Hachette complains about eBook prices

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by CleverClothe

No one has said otherwise and it is written into Amazon's contract. I suppose it is possible they may have some secret deals. But do you think it is likely that Amazon is secretly taking a loss on its most popular merchandise?

It does not seem likely to me.

I am sure most contracts between a publisher and Amazon are confidential which of course keeps anyone from saying. If you want to call this a "secret" deal, then yes, it is a secret deal.

Until a major publishers publicly states that Amazon pays them only 35% of their retail price then I will never think or believe this is the case.

Do I think Amazon is taking a "loss" on the books... no. Do I think Amazon is discounting the books from the price the publishers want Amazon to sell them at (listed retail price), yes.

Do I really care if I can buy the book I want for less at the Kindle store than a B&N or Sony or Fictionwise... hell no.

BOb

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by CleverClothe

No one has said otherwise and it is written into Amazon's contract. I suppose it is possible they may have some secret deals. But do you think it is likely that Amazon is secretly taking a loss on its most popular merchandise?

It does not seem likely to me.

They heavily discount the 'bestseller list', but their prices are no better, sometimes worse, than any other retailer for a great majority of the titles they sell. Offering loss leaders is a long standing retail tactic.

[EowynCarter]

Maybe hachette should stop selling books $$$ hey ?
Hardbacks ? The only hardback i've seen are the UK harry potter. Hardback in France are outrageously expensive, of of lesser quality. It not real hard back, books are just bigger.

And start selling e-books too. I went looking for some e-book, and when i finally would it, it's on amazon

I wish amazon france would sells e-book too (in ePub !). But if it takes them as long as for music, we won't see anything for a few years at best.

[rixte]

Originally Posted by CleverClothe

No one has said otherwise and it is written into Amazon's contract. I suppose it is possible they may have some secret deals. But do you think it is likely that Amazon is secretly taking a loss on its most popular merchandise?

It does not seem likely to me.

That's pretty much how Amazon got it's start, though - cornering the market on traditional books by extremely low prices - something like 30% off of everything. Once they had that, they started raising the prices - first to smaller discounts such as 10% off and now there are a great deal of regular mass market paperbacks that are full price.

They took a deliberate loss for years just so they could corner their position in the market and it paid off.

[Abecedary]

Originally Posted by rixte

That's pretty much how Amazon got it's start, though - cornering the market on traditional books by extremely low prices - something like 30% off of everything. Once they had that, they started raising the prices - first to smaller discounts such as 10% off and now there are a great deal of regular mass market paperbacks that are full price.

They took a deliberate loss for years just so they could corner their position in the market and it paid off.

Yep. Amazon was in business for something like 6 or 7 years before they ever made a profit. Jeff Bezos said a number of times that it would happen eventually, but that profitability wasn't one of their goals at the start. They just needed to outlast the competition by undercutting them. And it worked.

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by Abecedary

Yep. Amazon was in business for something like 6 or 7 years before they ever made a profit. Jeff Bezos said a number of times that it would happen eventually, but that profitability wasn't one of their goals at the start. They just needed to outlast the competition by undercutting them. And it worked.

No, not exactly. Amazon was making a huge amount of money, but they were also spending a huge amount of money to grow, and that's why they weren't making a profit in the early years. It wasn't because they were selling their books at a loss.

[astra]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

if hardback books went away, I would not be sad at all. In fact, that would be a good day.
I don't buy hardcovers or trades as they are just there so publishers can charge more.

I buy hardback editions only. My eyes are bleeding when I see paperback spines after 1 read.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I'm pretty sure that is on self-published books. I very much doubt that is the revenue split with the major publishing houses.

Bob, you are correct. Several months ago I was involved with one of my clients, a mid-size publisher, in negotiations to make the client's books available for Kindle and the number Amazon was much less than the 65% required from self-publishers.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by ficbot

See, I think THAT is the 'innovative' argument. You are assuming that my hypothetical ebook purchase is REPLACING what would otherwise have been a hardback or paperback purchase, and for many people on this forum, that is not true at all....

Actually there is no public proof either way of your assertions in this regard, hence the publishers' trepidation.

The fact that you don't buy hardcovers does not necessarily reflect the buying habits of anyone else. Nor, I expect, do the buying habits of MR participants necessarily reflect those of the book-buying public or the mass market.

