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Originally Posted by pwalker8
I think that people have a tenancy to equate competition with cost and the race to the bottom, but that isn't necessarily so. Sure, there is a percentage of the population that is focused purely on price. However, quite a few companies have been very successful on focusing on quality and customer experience rather than being the cheapest. Companies like Apple and BMW to name two well known examples.
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I have little quarrel with this. Price is but one factor, albeit an important one, in competition. I do, however, take issue with the frequently used "race to the bottom" which Amazon's detractor's seem to use repeatedly. There is a tendency amongst some to equate this term with price competition. Price competition is not synonymous with a race to the bottom. The term "race to the bottom" is used disparagingly to convey a number of imputations which, at least with Amazon, don't stand up well to the light of day.
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Originally Posted by pwalker8
I suspect that over time, we will certainly have publishers who specialize in finding the best from the indie slush pile and publishing cheap books with a reasonable quality. But I think we will still be seeing publishers who successfully follow the older model of developing quality authors. There really is room for a lot of very different business models.
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Indie slush pile is again a term to be used with some care. The implication seems to be that all self-published authors are just waiting for a publisher to arrive like a knight in shining armour and take them away on the back of a white stallion. This is simply not the case. There are many self-published authors who make a far better living from self-publishing than they ever would have with traditional publishing, even had they been lucky enough to be published. Indie books are not some vast pile of unsolicited manuscripts. They are published works usually making their authors at least some money. I discussed some of this in my previous posts. Innovative publishers will likely compete for Indie authors. But they will need to offer real value. To stretch my previous analogy further than I intended, having rescued the fair maiden it will not be sufficient to simply carry her back to the bedchamber. We know what happens to her there. Such partnerships are far more equal in modern times. The greatest incentive a publisher can offer such an author is the freedom to concentrate on their work with the confidence that the other business requirements are being carried out well, particularly marketing and other functions relating to discoverability. It will have to be a good deal for both parties. Such publishers will of course contribute to the development of these authors. Some of them may well pick and nurture authors who submit directly to them, but the terms they offer will be far fairer than in the past.
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Originally Posted by pwalker8
Where the quality model starts to fail is when the back office starts to pinch pennies. It's called penny wise and pound foolish. The other issue that the quality model has is when the decision makers don't correctly understand what their customers value. I think that someone like Jim Baen would still be a successful publisher now under the business model that he followed. He knew his audience, he knew what they wanted and he was willing to innovate.
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True and a very good description of the current incarnation of large traditional publishers.
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Originally Posted by pwalker8
I really don't see a race to the bottom with regards to ebook prices (or music prices for that matter). It seems to me that the market is dividing into those who want their media for free, or for a small set fee per month (think youtube and subscription mode streaming music like Pandora, Apple Music and Spotify) and those who are willing to pay to buy their favorite song or album. I don't think that ebooks will be any different.
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There is no real race to the bottom now, and I also don't see one developing. Somewhat surprisingly, it seems that there are very few pirates who won't pay for their books at all, though there are many who will not pay a price they see as unfair. Of course, people's perception of fairness differs. For example, a poll here showed that whilst most were not prepared to pay the same or more for an ebook than the corresponding pbook, a significant minority were prepared to do so. Personally I subscribe to KU and find it good value. But I also buy and borrow many ebooks in most months. I suspect the distinction is not quite so clear cut.
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Originally Posted by pwalker8
As far as competition goes, I think there are a lot of possibilities. Apple has the platform and money that would let it expand if it wants to. Right now, I don't think that they want to. The two biggest hurdles for a major competitor in the ebook store arena are catalog and platform. They need to match Amazon's catalogue with regards to authors that readers care about. But that won't really move the needle. They will also need a platform that would give readers a reason to switch.
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A year or so ago I read the publicity for one of the numerous new product launches for a proprietary reading app which went to great pains to trumpet that readers would no longer be locked-in to Amazon. Their copy conjured up images of hordes of dissatisfied Amazon customers just itching to escape fleeing at the first opportunity. Of course, their model offered nothing. I can't even recall the name. At the moment it is Amazon first and daylight second. Apple is simply not interested and not likely to become interested unless Amazon makes some disastrous mistake(s) which present it with an opportunity. Amazon's main danger is from some new technology or approach which it fails to deal with effectively. So far there is none in sight and it seems to be Amazon itself doing the innovating. And of course it is so cashed-up it would be in a good position to acquire any real threat.
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Originally Posted by pwalker8
My thought is that better discoverablity would do the trick. Amazon has a number of issues that have been there for years and thus they are vulnerable. If I could do a search for Roger Zelazny and get a complete list of Roger Zelazny's books without a bunch of other authors that Amazon wants me to buy, that would be a huge improvement. Heck, they could even give a complete list of all Roger Zelazny's books, including those not currently available. They could do some of the things that Amazon promised but never really got around to implementing, such as notifying when a favored author has a new book, or a backlist book that is now available. Curated best new book lists. Really, there are so many things that could be done. You just have to think, what would I want as a customer.
t wouldn't work in a race to the bottom WalMart model where you push as much expense as you can to someone else, of course. I suspect that's a large reason that Amazon never really implemented much of it. The initial cost might be pretty high, but over time I think the costs would come down.
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Discoverability is indeed the key. But Amazon has the catalogue and the ability to tweak its algorithms. Amazon is probably the only company that would be in a position to profit from the issues you name being fixed. Even if Kobo was to offer a better search, I suspect it would mainly result in a form of online "showrooming". There is money to make in improving discoverability, but this to me seems to be more a service to authors and publishers than a competitive tool against Amazon. As such it has so far been offered in various forms by Amazon or by 3rd parties to authors and publishers (eg; Bookbub, or Amazon's own advertising).