Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
All links to Amazon US have been removed from my professional websites and I have requested that my books and ebooks not be sold by Amazon until their issues with Hachette have been settled. My short term financial pain must be balanced against a business model that will have writing full time again becoming synonymous with starvation. I have no wish to emulate H. Beam Piper by having to shoot pigeons for food while being considered one of the top authors in my field.
Regards,
David
|
@DNSB
Sure, Amazon is not an authors friend but neither is Hachette. Amazon is a retailer and Hachette publisher. This does not necessarily mean that a publisher acts in the best interest of its authors.
The way Hachette acts is definitely not in the best interests of their authors. They are setting ebook prices too high, and use windowing to protect their paper market dominance and it only pays a 17,5% royalty rate to authors.
Amazon does not boycot Hachette books, it only does not offer a pre order button to order a book in advance that will be released somewhere in de near future. All released books of Hachette autors are still available through Amazon.
Yes, delivery of books will be delayed as Amazon does not stock Hachette books in their own warehouses and they have to order them from different wholesaler or distributor (or maybe even directly by Hachette). It takes some extra days to get those Hachette books from a third-party warehose to the Amazon warehouses before the can be sent to the customer. But books are sold and therefore the publisher and author will receive their money.
A retailer can independently decide which products to sell and which not to sell. Amazon does not have a contract with authors (only Hachette has).
Barnes and Noble and other brick-and-mortar bookstores do not offer any book that are published by an independent author of self publisher (an author without an traditional publisher). These books (printed and digital editions) can not be pre ordered, ordered and are also not available in brick-and-morter bookstores. That is a real boycot and that is hurting authors.
The price at which Amazon chooses to sell its books does not have to hurt authors. As authors receive a royalty that is based on the MSRP.
Amazon puchases books from publishers at roughly 50% of the MSRP (standard agency pricing).
After Amazon has purchased those books at 50% of MSRP and Amazon chooses to sell books at a lower price point it will directy hurt Amazons profit margin. But the publisher still receives 50% of the MSRP. So the author will receive his or her cut.
At a lower price point more books (units) can be sold that offset the lower retail price and that is called price elasticity.
More books sold means here: the publisher receives 50% (which is Amazons purchase price of the books) of all sold books. That is more money (cash) for the publisher and author.
It does not hurt authors or publishers (the might feel that way as the might be under the false impression that a book has less value because the are sold at a lower retail price.)
It will/might hurt other retailers. A book sold by Amazon is a book not sold by Kobo or other book retailer. I don't think many readers will buy two copies of the same book.
The other problem are the Authors Guilds who do little to nothing to improve their contracts with publishers. They don't negotiate for a better (higher) royalty rate for paper and digital books. The don't negotiate to revert copyright to the author when a publisher does not reprint an authors back catalog. All intellectual property (book characters etc.) are signed over to the publisher. The author is no longer owner of his own book(series) for the duration of the copyright period. More than a lifetime. But he will receive a 17,5% royalty rate.
At the moment Amazon is an authors best friend and authors should use the momentum to renegotiate their publishing deals. But that is exactly what those Author Guilds not doing. Really strange.
How will that be in let's say five years?
Then Amazon might be just a retailer of books and solely serving its own interests and which might not be best for authors but hey, Amazon has no contract with authors but publishers do. Publishers will act to protect their own interests (in the book market and distribution chain) which might benefit authors or hurt authors but its actions are business decisions not to be taken personal.
If five years from now, authors have a more fair publishing deal then authors will also benefit from the "shift of power" from retailer back to publisher again as the receive a higher royalty rate then they received five years ago (17,5%) and may it be easier to get their intellectional property back (signed away for a short period instead of for the duration of the copyright period).