Great News! Amazon scores more ebook exclusives

[JSWolf]

I have to say, this sort of thing is a bit offensive. Taking some very creative works and basically tying them to one format is just wrong.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have to say, this sort of thing is a bit offensive. Taking some very creative works and basically tying them to one format is just wrong.

Does that apply to video games and computer apps, as well?

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Open Road Media are the same company which said that they'd like to break Amazon's usual 9.99 price threshold for e-books....

They also apparently offer authors a 50% royalty rate, and are going up against big pubs for their author's ebook rights.

And the new Einstein books are all $10 -- and Amazon apparently set the price. It doesn't look like they use agency pricing.

Wow, what a pack of hyenas.

Originally Posted by ATDrake

I think someone has a disproportionately skewed idea of what the likely actual market value of their catalogue is.

Perhaps, but they aren't setting the price, so if it's too expensive you can blame Amazon.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

And the new Einstein books are all $10 -- and Amazon apparently set the price. It doesn't look like they use agency pricing.

Wow, what a pack of hyenas.

Perhaps, but they aren't setting the price, so if it's too expensive you can blame Amazon.

Hey, if Open Road Media wants to set a higher pre-retailer-discount "suggested retail" list of $14.99 for books because they wanted to raise their selling prices from what they saw as the standard Amazon $9.99 point (which was the part of my post you omitted from what you chose to quote) on books originally published in the 80s by midlist authors, that's up to them.

I'm just saying that their apparent expectations for returns may be mildly unrealistic. A 50% author royalty is generous on paper, but when it has to be gathered from potentially fewer sales due to possibly off-putting higher price point, it's still 50% of potentially nothing. These books will be competing against the current new bestseller stuff price-point-wise, after all.

But who knows, maybe fewer sales at a much higher price to more affluent customers may make up for things.

I know I certainly won't be spending $180 to pick up all 18 books on Barbara Hambly's Open Road-acquired old paperback backlist at the hypothetically favourable price of $9.99 post-discount-by-Amazon each when I could be spending that money to buy her completely new releases (3 expected for this year alone).

And to put things in perspective, she's one of the only 3 authors for whom I ever auto-buy the new HC/TPB releases as they come out instead of waiting for library or cheaper sale/mmpb edition to read first.

[Lemurion]

I like Barbara Hambly a lot, but $10 is too much for eBooks of backlist paperbacks I read two or in some cases even three decades ago. I'd put them out at $5 each or bundle them with new releases for $3.

[ATDrake]

I buy Barbara Hambly in two languages at an average of $15+tax for French MMPB paperback translations (TPB are usually around $30-40 when you can find them) and $15-24 for original English TPB/HC.

And I'm sorry, but much as I love her work, I would not pay $10, even "on sale", for a DRM-ed e-book edition of any single one of her works which I already own, and would choose to purchase a more expensive paper edition over a new e-book priced at that much.

Although I will give her $5 for those new novellas she writes and sells directly off her website. At least I know she gets all the money (minus Paypal fees) from that, and don't have to rely on the implied word of some re-publisher that they really do give their authors 50% royalty on some price (list? net? what?).

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by thrawn_aj

thread over

We're just getting started.

The books under discussion are in Public Domain in some areas of the world? I suspect they are in various elibraries then. Download at your leisure. At any rate, I expect these to be listed on the lightnet shortly.

The publisher notes that the books under discussion are "exclusive, enhanced editions."

If we think of Einstein as a thinker, as I am sure we all do, then we might imagine the man thinking that adding value to his words, as these publishers have done and then charging the public for the use of said words is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

But Einstein would also understand that the right to the word is a fundamental right and would then encourage others to releases either less enhanced cheaper editions of his more work, or even more enhanced, more expensive versions of his work.

[wyndslash]

who are they to decide if the public wants enhanced versions, anyway? it's just an excuse to charge people :|

besides, fine, they released an enhanced version, but leave the none-enhanced versions in PD, that way people have a real choice.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

who are they to decide if the public wants enhanced versions, anyway? it's just an excuse to charge people :|

besides, fine, they released an enhanced version, but leave the none-enhanced versions in PD, that way people have a real choice.

They could try to release 100 slightly variable enhanced versions, Amazon would undoubtedly stop them though, as Amazon is at the moment trying to distill the seep of these enhanced Public Domain works onto their servers.

Can someone post the lightnet links to these works? I thought I read one before but I'm not sure.

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have to say, this sort of thing is a bit offensive. Taking some very creative works and basically tying them to one format is just wrong.

man, i sure hope Einstein's ghost comes to haunt them at night

[Ken Maltby]

This effort to control how you use the digital product that you have purchased is dependent upon DRM measures. As long as the effort to have unbreakable DRM is at
war with those who can break the DRM measure, and as long as the Anti-DRM forces
are winning, anyone can buy and use the product. It is in Amazon's interest to have
as many as possible able to use and willing to buy what they have to sell. While it is
possible that by locking in an author's production they could make DRM work for them,
it would also generate a greater response from the anti-DRM forces.

Anyone can buy from Amazon and remove the DRM, so the purchase can be used as
the buyer wishes, this is a situation that only benefits Amazon. While at the same time
Amazon can offer "protection" to publishers and authors. Amazon has got to realize this!
They have no real motivation to push the DRM side of the equation.

Luck;
Ken

[snipenekkid]

Originally Posted by DMSmillie

...or a Windows PC, or a Mac, or an iPad, or an iPhone, or a Blackberry, or an Android phone, or a Windows phone...


Yep, I guess if you don't have a Kindle you're totally and utterly excluded from reading those books by Einstein.

BINGO...plus it won't cost people using those devices a dime extra. Just free reading software so one can, to paraphrase Amazon, "read anywhere" for nothing more than the cost of the books.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Crusader

That's of course provided that you pay the super dooper $2 Whispernet tax added into the ebook prices for the magical Whispernet delivery of your ebook directly to your device.

You've got a device that doesn't make use of Whispernet, well then you still pay for it on the odd change that you will sometime in the forseeable future own a Kindle that uses the magic Whispernet, ust wait and see and pay now for the privilege!

No, you still pay for it because monopolist telcos charge a fortune whenever they can is actually the reason.

Amazon has cut a deal with some providers - e.g. so in Australia we don't have to pay for this any more for example. If in a smaller market than that though with one phone company, it might last forever.

[JSWolf]

But, if your reading program or device of choice uses ePub, then AZW is rather useless. nd given how rather poor the coding inside a lot of Mobipocket eBooks is, converting can take a lot of time to clean up the mess.

And for a lot of people who do not use Kindles or Kindle software and who do not DRM strip and/or convert, these Einstein eBooks are a lost cause.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Does that apply to video games and computer apps, as well?

This is different. It's not difficult to make eBooks in multiple formats. But it might be difficult to port games/apps to another platform.