06-14-2012, 01:35 PM | #136 | |
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If publishers are *required* to get certain data from retailers in order to sell books to them, the retailers have a great advantage--of which Amazon's in the strongest position to leverage; BooksOnBoard and Diesel don't have the resources to say "we'll just go without your books for several months while we wait for you to agree to the terms we like." While the DOJ is not going after Amazon, I'd like to believe they're not oblivious to the problems of handing a huge market advantage to a single retailer. (Which is different from "not taking action against a single retailer with huge market advantage," which was the state before Agency pricing. Amazon had the lion's share of the market because it had built a business plan that did so, not because of shady deals or special legal loopholes.) |
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06-14-2012, 02:19 PM | #137 | |
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06-19-2012, 07:12 PM | #138 | |
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06-19-2012, 07:14 PM | #139 | |
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06-23-2012, 07:33 PM | #140 |
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Why would the settlement require Amazon to turn over sales data to the publishers? Isn't the DOJ the agency monitoring the settlement? Wouldn't the data be given to them and they would only inform the publishers if Amazon was selling at a loss or not? Amazon and the publishers while not exactly enemies are on opposite sides of the barganing table and requiring that propriatory info be given to their opponents doesn't seem right.
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06-23-2012, 09:42 PM | #141 | |
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I'm guessing Big Publishing House, except that a lot of people around here seem to think they are stupid. |
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06-24-2012, 01:21 PM | #142 | |
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I don't quite think they're stupid except in the ways that any large corporation gets stupid--too caught up in profits-right-now for shareholders and unable to focus on the core purpose of their company. Combine that with the problem that *all* media companies are having with the changes brought by the internet, especially older ones, and you have "lack of flexibility that gives a good impression of utter stupidity." For a long time "books" and "blocks of paper" were so entertwined that publishers didn't have to sort out which one they were more interested in selling--in order to sell book-content, you needed to sell blocks-of-paper, and that meant printers, distributors, front-facing in stores, and a large secondhand market driving new sales by established authors. That's all wonky now. And it's understandable that they've been thrown for a loop. And they're really not stupid... but wow, they've got a lot of inertia (and a lot of investments) tied up in that "books=blocks-of-paper" concept, and they're fighting hard to keep it that way. Which, when directly compared to small, nimble companies and individual author success stories, makes them look stupid. (And then they lash out at authors, which makes them look more stupid.) |
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06-24-2012, 03:14 PM | #143 | |
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"You think I am wrong." "I think you are wrongheaded." It pretty much sums up how I feel about a lot of traditional publishing houses. |
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06-25-2012, 03:45 AM | #144 | |
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"You think I am thick." "I think you are thickheaded." |
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06-25-2012, 12:14 PM | #145 |
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Note that despite the popular meme here that authors and BPHs are opposed, in the end they are on the same side.They are both in the book creation game-which is why authors are supporting the BPHs in this dispute.
Both are eating from the same pot-which is why there are going to oppose those who might want to make that pot smaller. |
06-25-2012, 12:28 PM | #146 |
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It's also a popular meme to invent imaginary memes... or a non-existent consensus where none actually exists. There is no X is completely hand-in-hand with Y against/for Z.
I would also argue that publishers are not really in the "creation game." They are in the business of making money from other's creations... nothing more. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. They are in the selling/promotion game after all. |
06-25-2012, 12:31 PM | #147 | ||
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Several BPHs seem to have the attitude of, "as long as we all offer the *same* lousy terms to authors, none of us will have problems signing on enough talent, because there's nowhere else they can go." Quote:
It's not true. John Locke sold a million one-dollar ebooks to people who would never have bought a paper copy. There's no evidence *at all* that he would have sold 200,000 paper books at $4.99 instead; his ebook market didn't cut into the paper market. Konrath's publishing house believes that his ebooks "need" to be priced at $7-12 to profit; Konrath's self-releases are proving that very wrong. BPHs are invested in selling books to their known market pool. Indie authors are able to look outside of that, to people who never bought books directly from BPHs--both the used-book market that's happy to buy books at $4 or less, regardless of whether those books give royalties to authors, and a large market of mostly-non-readers who will try books if they're convenient enough. BPHs are trying to push ebooks on them, and making decent sales with their $12.99 sales pitches. And then they're *losing* those customers as they slowly figure out that a BPH logo is not a mark of literary or formatting quality in ebooks, and with a bit of time spent reading reviews, they can happily glut themselves on $4 books that are just as enjoyable. |
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06-25-2012, 01:26 PM | #148 | |||||
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No enmity there. Quote:
FWIW, its not clear at all to me that non-readers are prevented by price or inconvenience from trying books. My experience is that people either like to read, or they don't-and if they like to read, they'll buy books . Last edited by stonetools; 06-25-2012 at 02:51 PM. |
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06-25-2012, 06:25 PM | #149 | |
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Most of them are happy with Gutenberg's collection; they each have a list of classics they'd always intended to read and never gotten around to, and are delighted to find that they're available for free and can be carried in their pockets. Also, the notion that "if they like to read, they'll buy books" assumes that books are within their budget. The BPHs disdain any customers whose book budgets are less than $10/month--and miss out on the fact that there are millions of those people. (A lot of those are minors. Their transition into the ebook market is bumpy; they have a choice of "adult-controlled reading" or "random freebies" or "bootleg books." Those who like reading don't tend to settle for the adult-control requirements, and whichever of the other options they choose, the BPHs have lost a chance to build connections with a future customer.) |
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06-25-2012, 06:33 PM | #150 |
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I agree with everything Elf says and disagree with everything tools says.
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