Timmy and Pete Buy Some Books: A Short Film from Amazon

[Hoyt Clagwell]

For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99…Books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.
—Amazon Books team, July 29

Two towheaded young boys, Timmy and Pete, are playing a first-person action shooter and a mobile-device game.

TIMMY: These computer Internet video games are radical, Pete, but what do you say we buy some books?

PETE: Books—now, that’s what I call bitchin’!

TIMMY: Here are some priced at $14.99.

PETE: Yeah, right! I’d rather read a free Web log that’s tailored to my ten-to-twelve-year-old tween demographic and spending habits. Nice try, greedy New York publishers! We know you fat cats are pocketing the extra dough instead of passing it on to your hardworking writers, who would be better off liberating themselves from this cumbersome, obsolete apparatus.

Read the article here:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily...rt-film-amazon