Thread: Authors United, allies, demand government intervention
View Single Post
Old 07-20-2015, 07:02 PM   #89
Cinisajoy
Just a Yellow Smiley.
Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Cinisajoy ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Cinisajoy's Avatar
 
Posts: 19,161
Karma: 83862859
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Texas
Device: K4, K5, fire, kobo, galaxy
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
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.
I like your thinking but not all indies are in KU. As long as Amazon does not make exclusive a requirement for all non BPH books, then they are doing nothing illegal.

An indie can choose not to check the Select box and they will not be exclusive and will not get borrows.

I know hybrids that have some exclusive and some wide.
It is NOT an all or nothing choice.
If one chooses to go through KDP, they are not exclusive.
If one chooses to put a book in KDP Select, that book is exclusive. The indie/author does not have to be completely exclusive.

I hope this helps.
Cinisajoy is offline   Reply With Quote