USA Today: Real Books can defeat Amazon and ebooks

[fjtorres]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...ness/17376253/

The book business response has been to protest hotly and try to wage a moral war against what it sees as an immoral competitor — having, for instance, its writers sign petitions and ads. To its credit, few believed usually inefficient publishers could ever mount such an impassioned defense. But if the adage about not being able to win at the negotiating table what you can't win on the battlefield is correct, book publishers don't have much of a chance against Amazon's dominance. In fact, their efforts to fight what they perceive as the Amazon monopoly have only succeeded in getting publishers charged with antitrust practices in their combined effort to have Apple help bail them out.

Yup. Real books.
That's the key to besting ol' Devil Bezos.

Have at it, folks.

[crich70]

I think this is a very old argument with a new face to it. No doubt there were those who thought scribes who hand copied books had a monopoly on things and were overpriced on what they charged and I can imagine the 1st publishers to use Gutenberg's printing presses were accused of the same thing. And of course the charges of monopoly also go with the charges of books not being real because they aren't paper based unlike traditional books. Of course there was a time when real books were parchment based, and a time when they were clay tablet based as well. You can't stop progress and if you try you find yourself left in the dust eventually while everyone else moves forward. Is Amazon a monopoly? I don't know, but if they are then a part of the blame belongs to the traditional publishers who either didn't get on the band wagon or who having gotten on then jumped back off again. Mr. Bezos didn't invent ebooks. He just saw a market that wasn't being put to the best possible use and ran with it. Sometimes people have to be pulled kicking and screaming into the modern world since they are content to stay as they have always been and resist change. To then scream that the other guy has a monopoly is to shift the blame from the real guilty party to a convenient scapegoat (IMO). How many ereader makers have stopped making ereaders? How many book sellers have stopped selling ebooks? If Amazon does have a monopoly then isn't it (at least in part) their faults?

[DiapDealer]

So Bezos is actually forcing publishers to produce/sell these fake ebooks? No wonder they're struggling so mightily then. I guess I just assumed the publishers were free to stop producing ebooks and return their focus to real books any time they wanted.

[binaryhermit]

I object to the idea that eBooks are "fake", or more specifically that dead tree-based books are somehow more "real".

[bfisher]

"Amazon is trying to control the book business through e-books. It wants to control e-books not least of all because they are not books. Migrating people to this medium means Amazon will own a potentially unlimited new entertainment platform — which, along the way, will have compromised the very form and meaning of a book"

wow, I guess I should go back to exclusively reading REAL books. Here I was naively assuming that books were containers for ideas. I guess the medium really is the message.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...ness/17376253/

Yup. Real books.
That's the key to besting ol' Devil Bezos.

Have at it, folks.

Sounds like the same issues the music labels had with MP3s and the studios are having with digital downloads. Instead of fighting the trend they should re-think their approach (like maybe selling more units for less profit per unit?). "Fake" eBooks are not going away.

[Jack Torrance]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Sounds like the same issues the music labels had with MP3s and the studios are having with digital downloads. Instead of fighting the trend they should re-think their approach (like maybe selling units more for less profit per unit?). "Fake" eBooks are not going away.

This ^.

Granted I don't buy a lot of music ( cd or MP3 ) but I can't recall the last time I bought a physical CD. The same goes for DVDs, it's been a long time.


I'll buy the occasional pbook, usually used for less than $1, read it thn donate to charity. Most of the books I buy are ebooks but I'm a Stephen King nut and will buy the hardbacks just to collect and read the ebook instead.

It does tweak me that the ebooks are as expensive as they are in comparison but I know I would buy more if they were less Aka MP3s and iTunes.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Jack Torrance

This ^.

Granted I don't buy a lot of music ( cd or MP3 ) but I can't recall the last time I bought a physical CD. The same goes for DVDs, it's been a long time.


I'll buy the occasional pbook, usually used for less than $1, read it thn donate to charity. Most of the books I buy are ebooks but I'm a Stephen King nut and will buy the hardbacks just to collect and read the ebook instead.

It does tweak me that the ebooks are as expensive as they are in comparison but I know I would buy more if they were less Aka MP3s and iTunes.

