Here's an author's take:
http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/...n-darth-vader/
His point? Publicly complaining is no substitute for a business strategy.
Quote:
Amazon doesn’t work for authors or publishers. It works for itself. For authors and publishers to whine that Amazon isn’t being fair is not a valuable use of time or energy. It’s business. Sort of like the Denzel Washington character in Man on Fire. It’s just business. That’s what everyone says. Even when you have that blasting cap in your fourth point of contact (Airborne school term, look it up).
Why do people think Amazon HAS to carry their product and price it exactly the way they want? When Amazon undercut prices, everyone complained. Amazon charges more, everyone complains.
Publishers have a choice. Don’t distribute through Amazon. If things are as you say, and they kind of are, then you are feeding the wolf while holding on to its tail. Sooner or later you’re going to lose your grip and the wolf will turn and devour you.
Same with those authors who whine about it while still cashing their royalty checks, a decent chunk of which comes via Amazon sales.
Oh, I forget. Those big name authors don’t control where their books are distributed because they signed those rights away for those big advance checks.
And those same authors’ agents, I guarantee, leverage their sales figures for better deals from their publishers than the average author gets. Higher royalty rates, etc. Isn’t the unfair? Wait, that’s business and your agent leveraged for the best possible deal they could get you because you earned that position. So that’s good business, but when Amazon does it, it’s bad business?
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Mine is similar: going public is stupid because it shows you have no leverage and invites ratcheting-up.
Which is what we're seeing Amazon do.
They have the cards and are willing to play them. Quietly. No grandstanding, no name-calling.
It's not about "good" or "evil". It's a simple power play. Basic business negotiations.
It's all about leverage: Amazon moves a third of Hachette's US volume but Hachette sales add up to less than half a percent (and pbooks--the bone of contention--closer to 0.2%) of Amazon's sales. In business negotiations, the leverage lies with the numbers:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffberc...y-the-numbers/
Public complaining is no substitute for leverage.
(Maybe Hachette can get Tim Matheson on the phone.)