Quote:
Originally Posted by S.Canton
I think Amazon will do fine, but eventually publishers will really need to lower their prices a bit. They won't be paying for the physical book production, and changes like that will allow Amazon to try better business models like what you described.
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I think we're in for a bit of a painful transition but, yeah, eventually they will reap the rewards of a much leaner production process. At the moment, they're trying to use ebooks to help prop up their declining paper empire. If we look at the state of technology and what publishing should be and compare it to what they are, there's a big difference. We have good ebook technology as well as POD yet they're still speculating on how much to print and ship all over the country, storing in huge warehouses and crediting stores for unsold books. On top of that the ebook creation process is alienated from the print formatting process. This system is full of waste but there are too many executives with entrenched little fiefdoms whose careers depend on it and departments full of workers who have made their lives in print. I do feel bad for them but change always hurts somebody even when it's for the best.