Quote:
Originally Posted by sbroome
The reality is that their publishing model is designed to make less money because they're making it elsewhere.. as middle men.
|
No. It's not about them making money elsewhere in the Amazon empire; it is about their *costs* being lower.
You're assuming their costs are the same as for the BPHs and they simply cover the costs from other sales.
That. Is. Not. The. Case.
It is not about revenues and profits; the game is *costs*.
More importantly: look to everything I said.
Amazon is *not* the only "new publisher" out there.
There's dozens. Some high visibility, like Open Road, some less so, like Rosetta, some flying under the radar.
They all share an ebook-first model and they are *all* way lower in overhead than the glass tower publishers.
The traditional publishers have Amazon on the brain and don't understand Amazon Publishing is just playing *their* game.
The way *bigger* threat is coming from the upstream side, the agents and authors. And the New Publishers that are playing the *new* game. The more time they waste fretting over Amazon's dinky, unproven catalog, the more time they are giving to the New Publishers to grow, position themselves, and go after the established authors. If they don't have *their* cost structure in a productive and value-adding level when the next wave of name author contracts start to expire, they are going to see who their real foes are.
Pottermore is the benchmark I'm looking to. And I'm sure everybody on the creative side is too. Rowling was gracious/conservative enough to give Bloomsbury a role in Pottermore. She can afford it.
Other name authors may not be that old-school friendly.
There *will* be auctions.
There will be losers.
And that is fine by me. At this point the BPHs deserve what they've got coming. They *made* this mess.