Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Funny, BEST BUY thinks it is all that ebook money that lets Amazon discount HDTVs 40% and offer free shipping and superior customer service.

I'm not whining about their prices. All I'm saying is that because Amazon sells so much more than ebooks, it has other revenue streams that other booksellers do not have and that they can divert those revenue streams.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I seriously doubt Amazon is getting into the nuts and bolts of publishing a book--they'll go through existing book packagers for production.

Sorry but Amazon does own production end companies and will not use outside book packagers. It currently isn't using them, so why would you expect it to change?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by rhadin

They wouldn't be collectively refusing to trade. They would be saying anyone can sell our books but only in ePub with Adobe DRM.

Any they cannot get together and collectively decide to do that, with the effect of excluding Amazon. Any one of them can do it. Any number can make an independent decision to do so. They cannot collude to do so.

Edit: Any why would they want to just give money to Adobe like that anyway? Why would they care?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by taustin

The question is, will they attract customers? And that's a far more complicatedc question, based on prices, yes, but also on quality. If they don't understand what a publisher's job really is, their books will suck, and nobody will buy a second one. If they have good editors and produce good books, they'll thrive.

Given that Amazon's entire business model is based on having as little human interaction as possible with both customers and vendors, I'm skeptical as to how successful they'll be at publishing.

They seem to be cherry picking writers with a proven sales history at the moment. Everything else can easily be farmed out on a job by job basis. Some of the bigger name writers might even drag along their own preferred editor and cover artist, etc.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I'm not whining about their prices. All I'm saying is that because Amazon sells so much more than ebooks, it has other revenue streams that other booksellers do not have and that they can divert those revenue streams.

I wasn't refering to you personally, you don't compete with Amazon, do you?

All *I* am saying is that Amazon lives off lean margins not because they have other revenue streams but because that it how they roll; they monetize *everything*. Other companies treat IT as a cost center, Amazon made it a profit center; other companies see competitors as a threat, Amazon is perfectly happy to serve as a fulfillment center for them. Other companies see no problem in paying royalties to an annointed standard holder, Amazon prefers to own its tech whenever possible, creating it if they can, buying the owner (Mobileread, Audible, Diapers.com) if necessary/feasible.

To say they *only* succeed because of their multiple revenue streams is simplistic: those revenue streams have to support the business centers that generate that revenue in the first place. And lets not forget that shifting revenue to incubate new profit centers is a standard business practice (B&N is doing exactly that with Nook and PubIt, and to sign their own Nook-exclusive content, and so is Apple in deploying iBooks worldwide), and more importantly, it is pretty clear Kindle has been generating positive cash-flow for Amazon for at least a year, if not longer. All they are doing is what every well-run company is doing.

And finally, yes; Amazon is a big, multi-faceted company. So what? That by itself is not a crime. The publishing companies they are taking on are hardly lemonade stands; they are giant multinationals with tentacles in publishing all over the world and back catalohgs thousands of titles deep, so how come Amazon and their hundred book portfolio is suddenly an unfair competitor?

Shall we conveniently forget that B&N and Borders were bookselling powerhouses long before there was an Amazon, that the market share Amazon now commands was there for the taking by anybody, big or small? Amazon is a tough big competitor but the way they got that way was by competing; nobody passed a government act giving them anything. What they have they worked for and they'll keep it until they screw up or until somebody smarter comes along or, more likely, the whiners find a government they can buy into outlawing Amazon.

Amazon is nobody's friend but neither are any of their enemies; there's no good guys or bad guys there---they're all money-grubbing corporations out to make a buck anyway they can.
Off us.
No angels there, no demons either.
Just humans playing the game of big business.
Its a fun game to watch but we shouldn't forget it's just a game to them. They all have their nicely vested golden parachutes, after all.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

...

Amazon is nobody's friend....

But wait.....there was a thread......

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Shall we conveniently forget that B&N and Borders were bookselling powerhouses long before there was an Amazon, that the market share Amazon now commands was there for the taking by anybody, big or small? Amazon is a tough big competitor but the way they got that way was by competing; nobody passed a government act giving them anything. What they have they worked for and they'll keep it until they screw up or until somebody smarter comes along or, more likely, the whiners find a government they can buy into outlawing Amazon.

I think there is one legitimate beef that bricks and mortar stores (in general, not just books) have with online stores (again, in general), and that is that the B&M stores end up being the storefronts for the online stores. They are the places people walk into to try products out, compare them, get some info, and then go back home and order from the online stores. So the B&M stores are carrying all the overhead that goes with physical stores, but the online stores are getting the benefit.
There really is no way the the B&M stores can prevent or benefit from that. They cannot sell as low as the online stores do, because of all the B&M overhead. But if all the B&M stores went away, the online stores suddenly wouldn't have those free storefronts, and might have to pay to provide their own. So the online stores need to keep the B&M stores just profitable enough so they can continue to benefit from their services. Is it a parasitic relationship, or is it parasitoidal?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

They seem to be cherry picking writers with a proven sales history at the moment. Everything else can easily be farmed out on a job by job basis. Some of the bigger name writers might even drag along their own preferred editor and cover artist, etc.