I would never have guessed considering your username. I like Mr. King's writing as well. He has a unique way of looking at the world in his writing.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Jack Torrance

This ^.

Granted I don't buy a lot of music ( cd or MP3 ) but I can't recall the last time I bought a physical CD. The same goes for DVDs, it's been a long time.

I'll buy the occasional pbook, usually used for less than $1, read it thn donate to charity. Most of the books I buy are ebooks but I'm a Stephen King nut and will buy the hardbacks just to collect and read the ebook instead.

It does tweak me that the ebooks are as expensive as they are in comparison but I know I would buy more if they were less Aka MP3s and iTunes.

Of course I can often get a CD as cheap as I can get the mp3s (Just had a look through the top 5 selling CD's at Amazon UK and 1 of them is cheaper than the mp3 purchase (actually has autorip as well, so the cheapest way to get Amazon to supply the mp3s is to buy the CD). for the rest it's 10-15% cheaper.

[QuantumIguana]

A book is a book is a book whether it is written on stone, parchment, a papyrus scroll, a screen or tattooed on your skin.

What an e-book is not is a codex. That's the proper word for what people commonly think of when they say "book". The distinguishing feature between a paper book and an e-book is not that one is a book and the other is not, but that one is a codex and the other is not. If you read a paper version of a book while I read the same book in an e-book format, we both read the same book.

The article claims that children learn less from e-books, but that's not accurate. There was a study that people had more difficulty remembering the order of events in the plot, but the methodology was suspect, and other areas showed no difference.

Why should anyone think that book publishers would be any better at running a bookstore the people who run Barnes and Noble or the people who ran Borders?

Amazon isn't the only player in e-books. Kobo and B&N are still around. Amazon just out-competes them. E-books are here to stay. The publishers cannot defeat e-books. There are too many good writers who bypass the publishers, even if the publishers decided not to sell e-books at all, it wouldn't end e-books.

[Gudy]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

A book is a book is a book whether it is written on stone, parchment, a papyrus scroll, a screen or tattooed on your skin.

Well, legally speaking, and depending on your jurisdiction, that is very much NOT the case. In fact, in most Western jurisdictions e-books are not legally books but are a kind of software license. So as awful as that article otherwise is, the "real books" thing is quite correct.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Gudy

Well, legally speaking, and depending on your jurisdiction, that is very much NOT the case. In fact, in most Western jurisdictions e-books are not legally books but are a kind of software license. So as awful as that article otherwise is, the "real books" thing is quite correct.

In *some* western jurisdictions. Only one vote per jurisdiction, please. There's plenty of paper fetishists and bought politicians to go around.

Anyway, in *some* jurisdictions companies are people too. Legally speaking. Doesn't mean they catch cold or get cramps.politicians come up with senseless definitions twice a week, depending on who is footing the bill for lunch.

Artificial legalistic distinctions don't change the fundamental reality of what readers actually buy: stories, education, information. The package is not the product.

Or as the bard allegedly said, "A rose by another name is still going to be taxed to the hilt unless it has good lobbyists."

[alicepattinson]

Well, I'm still going to use Real books for my incoming child. I love the old fashion way

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Gudy

Well, legally speaking, and depending on your jurisdiction, that is very much NOT the case. In fact, in most Western jurisdictions e-books are not legally books but are a kind of software license. So as awful as that article otherwise is, the "real books" thing is quite correct.

I assure you, I'm not reading a software license. I've read software licenses, and they look considerably different. If it is a license, then what is it a license for? The book, that's what. The rights you have may be different for a paper book vs. an e-book, but they are both still books.

Don Quixote is a book.
I read Don Quixote on my Kindle.
Therefore, I read a book.

I didn't read a codex, but I did read a book.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I assure you, I'm not reading a software license. I've read software licenses, and they look considerably different. If it is a license, then what is it a license for? The book, that's what. The rights you have may be different for a paper book vs. an e-book, but they are both still books.

Don Quixote is a book.
I read Don Quixote on my Kindle.
Therefore, I read a book.

I didn't read a codex, but I did read a book.

Don Quixote is a book.
I read Don Quixote on my Kindle.
Therefore, I read an ebook.


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