Money.com - Amazon's grip tightens on the entire book-publishing chain

[abookreader]

In spite of the title, a fairly balanced look at the issue. It speaks of the crunch against smaller publishers and interviews the usual authors - Konrath, Eisler etc.

It doesn't mention Agency pricing at all, and I wish it would have. I suspect that is probably a driving force behind Amazon delving deeper into publishing, although it was bound to happen sooner or later.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/27/tech...d=HP_Highlight

[Fbone]

Barry Eisler wouldn't comment on what royalty he's receiving from Amazon. Considering how open he has been in the past about finances, I wonder if Amazon has a non-disclosure clause. Only thing we know is that it's between 17.5 - 70%.

[Jack Tingle]

"Teicher, the ABA head, says the issue isn't about progress -- it's that Amazon is "using the book industry as a loss leader to get people to buy TVs."
"Book buyers are good consumers, and Amazon knows that," Teicher says. "So they get drawn in and then encouraged to buy different products. Meanwhile Amazon's hurting the book industry for the sake of profits."

Now that's hilarious. Has anyone pointed out to this dweeb that Amazon started as a bookstore, competing with--Barnes & Noble!, who also published low cost volumes? And I hate to tell him, but I buy electronics from a variety of places, including Amazon. I bought them from Amazon before I owned a Kindle.

What an ultra-maroon.

Regardlessly,
Jack Tingle

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

"Teicher, the ABA head, says the issue isn't about progress -- it's that Amazon is "using the book industry as a loss leader to get people to buy TVs."
"Book buyers are good consumers, and Amazon knows that," Teicher says. "So they get drawn in and then encouraged to buy different products. Meanwhile Amazon's hurting the book industry for the sake of profits."

Now that's hilarious. Has anyone pointed out to this dweeb that Amazon started as a bookstore, competing with--Barnes & Noble!, who also published low cost volumes? And I hate to tell him, but I buy electronics from a variety of places, including Amazon. I bought them from Amazon before I owned a Kindle.

What an ultra-maroon.

Regardlessly,
Jack Tingle

Plus, Amazon deep-discounts everything, especially TVs:
http://hdguru.com/amazon-blows-outs-...509/#more-5509

If Amazon is "tightening" their grip on any specific market it is by default, because the old-school crews are in denial and keep floating out whiny excuses instead accepting the obvious: Amazon is way more efficient *and* willing to subsist on low single digit margins.

All the excuses (they lose money on the books to make it off the readers, they lose money on the readers to make it off the books, and now, they lose money on both to make it on TVs) are just an admission they don't know how to get their operations within striking distance of Amazon.

Better to demonize Amazon and pray they magically vanish than to accept they are so far behind them they'll never catch up without entirely revamping their operations.

[carld]

From the article:

In a "normal" publishing process, about a dozen eyes would have seen the book before any copy went live.

And yet, somehow -- magic I suppose, mistakes still get through in every single mainstream book you read. Sometimes they're subtle errors, and sometimes they're howlers, but they're always there.

[fjtorres]

Howlers? Try this:

"Amazon is holding the entire book industry hostage," says Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association. "First they disintermediated retailers, and now it's publishers and authors."

People shouldn't use big words they don't understand.
Disintermediation doesn't mean what he thinks it does.
(And note neither the reporter nor the CNNMoney editors, if any exist, caught this. At a minimum it calls for a "SIC" highlight.)

Disintermediation is a short and snappy way of saying "cutting out the middleman".
Amazon can't disintermediated retailers; they *are* a retailer.
Amazon can't disintermediate authors; they are one of the two indispensable end points of the supply chain.

Presumably, Teicher meant to say Amazon is *facilitating* the disintermediation of publishers and *agents*. What he neglects is that the power to disintermediate publishers and/or agents lies with the *authors*, not Amazon. Amazon simply makes it a viable option.

And let's not get into the hyperbole of hostage-taking. (What demands is Amazon making?) Out of all the metaphors available (Hijacking, seducing, displacing...) that's the best charge to make? No wonder Amazon is eating their breakfast, lunch, and supper.

Sheer desperation...

[Lazybones]

This quote from the article says it all:

"Amazon treats its authors like partners, not like necessary evils," Konrath says, "With my previous publishers, I had zero say in important decisions. Amazon respects my [creative] decisions, [and] its marketing power is unmatched."

Without sites like Amazon and Smashwords, I would have never been able to publish. Now I have several e-books out there, modest sales, and something to build on.