Business Insider: HC to pull out of Amazon

fjtorres · 04-01-2015, 03:30 PM

http://uk.businessinsider.com/harper...ng-2015-3?r=US

Quote:

The contract between "Big Five" book publisher HarperCollins and Amazon is about to expire, and HarperCollins is refusing to sign an agreement with the new terms that Amazon is asking, a source with knowledge of the situation tells Business Insider.

The contract presented to HarperCollins was the same contract recently signed by Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan, Amazon confirmed.

If HarperCollins and Amazon don't come to an agreement, no print or digital HarperCollins books will be available on Amazon once its existing contract runs out "very soon," our source says.

Looks like another full page ad headed to the NYT.

I honestly hope they do pull the books.
Show some guts, Murdochs!

DiapDealer · 04-01-2015, 04:10 PM

Quote:

A HarperCollins representative said the publisher does not comment on its contracts with retailers.

But then how will HC cast Amazon as the villain if both sides remain mum?

Surely their authors aren't going to do it for them. I would think they'd have a hard time convincing the world that they deserve better than what their author friends with Hachette, S&S, and Macmillan got.

jgaiser · 04-01-2015, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

But then how will HC cast Amazon as the villain if both sides remain mum?

Surely their authors aren't going to do it for them. I would think they'd have a hard time convincing the world that they deserve better than what their author friends with Hachette, S&S, and Macmillan got.

Don't you know. They're gonna start their *own* ebook store and sell their own stuff. How hard can it be? Right?

DiapDealer · 04-01-2015, 04:48 PM

"In case you didn't know, we have our own Narnia ebook store. So don't think you can ride rough shod over us! We're not as dependent on you as those other guys were."

pwalker8 · 04-01-2015, 05:01 PM

Kind of hard to say who is the villain in this piece given the lack of facts, or for that matter if there is a villain. Sometimes it's simply two big companies engaged in a business negotiation.

Purple Lady · 04-01-2015, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Don't you know. They're gonna start their *own* ebook store and sell their own stuff. How hard can it be? Right?

They have their own bookstore. You can buy ebooks that you can only read in their app. www.harpercollins.com/

murg · 04-01-2015, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

They have their own bookstore. You can buy ebooks that you can only read in their app. www.harpercollins.com/

At least they fixed their sorting.

But the site is sooooooo slow.....

fjtorres · 04-01-2015, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Don't you know. They're gonna start their *own* ebook store and sell their own stuff. How hard can it be? Right?

Been to their "ebookstore"?
I have.
That is why I hope they do pull everything.

Put an end to the whole hero/villain bulloney once and for all.

Purple Lady · 04-01-2015, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Been to their "ebookstore"?
I have.
That is why I hope they do pull everything.

Put an end to the whole hero/villain bulloney once and for all.

I'd love to see that too, but how likely do you think it is that they will pull everything? If they're really full of themselves they might think they could do it and come out on top.

AnemicOak · 04-01-2015, 07:26 PM

Assuming that Amazon accounts for a hefty portion of HC's sales, the only way they'd stand any kind of chance at doing anything would be if they dropped DRM and sold Mobi's that customers could have automatically emailed to their Kindle's. Still wouldn't replace all sales one for one or anything, but...

It'd actually be interesting to see a major publisher try this.

It'd also be interesting to know what percentage of HC sales Amazon accounts for, both print and digital. I've seen it speculated in general that Amazon accounts for about 50% of all print sales and 65%-75% of all digital, but don't know if it's accurate. Nor have I seen numbers, hard or speculated, for a specific publisher.

I tried the new HC "store" when they first launched it and had some freebies. Very bad experience that they've hopefully improved. The old store they closed (where OverDrive was the distributor that supplied the books) when agency started was much better than the new store.

fjtorres · 04-01-2015, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I'd love to see that too, but how likely do you think it is that they will pull everything? If they're really full of themselves they might think they could do it and come out on top.