It's hard to imagine that I'll ever be buying a book in which the various editing and publishing functions have been "farmed out," and if I ever do, it's hard to imagine I won't regret it. Even writers with a proven sales history need editors (and if you don't believe me, read the later work of any super famous author, after they got too big to edit), and it's not a trivial job. The publisher invests as much time in a manuscript as the author does. Really. If Amazon doens't do that, with an experienced, well trained, dedicated editorial staff, their product will suck, and die a quick, well deserved death.

It's possible they have a clue, and are planning on doing this right. But I have doubts, given their history of cluelessness is so many other areas.

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I think there is one legitimate beef that bricks and mortar stores (in general, not just books) have with online stores (again, in general), and that is that the B&M stores end up being the storefronts for the online stores. They are the places people walk into to try products out, compare them, get some info, and then go back home and order from the online stores. So the B&M stores are carrying all the overhead that goes with physical stores, but the online stores are getting the benefit.
There really is no way the the B&M stores can prevent or benefit from that. They cannot sell as low as the online stores do, because of all the B&M overhead. But if all the B&M stores went away, the online stores suddenly wouldn't have those free storefronts, and might have to pay to provide their own. So the online stores need to keep the B&M stores just profitable enough so they can continue to benefit from their services. Is it a parasitic relationship, or is it parasitoidal?

That may make sense for you, but for me the B&M store did not even offer me the browsing experience I wanted. The online store did.

Again, a lot of you are missing the point. I can get what I want from Amazon, with an excellant customer service experience, and very good prices. The B&M stores and the publishers as a whole don't offer that, either they can't because of the nature of the business, or they simply don't want to. For a customer like me, Amazon is a good answer.

[abookreader]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Except Amazon would have all the books under contract so what would they be selling?

All of them?

There are currently over 200,000 books a year published just in the US and that does not even include Indy publishing. Is there really any chance at all that all of them will be signed by Amazon?

And if they are --- there's probably another huge chunk right behind them. Publishing houses, even the tiniest and poorest paying of them, have never had a hard time obtaining submissions.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Without Random House, Simon & Schuster, and the rest of the Agency 6, Amazon would have a major problem in the book business, especially if other ebooksellers had the books. All the publishers lack is the backbone to do it; if they did it, they'd beat Amazon, which would have a difficult time replacing those books. Rembember the battle with Macmillan. Amazon caved.

I don't think that cutting off 2/3 of your ebook customers is good business for the publishers. I'm not even sure that it woudn't put the publishers in a *worse* place. Amazon would come out with an ePub reader, of course, and now people with eKindles, Nooks, Kobos, and Sonys could *all* buy their books at Amazon.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by taustin

It's hard to imagine that I'll ever be buying a book in which the various editing and publishing functions have been "farmed out," and if I ever do, it's hard to imagine I won't regret it. Even writers with a proven sales history need editors (and if you don't believe me, read the later work of any super famous author, after they got too big to edit), and it's not a trivial job. The publisher invests as much time in a manuscript as the author does. Really. If Amazon doens't do that, with an experienced, well trained, dedicated editorial staff, their product will suck, and die a quick, well deserved death.

It's possible they have a clue, and are planning on doing this right. But I have doubts, given their history of cluelessness is so many other areas.

47North titles are available through Ingram Book Company and Baker & Taylor.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000715991

these companies also seem to do p.o.d. publishing so they may be using them for at least the publishing side.

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by abookreader

. . . . . . . . . . Somebody would set up a website to start selling eBooks at $9.99 and their business would boom.

Amazon will drop it's price to match competitor's pricing.

[Giggleton]

The idea of multiple servers distributing the same file is only meaningful for purposes of backing up. To have the same file be distributed at multiple price points, or even a price point at all is ludicrous IMO...

In reality, which is where we are, ebooks give everyone the potential to be a publisher. To not take advantage of this potential is to not take advantage of the potential of human knowledge dissemination.

To stop distributing this knowledge because of some concern an executive has due to exclusivity or to restrict this knowledge behind a paywall is criminal and will eventually be dealt with as such.

[allinhi/]

I think if you look at retailers who try to become content developers in creative fields, for the most part they have limited success. They tend to rely on research and what has sold in the past. 15 years ago paranormal books sold modestly. Trends bubble up, not down almost always. I suspect like music and movies they may have niches they dominate, but publishing in general I doubt it. If Amazon attempts to buy several publishing houses, that would concern me.