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Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux
Amazon will buy it.
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It's not impossible but if tbey do it it would be for the IP archives. They would fire almost everybody and close up shop in NY.
Amazon's first publishing venture was 100% NYC style and run by a "traitor" from the Manhattan Mafia. All it achieved was massive losses because of tbe boycott. They ended up firing him and moving APub to Seattle and Michigan and refocusing on digital first. Eventually they moved to a market driven low cost model in response to the boycott by B&N and the ABA.
Don't forget the boycott: it is old, enduring, and unending. B&M retailers refuse to carry Amazon pbooks, which renders the entire pbook side of S&S worthless to Amazon.
If Amazon buys S&S they will be immediately be boycotted by the ABA and B&N. (The new guy wants to run B&N as a federation of standalone stores and he is no more an Amazon fan than the old guy.)
APub's successful new model isn't the result of some brilliant strategy but rather it was forced on them by tbe boycott. The same with AmazonBooks: if the b&m stores hadn't boycotted APub, Amazon wouldn't be doing pbook bookstores. It is simply the only way they can get their books before the bookshelf strollers.
Amazon buying S&S to shut them down wouldn't be the best look for Amazon but the NYC model won't work as long as the boycott stands and, besides, the APub model is working fine: Amazon doesn't break out their book sales but the buzz among industry pundits and authors is APub is bigger (moneywise) than Hachette and occasionally S&S's bad years. Like 2019.
Essentially, Amazon buying S&S might be more trouble than it's worth.
APub doesn't put out as many books as the NYC BPHs but they are more profitable despite paying higher royalties. Their customers are happy, their authors are happy, and corporate is happy. And even some prominent genre name authors are migrating to APub. The digital first, genre-driven model is working fine. So the only value in S&S to Amazon is the old books.
That said, there is *some* sense in Bezos, personally, buying S&S and merging it into the Washington Post (because of their political books) but that would be separate from Amazon. And might still invoke the boycott.
As is, the main candidates remain Lagardere, News Corp, Holtzbrink, or a hedge fund looking to streamline operations, reduce dead weight, and then IPO the remaining company. All ahead of Bezos who these days seems a bit more interested in...other things.
There really isn't much need for Amazon to buy S&S.
However, as I said above, if ViacomCBS succeeds in selling S&S the rest of the media company becomes very attractive to Amazon and even more to Apple. Even Google. A bidding war might arise over their archives and studios.
(And no, Apple doesn't do low margin products so S&S won't appeal to them.)