The only company that has any data at all on this point is Amazon, which in most cases has years of data on the buying habits of its customers, and it isn't just limited to books. It wouldn't be difficult for them to mine that data and make an educated guess of how their customers' buying habits change after they purchase a Kindle -- e.g. do they spend more or less on books, do they buy more books, do they buy fewer books but more DVD's, etc.

However, I do think we can guess a few things:
• Even if customer expenditures remain consistent (e.g. customer X buys $20 worth of books per month, before and after buying a Kindle), it is unlikely the customer will spend the money they have saved vs buying the hardcover on a book by the same publisher.
• It's pretty clear that dropping the retail price of a "new book" from $15, $20 or $25 to $9.99 will impact how consumers think of the value of books.

Originally Posted by ficbot

As for the 'benefit' you speak of---that is only true if the book is an unencumbered DRM. There is no use to me to have eleven million copies of a book in one format if my next device uses a different format and I can't read it anymore.

Incorrect.

If I buy a paper book and I lose it somehow, it's gone unless I buy a new one. If I buy an ebook, back up my content regularly (either manually or using an automated system like Whispernet), and lose my ebook reading device, I haven't lost that content. Big advantage to an ebook, even with DRM.

If I buy a book from Amazon, I can read it on multiple devices and sync my notes, marks and last page read across those devices. If I get it from B&N, I can read it on even more devices (though info won't sync). Another advantage to ebooks, even with DRM.

There is also the "instant delivery without shipping costs," another advantage unaffected by DRM.

Again you lose certain abilities, but gain others. So it doesn't make sense to me that ebooks should cost less on this basis.

[Panurge]

[On the contrary, the majority of costs of publishing a title apply equally to paper and digital -- i.e. the aforementioned author's advance, editorial costs, marketing costs etc. The paper-specific portion is allegedly around 12% of the cost of a title, so a $25 hardcover less 12% is only $22.]

Those of us involved in publishing and editing recognise that this statement is more or less true. In the case of academic presses, however, some of the editorial work is provided for free, thanks to the tenure system, which encourages professors to take on such tasks for little or no compensation. In addition, a number of other expenses are institutionally subsidised because a press adds to the prestige of the university.
In the last three decades, a few of them have taken on some of the market (by publishing novels, for example) that used to belong exclusively to the trade presses. Yet LSU Press have recently reported serious financial difficulties (and they are not alone among the academic publishers). It occurred to me over a decade ago that academic presses would benefit from the digital revolution because printing costs and distribution represent a higher percentage of their production expenses. Hardbacks, by the way, used to be published first, and when that run had paid back the initial production costs (or at least had a sufficient impact on them), the paperback edition was released. The hardback edition was for a small number of collectors and, above all, for libraries. When the library market was saturated, the paperback version was offered to the general public. It was libraries that subsidised the bulk of that initial run in many cases, and this was especially true for academic publishing, though not much less so for trade sales.
For a number of years now, the University of California Press have been offering titles from their out-of-print backlist online for free as part of their eScholarship Editions. MobileRead members and visitors might find some of these of interest, and the willingness of U of C Press to offer them in this form is certainly very enlightened. But in the main I find it short-sighted on the part of publishers not to exploit the possibilities available from their backlists, now that no title need ever be unavailable or "out-of -print". Recently, Houghton-Mifflin announced that they were no longer accepting manuscripts, that they had all they needed for the time being, thank you. One of the expenses incurred by publishers has to do with reading through and sending out submissions to at least three specialist readers (typically) for evaluation. I think that the traditional publishing model is so endangered by the rapidly developing digital environment that it is not going to be viable for much longer, yet those in the business don't seem to be trying to develop a replacement for it.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Incorrect.

If I buy a paper book and I lose it somehow, it's gone unless I buy a new one. If I buy an ebook, back up my content regularly (either manually or using an automated system like Whispernet), and lose my ebook reading device, I haven't lost that content. Big advantage to an ebook, even with DRM.

If I lose my ebook reading device, I lose a $300 toy. If I lose a paperback, I lose a $2-10 toy.

I don't lose enough books to make up the difference.

Addendum: I'm not arguing with you since this is a point that was stripped from its context, but I thought I'd just toss it out there anyway. As far as ebook prices...I am reluctant to fork over more than about $4usd for an ebook.