Authors Group Urges Opposition to E-Book Settlement

[jgaiser]

Haven't seen this posted yet. This is from June 4 NY Times:

The Authors Guild on Monday urged its 8,500 members to protest the Department of Justice’s proposed settlement with three publishers, a proposal that clears the way for Amazon to lower prices on e-books.

In the group’s most extensive public statements since the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Apple and several publishers in April, the guild will encourage its members to submit comments in writing to the government during the 60-day comment period required before a settlement can be approved.

If e-books become cheaper, the guild’s reasoning goes, they become even more attractive compared to print books, drawing even more consumers away from brick-and-mortar bookstores.

“We think it’ll further entrench an online monopolist and isn’t good for anyone concerned with books in the long run,” Mr. Aiken said. “Amazon’s habit of selling books — particularly the most popular front-list books — at a loss is a direct threat to those bookstores. It’s an unfair way to compete, and it’s destructive in the long run. The book market becomes radically different if bookstores largely disappear.”

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...ment/?src=recg

What he doesn't say is that prior to the Agency model, Amazon was purchasing wholesale and in fact the authors were making *more* money, even though Amazon *may* have been selling at a loss.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

What he doesn't say is that prior to the Agency model, Amazon was purchasing wholesale and in fact the authors were making *more* money . . .

Right. The authors are thinking long term. Same goes for the publishers. If the publishers were run by MBA types fixated on quarterly earnings, instead of by English majors, they probably would love Amazon.

Of course, Amazon is also famous for long-term thinking.

[jgaiser]

You've lost me. So increased ebook sales is bad for authors and publishers?

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

You've lost me. So increased ebook sales is bad for authors and publishers?

Because eBooks aren't "real" books.

[tubemonkey]

“We think it’ll further entrench an online monopolist and isn’t good for anyone concerned with books in the long run,” Mr. Aiken said. “Amazon’s habit of selling books — particularly the most popular front-list books — at a loss is a direct threat to those bookstores. It’s an unfair way to compete, and it’s destructive in the long run. The book market becomes radically different if bookstores largely disappear.”

It's called progress. Do you guys still use buggy whips?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

You've lost me. So increased ebook sales is bad for authors and publishers?

Maybe yes, because it is easier to pirate an eBook than a paper book. But that's not the issue. With few exceptions, publishers were putting out their popular titles as eBooks even before the Kindle.

The most plausible motive for Amazon charging $9.99 was to put competition out of business, and then use monopoly power to jack up the price for customers while giving publishers a lower and lower percentage.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The most plausible motive for Amazon charging $9.99 was to put competition out of business, and then use monopoly power to jack up the price for customers while giving publishers a lower and lower percentage.

You and Jon should be together as a tag-team.

The most *plausible motive* for Amazon charging $9.99 was to drive sales of their Kindle ebook readers. And you guys keep bring up the dire warning about increased prices. Amazon is not a monopoly. There's plenty of sellers of ebooks. And as far as I've seen the competition is doing a good job of committing suicide.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Amazon is not a monopoly. There's plenty of sellers of ebooks. And as far as I've seen the competition is doing a good job of committing suicide.

Let's say that you and some others here are right -- the competition to Amazon consists of suicidal idiots. Then Amazon is all the more likely to become a monopoly.

[plib]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The most plausible motive for Amazon charging $9.99 was to put competition out of business, and then use monopoly power to jack up the price for customers while giving publishers a lower and lower percentage.

Can you give me an example of a retailer who has achieved a preponderance of market share, there's really no such thing as a monopoly in retail, and then subsequently jacked up prices? Retail isn't the oil industry, or telephone/cable laying or steel or auto manufacturing. There are barriers to entry but they are relatively low, particularly if one is only interested in one specific area of the retail space, such as books. There are already a number of smaller, agile alternatives to Amazon, I see some of them on the "Freebies" forum everyday. Even if all of them were put out of business it doesn't take that much to set up a new one if Amazon jacks up their prices, and the publishers/authors have the whip hand because without them Amazon has nothing to sell. I think that's all academic anyway because I don't believe Amazon are going to jack their prices, any more than Walmart have done.They may well squeeze the publishers but that is a separate matter from price increases and putting the competition out of business, and should be nothing to do with allowing or disallowing a legal settlement.

So, to get back to the first question, an example in retail of someone who has done what you're afraid of?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by plib

Can you give me an example of a retailer who has achieved a preponderance of market share, there's really no such thing as a monopoly in retail, and then subsequently jacked up prices?

Well, first of all, Amazon isn't a pure retailer, it is increasingly a publisher. It's like WalMart fully owned the companies that make its private brand merchandise.

Since the breakup of medieval guilds, there haven't been a lot of retail near-monopolies. One obvious example is state-run alcohol monopolies. But retail monopolies are indeed rare, which is why I take examples from other industries, like transportation.

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Amazon is not a monopoly.

Important point here: You don't have to be a complete monopoly to have pricing power. If Amazon gains, as seems plausible, half the book market, publishers would be instantly destroyed if they refused to market through Amazon. So Amazon could require them to provide goods to them at much lower prices than other vendors, perhaps by insisting on special advertising allowances. New entrants to the eBook market would thus be unable to undercut high Amazon prices.

[Top100EbooksRank]

http://blog.authorsguild.org/2012/04...ceo-macmillan/

When Macmillan changed to the agency model we did so knowing we would make less money on our e book business.

Agency means less money than wholesale.

[Synamon]

The book market becomes radically different if bookstores largely disappear.

Indeed. Much like the music market became radically different when record stores disappeared. Technology changes markets. Tantrums aimed at Amazon won't change that reality.

Neat how they pretend all the other online bookstores don't even exist. Only Amazon is luring consumers to buy ebooks, not Sony or Kobo or Fictionwise or Baen or all the self-published authors.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Let's say that you and some others here are right -- the competition to Amazon consists of suicidal idiots. Then Amazon is all the more likely to become a monopoly.

Until someone else comes along and does what Amazon does only better, or in a different way that people like. There's no magic to Amazon or how it operates.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Right. The authors are thinking long term. Same goes for the publishers. If the publishers were run by MBA types fixated on quarterly earnings, instead of by English majors, they probably would love Amazon.

Of course, Amazon is also famous for long-term thinking.

The authors in question are thinking long term...but with blinders permenantly welded on and surgically attatched so they never (at any point whatsoever) have to see the escalating rate of independant writers with day jobs carving into the pie nor consider the implications of that.

Hardly an intellectual enterprize.

[Edward M. Grant]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Until someone else comes along and does what Amazon does only better, or in a different way that people like. There's no magic to Amazon or how it operates.

Yes and no. Compared to the other online book stores I've visited, Amazon is magic; I couldn't even find my own books on the Apple store when I went looking for them, whereas until I downloaded a couple of thousand free e-books Amazon's algorithm was very good at recommending books I'd never heard of that I'd like to buy.

And Amazon itself has problems; my Author Central page and book pages seem to change randomly from one day to the next. Even looking at them in two different web browsers at the same time often shows a radically different page. I don't know whether that's intentional or accidental, but it is annoying.