They have their own ebookstore!
Try it.
It'll be fun! (Especially for iPhone owners.)

Go to hc.com.
Click browse: fiction.
If it doesn't blow up, click format:ebook.
If it doesn't hang, try to sort by price low to high.

Unlike others, I got far enough to watch it just hang...

(I did enjoy seeing what their top three "relevance" selections are.)

The way I see it, we need to know exactly how important Amazon is or isn't to ebooks. We just need a volunteer willing to do without them for a quarter or three. And the Murdochs are just the perfect subject for the experiment.

fjtorres · 04-01-2015, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Assuming that Amazon accounts for a hefty portion of HC's sales, the only way they'd stand any kind of chance at doing anything would be if they dropped DRM and sold Mobi's that customers could have automatically emailed to their Kindle's.

It would have to be manually. Amazon can and likely would bounce any emails from the hc bookstore. Or just refuse to white list them.

AnemicOak · 04-01-2015, 07:31 PM

HC would be better off scrapping their store, again, and integrating all of their titles into the Harlequin store (or duplicating it's structure). It's not perfect, but is much better than the current HC one. They've already started by adding HC/Avon titles to the store and could build on that to rebrand and launch another version of HC.com

AnemicOak · 04-01-2015, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It would have to be manually. Amazon can and likely would bounce any emails from the hc bookstore. Or just refuse to white list them.

I suppose that's possible. They allowed it for Baen and some other smaller pub sites and they allowed it for Fictionwise, but...

Purple Lady · 04-01-2015, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They have their own ebookstore!
Try it.
It'll be fun! (Especially for iPhone owners.)

Go to hc.com.
Click browse: fiction.
If it doesn't blow up, click format:ebook.
If it doesn't hang, try to sort by price low to high.

Unlike others, I got far enough to watch it just hang...

(I did enjoy seeing what their top three "relevance" selections are.)

The way I see it, we need to know exactly how important Amazon is or isn't to ebooks. We just need a volunteer willing to do without them for a quarter or three. And the Murdochs are just the perfect subject for the experiment.

I did try it and it sucks on my Nexus 7 too.

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04-01-2015, 04:48 PM	#4
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 27,547 Karma: 193191846 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	"In case you didn't know, we have our own Narnia ebook store. So don't think you can ride rough shod over us! We're not as dependent on you as those other guys were."

04-01-2015, 05:01 PM	#5
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,195 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	Kind of hard to say who is the villain in this piece given the lack of facts, or for that matter if there is a villain. Sometimes it's simply two big companies engaged in a business negotiation.

04-01-2015, 07:26 PM	#10
AnemicOak Bookaholic Posts: 14,391 Karma: 54969924 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Minnesota Device: iPad Mini 4, AuraHD, iPhone XR +	Assuming that Amazon accounts for a hefty portion of HC's sales, the only way they'd stand any kind of chance at doing anything would be if they dropped DRM and sold Mobi's that customers could have automatically emailed to their Kindle's. Still wouldn't replace all sales one for one or anything, but... It'd actually be interesting to see a major publisher try this. It'd also be interesting to know what percentage of HC sales Amazon accounts for, both print and digital. I've seen it speculated in general that Amazon accounts for about 50% of all print sales and 65%-75% of all digital, but don't know if it's accurate. Nor have I seen numbers, hard or speculated, for a specific publisher. I tried the new HC "store" when they first launched it and had some freebies. Very bad experience that they've hopefully improved. The old store they closed (where OverDrive was the distributor that supplied the books) when agency started was much better than the new store.

04-01-2015, 07:31 PM	#13
AnemicOak Bookaholic Posts: 14,391 Karma: 54969924 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Minnesota Device: iPad Mini 4, AuraHD, iPhone XR +	HC would be better off scrapping their store, again, and integrating all of their titles into the Harlequin store (or duplicating it's structure). It's not perfect, but is much better than the current HC one. They've already started by adding HC/Avon titles to the store and could build on that to rebrand and launch another version of HC.com

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