Barnes & Noble Stores Will Not Stock Books Published By Amazon

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

This tantrum is just a badly-thought out PR ploy.
Much noise, little impact.

Felix, I usually find your posts insightful and thoughtful but not this one. There are a lot of flaws in Amazon's thinking but most importantly, Amazon's thinking rests on a yet-to-be-proved assumption: to-wit, that the ebook market sales will exceed that of pbooks within the next few years. It also assumes that every Kindle buyer is a book buyer of books that are not on the New York Times bestseller list. Even here on MR, many Kindlers buy "free" ebooks only, and it doesn't matter how many of them you sell, they still make zero dollars.

Finally, Amazon's plans rest on shareholder willingness to go along with them. Shareholders are beginning to agitate for profits and are starting to show less patience with Bezos' long-term strategy.

We are only in the birth years of the ebook market. No one knows how it will play out and pbooks and b&m stores, even though their market share and profitability are declining, are still the dominant part of the market. If the competition makes a few wise moves, they may still do significant damage to Amazon's plans.

And to dismiss pbook buyers as luddites simply demonstrates a personal prejudice. Not every book read is a novel and not every book read is "readable" on an ebook device. pBooks still have a role to play. Your prejudice is like assuming that every person who watches a sporting event is overweight with a beer belly, drinks cheap beer, has an IQ of 2, a nonexistent personality, and is best classified as a couch potato or neanderthal throwback. That might be your personal belief, but that doesn't make it fact.

[anamardoll]

@Mrs. Joseph, True.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Amazon is trying to push Kindle sales by buying up authors and not sharing the electronic versions with other sellers. This is not healthy for the consumer.

Vertical integration in a market that results in exclusivity is rarely healthy for the consumer. It is OK to believe that Amazon is your friend and will do you no harm in your youth, but once you reach adulthood, you should recognize that companies like Amazon are only your friend while it serves their purpose; the moment it no longer does, they will turn on you instantly and without any remorse.

If we accept that a free marketplace with unfettered competition is best for all players, then Amazon's moves in publishing cannot be seen as best for anyone but Amazon.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by rhadin

If we accept that a free marketplace with unfettered competition is best for all players, then Amazon's moves in publishing cannot be seen as best for anyone but Amazon.

It takes two to tango. The authors share equal blame for this.

Blame Amazon, blame the authors.

[TechnoCat]

Originally Posted by switchman2210

Interesting news. I can understand why.

Barnes & Noble has decided not to stock books published by Amazon in their physical stores, keeping the new publisher out of the country’s largest network of brick and mortar bookstores....

Until a few years ago, I frequented B&N. But their selection has gone way down. Try to buy any second-tier recent complete SF or Fantasy series. Many books are in 3- or 4-book series. Currently they're often about vampires or werewolves, but my preference is SF or humor (e.g. Terry Pratchett, or the Craig Shaw Gardener books, or the Lawrence Watt Evans Ethshar books.)

If you buy a recent one and want to go back to the start of the series, you wind up on Amazon anyhow, since B&N can "order" it for 2-4 weeks out, at MSRP, while Amazon can get it to you tomorrow for below MSRP.

Moving to Kindle was a nice touch, but B&N was already Dead Store Selling. Maybe it's not feasible to carry deep stock, but without it there's no point in a B&M B&N to me.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

It takes two to tango. The authors share equal blame for this.

Blame Amazon, blame the authors.

While I don't technically disagree, I don't see the value in blaming an amorphous nameless mass of people who are probably doing their best to get by and are facing a serious Tragedy of the Commons.

Amazon is not in the position of having to choose between sacrificing their morals and feeding their small children with this exclusivity move. Amazon is also a business in a way that most indie authors are not, and therefore I feel should be subject to tighter government oversight.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

While I don't technically disagree, I don't see the value in blaming an amorphous nameless mass of people who are probably doing their best to get by and are facing a serious Tragedy of the Commons.

Amazon is not in the position of having to choose between sacrificing their morals and feeding their small children with this exclusivity move. Amazon is also a business in a way that most indie authors are not, and therefore I feel should be subject to tighter government oversight.

I don't see this issue needing government interference. Additionally, these exclusivity deals are no worse than under pricing a product in order to drive smaller competitors out of the market. In the end, smaller businesses are the ones who'll suffer the most.

I'm going to ratchet this up a notch and toss in a third party to blame for this - the consumer. Ultimate success hinges on willing consumers ready to part with their dollars. They're the key and they have it in their power to stop Amazon dead in its tracks. But will they? Of course not. Apathy and ignorance runs rampant, and Amazon will suceed because of it.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I don't see this issue needing government interference. Additionally, these exclusivity deals are no worse than under pricing a product in order to drive smaller competitors out of the market. In the end, smaller businesses are the ones who'll suffer the most.

I think it may well be worth a trust investigation. Amazon has both a Publishing branch and a Selling branch and the one is creating non-compete exclusivity clauses with the other.

This act does not benefit the Publishing branch, but the Amazon parent doesn't mind because it benefits the company as a whole, and additionally is an attempt to craft a majority share of the ebook market.

But IANAL.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I think it may well be worth a trust investigation. Amazon has both a Publishing branch and a Selling branch and the one is creating non-compete exclusivity clauses with the other.

