All The Many Ways Amazon So Very Failed the Weekend

[Guns4Hire]

Originally Posted by fugazied

Consumers don't care about publisher/distributor fights but they do care when thousands of books disappear from a catalogue abruptly.

Uh you obviously haven't been to the Amazon discussion board. And while consumers might not care about some random fight between publishers and distributors they sure seem to care about this one. Since they perceive MM as just not caring about them as customers and that MM is directly trying to take more money out of their pockets. While they have been loyal book buyers and they feel betrayed. Consumers have a tendency of paying attention to that kind of thing. There is nothing worse (for a company) than a consumer who is butthurt.

And while there are consumers that are upset about the books disappearing there are a TON more that are on the boycott MM bandwagon and are all fired up about it. Those author blogs are skewing the reality of just how many Amazon customers are pissed at MM.

[kennyc]

That Scalzi guy is deluded. He's drunk the kool-aid.

Here's some actual data from Kobo:

http://blog.kobobooks.com/2010/02/04...=Google+Reader

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That Scalzi guy is deluded. He's drunk the kool-aid.

Here's some actual data from Kobo:

http://blog.kobobooks.com/2010/02/04...=Google+Reader

Interestingly enough it looks to my eye that if you took the colums from the after discount graph(pink one) that are $12 or more then you would have an amount easily about half the size of the $10 bar meaning incomes would be similar(reduced costs as fewer transactions + cost variance from $12 to $20)

Now if the publisher can sell that many books as $12 plus why would they have a start price of $10 it would make no financial sense.

Much better to sell as many as they can at more than $10 and then sell as many as they can at $10.

[mcl]

Originally Posted by stustaff

Interestingly enough it looks to my eye that if you took the colums from the after discount graph(pink one) that are $12 or more then you would have an amount easily about half the size of the $10 bar meaning incomes would be similar(reduced costs as fewer transactions + cost variance from $12 to $20)

Now if the publisher can sell that many books as $12 plus why would they have a start price of $10

That's why.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by stustaff

I think the public library thing is different to here as in the UK you could just buy a book and put it in the library and our libraries accept donations too so that couldn't be an issue here.

The "Public Lending Right" in the UK (the payment that authors get when their book is borrowed from a library) removed an author or publisher's right not to have their book in a library, that's correct.

[guyanonymous]

In the US and Canada (and anywhere else), can a library not just go to the bookstore and buy a book, then put it on their own shelves?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

In the US and Canada (and anywhere else), can a library not just go to the bookstore and buy a book, then put it on their own shelves?

In the US, anyone with a private library can do that; libraries with government funding might have different rules.

[guyanonymous]

Thank you! I'd not realized that - and have to admit, it disgusts me. I'd always thought "library editions" were just those that had better quality covers/spines/manufacturing so that they'd hold up to harder use.

[Elfwreck]

I'm certain that (public, gov't funded) libraries in the US don't face specific restrictions on what books they can have--they just might have contracts and regulations to deal with how they buy them, in order to give the publishers a record of what books are popular at libraries.

It's possible that they don't buy from the local bookstore because they get wholesale pricing direct from the publisher. They *could* stock any books, but some might be outside of the range of interests of their local community, or just too expensive: an import of a (presumably nifty) book not published in the US might cost $150, and they might instead prefer to spend that money on five or six other books.

Libraries might also have some restrictions in how they deal with "adult" materials, however those are defined by the local community.

[guyanonymous]

As I understand it though, "library editions" cost significantly more. Much like the DVDs in rental shops aren't bought at local wal-mart/costco prices, but often at a much higher fee. Maybe this has changed though.

[rmm200]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'm certain that (public, gov't funded) libraries in the US don't face specific restrictions on what books they can have

Can anyone come up with an example of a public library in America that has a MacMillan EBook available for loan?

I was sure MacMillan had ways of preventing this.

Robert

[jmaloney]

Originally Posted by rmm200

Can anyone come up with an example of a public library in America that has a MacMillan EBook available for loan?

I was sure MacMillan had ways of preventing this.

Robert

Ebooks are different that physical books. Anyone (including, but not limited to the library) can buy a physical book and put it in a library. The same is not true for ebooks.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by rmm200

Can anyone come up with an example of a public library in America that has a MacMillan EBook available for loan?

I was sure MacMillan had ways of preventing this.

I said the libraries don't have restrictions on what they can buy--by which I meant, legal/contractual restrictions--not that everyone will sell to them.

Just because you're allowed to purchase it doesn't mean it's available. And Macm has decided not to make their ebooks available for lending. (I tend to think this is a violation of the first sale doctrine, and would love to see a clever programming house figure out their own DRM method and start loaning out Macmillan ebooks, just to watch the sparks fly.)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I said the libraries don't have restrictions on what they can buy--by which I meant, legal/contractual restrictions--not that everyone will sell to them.

Just because you're allowed to purchase it doesn't mean it's available. And Macm has decided not to make their ebooks available for lending. (I tend to think this is a violation of the first sale doctrine, and would love to see a clever programming house figure out their own DRM method and start loaning out Macmillan ebooks, just to watch the sparks fly.)

I'd vote for that!

[jmaloney]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

(I tend to think this is a violation of the first sale doctrine, and would love to see a clever programming house figure out their own DRM method and start loaning out Macmillan ebooks, just to watch the sparks fly.)

I actually spoke to an Intellectual Property lawyer about this. The difference between physical books and ebooks is that the very act of downloading an ebook means that you're making a new copy of the ebook. The first sale doctrine only applies the the original product: I can't, for example, go out and buy a physical book, make copies of it and pass around those copies. This is why the legality of lending ebooks is not as straightforward.