Publishers see Amazon as Predatory

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Is that sarcasm?
I hope so.
Amazon is a for-profit venn-ture, not a religious organization.
(That would be the ePub ADEPTS...)

For me dealing with an efficient reliable upfront business is like a sublime religious experience.
Amazon gives me the controls. Amazon is instantly responsive. Amazon is dependable. And if for some implausible reason, something goes wrong, Amazon is there with Air-Sea Rescue, and no quibbles.

That might not be religion, but in lieu of real rapture, it is pretty good.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

For me dealing with an efficient reliable upfront business is like a sublime religious experience.
Amazon gives me the controls. Amazon is instantly responsive. Amazon is dependable. And if for some implausible reason, something goes wrong, Amazon is there with Air-Sea Rescue, and no quibbles.

That might not be religion, but in lieu of real rapture, it is pretty good.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

For me dealing with an efficient reliable upfront business is like a sublime religious experience.
Amazon gives me the controls. Amazon is instantly responsive. Amazon is dependable. And if for some implausible reason, something goes wrong, Amazon is there with Air-Sea Rescue, and no quibbles.

That might not be religion, but in lieu of real rapture, it is pretty good.

Oh, good one.

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

How is Amazon more predatory than Walmart? Just because someone sees a new way of doing things and is successful, and all the mom and pop stores/bookstores had to adapt, that is predatory?
...

It is hilarious that the publishers are crying predatory, when they are under investigation for price fixing! I guess that is the opposite of price fixing.

It strikes me as odd to hear about all the B&M vendors going out of business. I have no idea what the greater stats are, but shopping through Amazon has put me hand-in-hand with a lot of small booksellers who've been smart enough to make their presence known. Because of Amazon, I'm doing much more business buying print books with non-chain retailers than I was before Amazon ever existed.

Publishers can gripe all they want, but they're working hard to put themselves out of business and alienate customers. If they're not smart enough to scan and sell all of their copyright holdings, tough. If they aren't smart enough to sell a digital file at a competitive price and prefer to point fingers, that's okay, I'll just check out what Amazon is selling at a non-insulting price. Of course, I'm willing to make exceptions for my very favorite authors, but that's a bitter mixture of die-hard fandom and lack of choice.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Why would they?
They milked their highly-publicized fight with MacMillan for a ton of consumer good will....

It lasted about 3 days, Amazon got blamed for pulling the books, and really no one outside the industry cares. They definitely lost that round.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

they constantly remind buyers whose fault it is when some ebooks are ridiculously priced

And yet, they don't say "this price was set by Amazon."

By the way, I've seen quite a few non-agency priced books that are significantly more expensive than Amazon's $10 target price.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They judo'ed the Price Fix Scam right back at the publishers by offering the same 70-30 split to KDP publishers, thereby forcing the publishers to explain to their authors why 17% royalties with them are better than 60-70% with Amazon

That's a really weird reading of the situation.

Amazon has always offered slightly better royalty rates for self-publishers. However, they also don't offer advances, they don't pay for editors, they don't provide marketing, and so forth.

Also, Amazon offers self-publishers full control over pricing -- yet somehow it's wrong when a non-self-publisher does the same thing? Hmmm

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They factored the extra Price-Fix revenue into Kindle hardware pricing which allowed them (and B&N, for that matter) to squeeze the hardware-only reader vendors off the market.

They were squeezing those guys by proprietary formatting combined with better availability, long before Kindles were cheap.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Remember, some of the lawsuits over the Price Fix name Amazon and B&N as defendants because the scam has been very good to them.

No, they're targeting them because they accuse Apple and Amazon of collaborating with the publishers to fix prices, by adopting agency pricing.

Amazon didn't sue the publishers first because:
• It's a bit stupid to sue the people who provide the content you're selling
• They can get a leg up in other ways, such as striking a deal with the occasional author here, and backlist title there
• They almost certainly didn't want to reveal the kind of info that a lawsuit like that would require (e.g. sales and pricing figures)