Apple gripes about antitrust monitoring

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by shalym

Ok...Let's hear your arguments to the contrary. Why should it cost the same as the hardcover? Especially since hardcovers don't even usually cost as much as the list price of the hardcover? I don't think I've EVER paid list price for a hardcover book, even when I bought it very soon after it was released. I think the MOST I've ever paid was for the last Harry Potter book on the day of release, and even that was 10% off of the list price.

Shari

Why would I argue to the contrary? I'm just pointing out that there is some justification to the publishers' worry that Amazon's use of the $10 best seller was going to break the publishers business model.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

This is one of the BPH's biggest problems. They know that the cost to print and ship a hardcover book is something like $2, and for a paperback 50 cents, and the price differential is really so they can recoup all the upfront costs early. The BPH's beef with Amazon was that Amazon was setting an ebook price point for NYT best sellers of $10, instead of 40%-45% off the hardcover list price, a discount common at many brick & mortar retailers. Ultimately, this limits the BPH's ability to raise hardcover prices if they can't force the ebook price to follow suit when they are released simultaneously.

BTW, if you haven't seen it, there's an amusing sequence about Amazon & Bezos this last week in the comic Non Sequitur . All hail Lord Bezos!

Yep. While I'm not so sure that your cost figures are correct (there are a lot of ways to look at assigning cost in the publishers' business model), ultimately the publishers' biggest issue is getting consumers to buy into the value of getting a ebook now, at the same time a hardback is released, rather than at the paperback price a year later. Personally, I have no problem paying extra to get a book that I want now, but I seem to be in a rather distinct minority. Most seem to want the ebook now, for paperback prices.

IMPO, ebooks are going to totally change the publishing business. Rather obviously, this is way off topic, but I predict that we will see a lot of small publishers/editors pop up who basically provide authors with editing and marketing services while providing consumers with a more or less known quality in a specific genre, i.e. the consumer doesn't have to wade through reams and reams of dreak to find the few good books that come out every month. That's what Baen provided for years. I think that rather than having ebooks always in print and available will offset the extra money that hardbacks brought in.

[Greg Anos]

Except that they are not always "in print", look up Cordwainer Smith on Baen's. No longer available. Check Amazon. Not available.

E-books go out of print, too...

[pwalker8]

Well, of course not all books are currently available in ebooks. The point is that since ebooks don't take warehouse space and are not taxed as inventory, you can easily always make them available for purchase. Having a book always available for purchase is a very different model than the old model of a book being reprinted every few years on a regular basis. Ebooks only go out of print when the copyright holder doesn't want to make them available. While I'm sure there will be the occasion where the copyright holder wants to remove them from the market, I doubt it will be the norm.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Why would I argue to the contrary? I'm just pointing out that there is some justification to the publishers' worry that Amazon's use of the $10 best seller was going to break the publishers business model.

Their business model is a dying model. Breaking the law to prop it up accomplishes what? It's time they left the 20th century behind. The world is going digital and they need to get with the program.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Well, of course not all books are currently available in ebooks. The point is that since ebooks don't take warehouse space and are not taxed as inventory, you can easily always make them available for purchase. Having a book always available for purchase is a very different model than the old model of a book being reprinted every few years on a regular basis. Ebooks only go out of print when the copyright holder doesn't want to make them available. While I'm sure there will be the occasion where the copyright holder wants to remove them from the market, I doubt it will be the norm.

Ebook contracts have clauses listing when the rights revert to the copyright holder (i.e., author), and they are usually time based and/or units sold per time period. If the Cordwainer Smith books are no longer sold by Baen, it's likely the rights reverted to his heirs/literary estate, and they haven't been able to sell them to another publisher yet and they're not prepared to self-publish. I think it's much less likely that the copyright holder wants to remove them from the market, ever.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Why would I argue to the contrary? I'm just pointing out that there is some justification to the publishers' worry that Amazon's use of the $10 best seller was going to break the publishers business model.

Amazon could afford the price (on a limited number of books) because it got a better deal from the publishers than other retailers. It used the better deal to pass the savings to the customers which increased its market share, to the point where the publishers could no longer afford to say 'take it or live it'.

But this didn't break the business model. The move to agency pricing broke the publishers' business model.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Amazon could afford the price (on a limited number of books) because it got a better deal from the publishers than other retailers. It used the better deal to pass the savings to the customers which increased its market share, to the point where the publishers could no longer afford to say 'take it or live it'.

But this didn't break the business model. The move to agency pricing broke the publishers' business model.

I don't follow the logic of your assertion. How would the move to agency pricing, i.e. the publisher setting the price, break the publishers' model?

Amazon didn't get a better deal that it passed on to the consumer, it was selling a small subset of ebooks at a loss or very small profit to drive the sales of kindles and establish the ebook market. Companies do this all the time, especially if they have a good cash flow from other parts of their business.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Well, of course not all books are currently available in ebooks. The point is that since ebooks don't take warehouse space and are not taxed as inventory, you can easily always make them available for purchase. Having a book always available for purchase is a very different model than the old model of a book being reprinted every few years on a regular basis. Ebooks only go out of print when the copyright holder doesn't want to make them available. While I'm sure there will be the occasion where the copyright holder wants to remove them from the market, I doubt it will be the norm.

Explain to me how it's different to person wanting to buy said e-book.

You can buy a old p-book used. You can't even buy a used e-book.

So they totally disappear from the marketplace. Just like the P-book going out of print, only more so. It doesn't matter to the buyer whether the copyright holder wants them to be "in print" and haven't figured out how to best do it, or whether they just don't want them in print.