This act does not benefit the Publishing branch, but the Amazon parent doesn't mind because it benefits the company as a whole, and additionally is an attempt to craft a majority share of the ebook market.

But IANAL.

I agree. The publishing arm only seems to be there to kill off competing businesses and to drive additional business to the parent company - not to make a profit by itself.

The other issue is that the exclusive contract hurts consumers. I don't own a kindle - therefore I don't get to read this book. Bad business...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I think it may well be worth a trust investigation. Amazon has both a Publishing branch and a Selling branch and the one is creating non-compete exclusivity clauses with the other.

I disagree. In my opinion, Amazon has no obligation to provide content to its competitors. Exclusivity deals run rampant in the publishing world. Should all publishers be required to sell their books in all formats and to all customers?

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I disagree. In my opinion, Amazon has no obligation to provide content to its competitors. Exclusivity deals run rampant in the publishing world. Should all publishers be required to sell their books in all formats and to all customers?

99.9% of publishers make the books available to anyone who wants to buy them. Which publishers don't make their books available for sale?

The problem is not the exclusive contract to publish with Amazon. The problem is the exclusive contract to SELL with Amazon.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I agree. The publishing arm only seems to be there to kill off competing businesses and to drive additional business to the parent company - not to make a profit by itself.

The other issue is that the exclusive contract hurts consumers. I don't own a kindle - therefore I don't get to read this book. Bad business...

Nothing wrong with that. It's the nature of business.

And how are consumers hurt? Paper versions still exist. Besides, not everyone can afford an ereader; Kindle or otherwise. What of them?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

99.9% of publishers make the books available to anyone who wants to buy them. Which publishers don't make their books available for sale?

Libraries???

[calibrated]

I think Tubemonkey's earlier post was correct--there's enough blame to go around, for authors as well as for Amazon. Nobody *has* to publish through Amazon.

However, I think there's also an interesting point that hasn't yet been mentioned. If Amazon won't make e-books available to B&N, how long do you think it will be before someone converts an Amazon-only e-book to epub, and it shows up on the darknet? Not long, I think. We've seen that piracy is virtually impossible to stop, and that the only thing that seems to make a dent in it is easy availability of the product at a reasonable price in the format demanded by the consumer. If Amazon won't provide Nook-compatible books (i.e., epubs), someone else will.

So in this case, Amazon is repeating the mistakes of the publishers it seeks to replace. Apparently, they haven't learned as much as one would think.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rhadin

And to dismiss pbook buyers as luddites simply demonstrates a personal prejudice.

Whoa!
Please read again; I wasn't saying pbook buyers are luddites!
I was saying the bookstore pbook buying market *includes* luddites, the people who will never buy an ebook. Doesn't mean everybody buying pbooks is a luddite. That is why I included the casual buyers as a separate category; a *lot* of people simply don't buy enough books to justify even a $79 reader.

My whole point is that any publishing venture for the next decade or two will have to account for the market splintering that is coming from the ebook evolution. Different buyers will be following different practices and the old sales models won't necessarily apply to everybody. (Just stacking books on shelves everywhere is hardly the most-cost efficient way to operate.)

And that is why Amazon is doing pbooks; they will be a secondary portion of the market but there will still be money there. And while it may not be immediately apparent, everything Amazon does scrapes a few nickles here and there. It's all about the money.

And yes, as I said; any author signing with Amazon Publishing (or KDP, for that matter) knows what they're getting into. Or they should.

But that whole "you can't be successful without selling everywhere" trope?
Not true.
Sorry.
There is a difference between theoretical customers and distribution and actual distribution and sales. Lots of products not only survive and prosper without universal availability, but actually benefit from it, by reducing distribution costs. You can find dozens of examples in everything from tools to video games.

Carpet bombing the market for a product, especially one that accepts retailer returns, is just increasing the average sale cost of that product.

Amazon Publishing doesn't need to sell their books to everybody; they just need to sell enough to justify the investment they and the authors are making. They are both in this. So as long as the books are publicized enough and are actually good enough (hardly a sure thing) they don't need to worry about whether they are available in every fruit stand in the land. In fact, isn't that kind of over-distribution at the heart of B&M book sales problems? One can argue that reducing distribution (and costs) is what all the BPHs should be doing.

Now, as I said; Amazon Publishing is betting on ebook first. They're not betting on ebook-only. And bets *can* turn out wrong. But Amazon bets, to the annoyance of their foes, turn out right more often than not. It doesn't usually pay to dismiss them out of hand.

In this instance, B&N may be saving Amazon the effort of printing/distributing pbooks to them and then finding a use for the ones that don't sell. Odds are, they can use that money to buy some publicity for their wannabe bestsellers.

Understand: I think that if Amazon Publishing offends B&N's sensibilities they should have the courage to *not* distribute them at *all*. Not in the store, not online, not anywhere. Which I'm sure is what a lot of the embattled indie bookstores are going to do.

But B&N wants it both ways: they want to be the injured party of Amazon aggression and *still* profit from selling their books.

That is hypocritical and why I think their "policy" is just a PR stunt.

Amazon is all about cold hard cash and straight impersonal business.
B&N is, lately, a lot about hystrionics and tantrums.
That does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about their prospects.

(As to the value of exclusivity, that is whole other story best left for another day in General Discussions.)