From David Gaughan:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2...as-and-amazon/
Quote:
Statements from either side in the Amazon-Hachette dispute have been thin on the ground. Both companies are said to have signed NDAs – restricting formal comments while negotiations are ongoing – but Hachette has been leaking to reporters, and marshaling authors and industry figures in its defense, leading to an extremely one-sided depiction of events in the media.
Which is fine, it’s a pretty standard negotiation tactic, and a clever one if media conglomerates like Bertelsmann (part-owner of Penguin Random House), CBS (owner of Simon & Schuster), and NewsCorp (owner of HarperCollins and Harlequin) are rooting for your team.
What concerns me is that media outlets – even those not in the same corporate family as those publishers with a vested interest in the outcome – are taking the Hachette leaks as the complete and unvarnished truth.
|
Quote:
Reporters are supposed to aim for some kind of objectivity (or be open about their subjectivity), but that’s not happening here at all. The only attempt at balance has been to ask Amazon for comment. Naturally, Amazon has refused as it’s currently restricted from commenting because of those NDAs.
This leaves a reporter with two choices: run the unbalanced piece as is, or attempt some critical analysis on their own. I’m not a reporter, but I can think of any number of scenarios where Amazon could be asking for an increased percentage of e-book sales, or wants to start charging for pre-orders, which doesn’t mean that the world is ending and Jeff Bezos eats babies.
Here are two plausible scenarios.
I haven’t seen any such critical analysis of these Hachette leaks because most of the media coverage of this dispute seems to start with the premise that Amazon is Evil and then works from there. I have no problem with Amazon being subjected to scrutiny. It should be subjected to scrutiny! What I have an issue with is large publishers not being subjected to any scrutiny whatsoever, even for the most abhorrent behavior.
This lack of scrutiny seems to have created an underlying assumption in media reports that publishers are trying to do the right thing, and Amazon is an amoral (or immoral) corporation which will happily burn down the book business if it means it can sell razor-blades more efficiently.
|
The links are worth following.
One quotes Gaughran himself:
Quote:
SCENARIO A:
Hachette wants Agency. Amazon wants Wholesale. Hachette says OK to Wholesale, but wants some of those Agency percentages and terms (i.e. a 70/30 split, but Amazon to swallow all discounting). As this deal is even better for Hachette than Agency was (or Wholesale was before that), then Amazon says, OK, but then we have to charge you for all the stuff we give you for free: pre-order facilities, co-op, etc.
Hachette then leaks “Amazon is making us pay for all this stuff that was free like pre-orders. Whaaaaa!”
SCENARIO B:
Hachette and Amazon both agree that Agency is dead, but differ on the Wholesale split and how much Amazon can discount. Amazon thinks it should be more like print because it has to swallow all discounting under Wholesale, so it offers a (picking a random number) 60/40 split instead of 70/30. This will actually work out better for Hachette because it’s getting a guaranteed 60% of list, and Amazon will discount heavily (and shift more units). But Hachette doesn’t want Amazon to have power over pricing and discounting, so negotiations aren’t going anywhere.
Hachette then leaks “Amazon wants to massively cut royalty rates. Whaaaa!”
|
The comments that follow are a lively exchange involving Kensington CEO Zacharious and several authors.
One comment in particular is notable:
Quote:
William Ockham says:
June 28, 2014 at 2:31 pm
I believe that the rest of the Big 5 know Hachette’s negotiating strategy because the Big 5 sent a joint letter to Judge Cote saying that they all (independently) intended to attempt to sign no-discount agency agreements with all of their ebook retail outlets. The CEO of Hachette recently confirmed that this was Hachette’s position in the Amazon negotiation. If that is the case, I would expect that B&N has already agreed to the terms that Hachette wants (B&N has publicly states that they liked the Apple deal). I checked B&N’s ebook prices for Hachette titles that could not be pre-ordered from Amazon and, lo and behold, the prices matched the old agency agreement perfectly (i.e. they met the price bands based on the print price).
If I, random pseudonymous internet troll, can figure this out, surely the bigwigs at the other Big 5 publishers can. Six months ago, they all said they were going to do this. Last week, Hachette told the press it was doing it. And there is independently verifiable public data that supports the idea that Hachette is doing it. I suppose they could have changed their minds, Nourry could be lying, and the B&N pricing is an unfortunate coincident. But I doubt it.
|
The reasons for the bias aren't clear (self-interest and the clannishness of the traditional publishing business, of which journalists are a branch, come to mind) but it is a matter to keep in mind the next time an "Amazon is evil" report pops up.
(I think the clockwork schedule calls for another one later today.
)