Here's personal example. In 2008, I got a free copy (Baen's free library) of Doc Sidhe by Aaron Alliston. I finally got around to reading it last year. I liked it so much, I went out to buy the sequel and put in $4 to the "free" book. I wanted to pay the author.

I couldn't. It's out of print for e-books. I don't buy p-books any more. I could pirate the e-book, I suppose, but I want to pay the author. So I'm stuck...

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I don't follow the logic of your assertion. How would the move to agency pricing, i.e. the publisher setting the price, break the publishers' model?

Because before the sale price was decided by the retailer.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Amazon didn't get a better deal that it passed on to the consumer, it was selling a small subset of ebooks at a loss or very small profit to drive the sales of kindles and establish the ebook market. Companies do this all the time, especially if they have a good cash flow from other parts of their business.

Before the agency pricing publishers were setting the list price, and retailers were selling them at whatever discount was convenient. Amazon's business adapted very well to ebooks, so it was selling more ebooks than other retailers. Because of this, Amazon got a better deal on ebooks. It used this advantage to sell ebooks at a lower price than the competition, which increased the market share. They figured that consumers prefer the $9.99 price tag to anything above $10, and and the books on NYT's list were sought after so it was a good business move to get more customers. Unless the books had a list price higher than average (for a book on NYT's list) Amazon was still making a small profit, because it had a better deal. And people preferred to get the ebooks instead of the p-books because of the difference in price.

This meant that for the top selling books the market was shifting towards ebooks and this was not good for publishers, since they had more control over p-books. At least one publisher tried to make Amazon change the price by refusing to use it as a distributor for all their titles, which resulted in lower sales for that publisher, which the publisher couldn't afford.

This whole situation was a result of poor management on the part of the publishers because they didn't realize what an impact ebooks would have.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Explain to me how it's different to person wanting to buy said e-book.

You can buy a old p-book used. You can't even buy a used e-book.

So they totally disappear from the marketplace. Just like the P-book going out of print, only more so. It doesn't matter to the buyer whether the copyright holder wants them to be "in print" and haven't figured out how to best do it, or whether they just don't want them in print.

Here's personal example. In 2008, I got a free copy (Baen's free library) of Doc Sidhe by Aaron Alliston. I finally got around to reading it last year. I liked it so much, I went out to buy the sequel and put in $4 to the "free" book. I wanted to pay the author.

I couldn't. It's out of print for e-books. I don't buy p-books any more. I could pirate the e-book, I suppose, but I want to pay the author. So I'm stuck...

As the rights reverted, he pulled the book from Baen and is going to release it himself after a rewrite/update.

The original planned release date date was going to be mid 2013, though his cataract surgery either slowed it down or kiboshed it altogether as it doesn't seem to be in his latest timetable.

These things happen, but, I agree it's annoying and he should have left the old ones up until the new ones were ready.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

As the rights reverted, he pulled the book from Baen and is going to release it himself after a rewrite/update.

The original planned release date date was going to be mid 2013, though his cataract surgery either slowed it down or kiboshed it altogether as it doesn't seem to be in his latest timetable.

These things happen, but, I agree it's annoying and he should have left the old ones up until the new ones were ready.

We are kind of half way between right now. If the copyright holder pulls the ebook, then there isn't much one can do, but I can't imagine that happening very often as everyone settles into the ebook market. Part of the issue is that Baen had a massive change in their ebook store not long ago. For all practical purposes, they no longer have an ebook store. They do still have monthly bundles, but you have to buy the bundle before the books actually hit the streets.

As I said earlier, over time, I think we will see authors putting their entire back catalog online so people can buy any book at any time. But that's going to take time, and I suspect there are quite a few older books that won't officially make it online until they go out of copyright.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Because before the sale price was decided by the retailer.


Before the agency pricing publishers were setting the list price, and retailers were selling them at whatever discount was convenient. Amazon's business adapted very well to ebooks, so it was selling more ebooks than other retailers. Because of this, Amazon got a better deal on ebooks. It used this advantage to sell ebooks at a lower price than the competition, which increased the market share. They figured that consumers prefer the $9.99 price tag to anything above $10, and and the books on NYT's list were sought after so it was a good business move to get more customers. Unless the books had a list price higher than average (for a book on NYT's list) Amazon was still making a small profit, because it had a better deal. And people preferred to get the ebooks instead of the p-books because of the difference in price.

This meant that for the top selling books the market was shifting towards ebooks and this was not good for publishers, since they had more control over p-books. At least one publisher tried to make Amazon change the price by refusing to use it as a distributor for all their titles, which resulted in lower sales for that publisher, which the publisher couldn't afford.

This whole situation was a result of poor management on the part of the publishers because they didn't realize what an impact ebooks would have.

I'm pretty sure that Amazon wasn't getting a better deal than everyone else. They pretty much paid the same price as the other major retailers (I've heard 50% of retail thrown out), however, they were willing to take a lose on those specific ebooks to establish a market.

The agency model didn't break the publishers business model. The publishers were able to set the price to whatever fit their business model. What caused the publishers grief was that Amazon had already set the price in the public's mind, so basically the publishers waited too long.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

For all practical purposes, they no longer have an ebook store. They do still have monthly bundles, but you have to buy the bundle before the books actually hit the streets.

Hmmm...when I go to www.baenebooks.com it looks like an ebook store to me.

Shari

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by shalym

Hmmm...when I go to www.baenebooks.com it looks like an ebook store to me.

Yep.. Ebookstore. Once *again* the very knowledgeable pwalker8 is wrong.