Barry Eisler - Why Amazon is Good vs. the Big Six

[taustin]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Did I say it was??? I was talking about the meanings of monopoly and cartel and poking gentle fun at the comment... read what's written...

And I was making the point that just because one side is bad, that doesn't mean the other side is good.

Your reply had nothing to do with what you replied to.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by taustin

And I was making the point that just because one side is bad, that doesn't mean the other side is good.

Your reply had nothing to do with what you replied to.

Terribly sorry, it obviously wasn't you who wrote the item about monopoly and monopoly that I referred to... wait, it was, see following...

Originally Posted by taustin

He seems to be under the misguided notion that if one side is evil, the other side can only be good. A very naive notion, if you ask me. Replacing one monopoly with another monopoly doesn't magically it not a monopoly.

I wasn't talking about your good/evil point, I was dealing with your usage of the word monopoly in an incorrect fashion as it was in the original linked article... I'll put it more simply then - Monopoly does NOT equal Cartel or conspiracy (depending on your Big 6 interpretation)... and has nothing to do with your good/evil point, life and business tends rather more to the grey anyway...

[taustin]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Terribly sorry, it obviously wasn't you who wrote the item about monopoly and monopoly that I referred to... wait, it was, see following...



I wasn't talking about your good/evil point, I was dealing with your usage of the word monopoly in an incorrect fashion as it was in the original linked article... I'll put it more simply then - Monopoly does NOT equal Cartel or conspiracy (depending on your Big 6 interpretation)... and has nothing to do with your good/evil point, life and business tends rather more to the grey anyway...

It was all one point. Getting pedantic about it is distracting from the actual point, which is that the guy who wrote the original article is clueless.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Books, or titles? 1.3 million books in the whole of US doesn't sound like a lot. A bestseller is often referred to as "millions sold". Are you certain of these numbers?

If it is titles then that would include a lot of academic publishing, while interesting for those in the field, hardly gather any sales among the general public.

It's titles. The Hunger Games trilogy sold 36 million in the US (although over a couple of years).

The US produces about 250,000 *new* titles each year.

[Kumabjorn]

So then the Big 6 pretty much holds almost all of the titels that are moving copies?
That is after all what makes their position unique, and why we discuss them, right?

If that is the case I must admit that it takes me a bit by surprise. The US has always struck me as the most competetively inclined country in the world, granted that is an observation from far away, but I thought US consumers were generally critical to oligarch structures in the market place. I can see the need for a local monopoly on water and sewage, but it always starts to go downhill when there are only a few agents in a market. I might be stretching it a bit here, but look at what happened to the US auto industry. There were only three makers, with GM dominating. Japan hade nine car industries, that kind of competition on the home market made them better attuned to the demands of the US consumer. I realise that Japanese publishing houses arent going to invade the US market, but with electronic distribution, there is nothing stopping a US author to tie up with a UK, AUS or NZ publisher.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

The US produces about 250,000 *new* titles each year.

The U.S. produces more than 1.3 million new titles every year since the advent of ebooks. Approximately 250,000 of that 1.3 million are traditionally published; the remainder are self-published.

Of the 250,000 traditionally published new titles, the Big 6 publish 200,000 to 225,000.

The U.S. has more than 50,000 multi-title publishers based on ISBN issuings. (Self-publishers who issue 1 title or who receive ISBNs for their titles from places like Smashwords are not included in the number of publishers. The number reflects those registered as publishers for ISBN purposes.)

[Kumabjorn]

What were the numbers before e-books?
Seems like the US might have become a nation of authors.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Seems like the US might have become a nation of authors.

I post; therefore I'm an author

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I post; therefore I'm an author

Monkey is on team attempting to re-create Shakespeare's collected works.
Banana, nice incentive. Monkey likes.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Monkey is on team attempting to re-create Shakespeare's collected works.
Banana, nice incentive. Monkey likes.

But, soft! what banana through yonder jungle grows?

That's enough for today. Time for a banana break.

[SteveEisenberg]

If Amazon is so good for the common man, Mr. Eisler, why isn't your The Detachment eBook, the one they published for you, sold, at any price, to public libraries?

The company's DNA is all about serving customers

If a publicly held company gains monopoly power and fails to use it, there will be a proxy fight. Even if the management wins, as it usually does, it will be obligated to go a good deal in the direction stockholder pressure is coming from. Whether the resident billionaire was or was not born with a kindness gene will have little to do with it.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

If a publicly held company gains monopoly power and fails to use it, there will be a proxy fight. Even if the management wins, as it usually does, it will be obligated to go a good deal in the direction stockholder pressure is coming from. Whether the resident billionaire was or was not born with a kindness gene will have little to do with it.

Cite?

[Top100EbooksRank]

If Amazon gains 95% of the ebook market and abuse its power. Buy ebook at $10.49 and sell for high price (for example $17), there will face competition overnight.

Apple/Google/Facebook could buy ebook at $10.49 and sell for $14 (undercut Amazon by $3).

or

DOJ will file a lawsuit because Amazon raises prices detriment to the consumers.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Top100EbooksRank

If Amazon gains 95% of the ebook market and abuse its power. Buy ebook at $10.49 and sell for high price (for example $17), there will face competition overnight.

This.

Amazon is a retailer, not a producer. It's not like owning all of the oil refineries or diamonds or memory chip fabs. Amazon's "monopoly" came about solely because they resold what other people made better/cheaper/more conveniently.

And of course the only reason they got 90% of the market share originally is because they were first to market with the integrated e-book/comprehensive bookstore model. It's easy to get numbers like that when no one else is competing.

But within a year of B&N entering the market, they owned 20% of it. Despite having slightly higher priced books. (This was before agency).

Apple/Google/Facebook could buy ebook at $10.49 and sell for $14 (undercut Amazon by $3).

or

DOJ will file a lawsuit because Amazon raises prices detriment to the consumers.

There's no grounds for a lawsuit - Amazon can raise prices if it wants. But of course what would happen is the competitors would gain market share by undercutting prices.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I think the Big 6 would be surprised to learn that they are a cartel/monopoly and have such market power. In the United States, nearly 1.3 million books were published in 2011. Of that number, about 225,000 were published by the Big 6.

Also, in 2011, there were more than 50,000 "traditional" publishers in the United States and several hundred thousand self-publishers.

In addition, to say that the Big 6 "have a monopoly on pbooks" implies (assumes?) that 1 pbook can readily be substituted for another pbook, something that few readers or authors would agree on. As is often said, even here on MR, if I want to read Stephen King I want to read Stephen King, not Dean Koontz. Consequently, in the microsense every publisher and self-publisher is a monopolist because more than one publisher does not publish a title in a market.

Ah, but if you simply back away from the fact that each book is unique, the publication system is absolutely a monopoly in the hands of the biggest players and has been for decades. They have been in control with a tight fist over who and what gets published and when. Oh sure there are a few minor exceptions .. authors who self-publish through small companies, but that is no more than a drip in the ocean which is controlled by the big 6.

The ebook, internet and technology has brought it to an end. They better get on board or get out. Right now they are only trying everything they can to keep the future from happening.