindsets ARE insane. ;-)

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

This kind of thing is why Amazon and Apple are both at the bottom of my list of companies to deal with despite the fact that my brother works for Amazon.

[isabellag.livejournal.com]

For those of us not blessed with a population base in the hundreds of millions, Amazon is a bit of a lifesaver, particularly in the dead-tree book space - prices, even with postage, are cheaper than local booksellers, and the market is much broader - we have one Sci-Fi bookshop in Sydney, a city of 5 million souls, for example. As far as ebooks go, I don't even try. For both Fictionwise and Amazon, we have these things called 'geographic restrictions', which are arbitrary lines that determine what we can and can't buy in the ebook space.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

But -- you can buy webscriptions, right?

Re: Amazon

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Not a change of heart -- they merely put back what was after they messed up the market buzz we had.

[isabellag.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, and I did already buy my eARC copy of 'Mouse and Dragon', but I had to read it on my PC, because my latest geeky toy's e-reader won't support '.prc' files (using the Android os) or any of the formats offered by Baen. Beggers can't be choosers, though, and PC-based e-reading is better than no e-reading, right?