Quote:
Originally Posted by murg
I don't understand this.
Anyone can enter KU. Even the BPHs. They just choose not to.
Amazon's requirement for exclusivity isn't an issue, authors/publishers can go elsewhere.
The BPHs are also not fully supporting the other subscription services out there. In fact, as we've just learned from Scribd's reduction in content, the BPHs are demanding close to retail for each loan, which makes this an unviable market.
The music industry has learned how to do monthly plans, the publishing industry hasn't.
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Exclusivity isn't an issue *yet* because authors can survive without KU income.
So far, KU only constitutes about 10-15% of the ebook income available to indies. But it already exceeds what indies can get from Nook. or Kobo. Or Apple. It might conceivably exceed what Indies can get from all non-Amazon sources combined. (It's close.)
What happens when KU makes up 25-30% of the revenue available to Indies? Or more?
What happens if Nook closes? Or Scribd runs out of investor money?
How many would be able to survive without being in that "optional" market?
And what happens to competing bookstores if a third or more of all ebook titles are Amazon exclusive?
KU is practically competing in a vaccum, much like KDP was in 2008-2010.
And moves like Scribd purging an Indie-heavy genre like Romance don't exactly make KU growth harder.
So what if Amazon ends up with 70% of ebook sales and 90% of an ebook rental market that equals 25% of the revenue from sales? At what point does the competition become irrelevant in the eyes of politicians and regulators?
So far, all the requests for government intervention are bogus.
And Amazon doesn't have enough market power to trigger an honest investigation. But that doesn't mean that if the competition implodes they might not end up on dangerous ground after the dust settles, even without doing anything wrong.
The reason the Konrath's of the world take AU's laughable positions seriously enough to counter is because in the world of politics being factually innocent isn't enough of a defense. Perceptions matter.