Yet another mostly anti-Amazon article in the New Yorker

[HarryT]

I'm sure I could adapt, but the simple truth is that I see no need to. My current system of finding books is bringing me more than I can read. It's so much easier to find books I know I'll enjoy from publishers like Baen and SF Gateway that I've no real reason to look elsewhere.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sure I could adapt, but the simple truth is that I see no need to. My current system of finding books is bringing me more than I can read. It's so much easier to find books I know I'll enjoy from publishers like Baen and SF Gateway that I've no real reason to look elsewhere.

Fair enough.
I just get the idea that many people think that if the traditional publisher goes the way of the dodo (slowly over time like I expect), their entire reading world would get turned on it's head. I don't think much would/will change for most readers, to be honest. Their favorite books/authors (and new favorite books/authors) will still find their way in front of their eyes rather effortlessly.

[hardcastle]

I think this is one of those cases where Amazon can be both good and bad.

They're bad in how they treat their employees and suppliers, driving down prices so hard and squeezing everyone they can with their power. And indeed, anyone who is powerful enough to be a commerce gatekeeper deserves heavy scrutiny on these aspects and many more.

Yet they still enable consumers to find books that would otherwise be out of print. Their business model was and still remains a laudable goal.

The article presents a fair and clear picture of the matter. I would not dismiss it so quickly as the ramblings of the old guard.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They do it for sound commercial reasons, not to be noble, but there is a great deal of truth in the idea that traditional publishers have a valuable role as gatekeepers. That's why I buy almost all my books from traditional publishers rather than independent authors.

Maybe, but that's not the idea that was being articulated in the piece of the article I was quoting. The author was suggesting that traditional publishers were acting as gatekeepers for other than commercial reasons.

[HarryT]

Whatever their reasons are for doing it, the result is beneficial for the consumer.

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Whatever their reasons are for doing it, the result is beneficial for the consumer.

Indeed. A good example of this is the netlabel. In the era of millions of free tracks across the internet, it's wonderful to find a curated location for EP's under a particular genre or concept with a particular layer of professionalism. Publishers may get chopped up into its various parts (marketing and editing most of all) but the collection aspect is going to remain important in a networked world.

And as for the state of the gatekeeper, Amazon seems like a much scarier form, as much as they'd like to deny they are one. Oh, sure, they'll include you in their massive bookstore...if you give them what they want, at razor-thin margins, with no information and potentially extra demanded money on top of that. This is all according to the article, which has a fair amount of evidence behind it. The "publishers as gatekeeper" concept is worrisome, but at least they have competition and alternatives.

[pwalker8]

There is actually very little barrier to entry for starting up an ebook store. If Amazon starts to act as the gatekeeper for ebooks, then I would expect other ebook stores to start popping up.

As far as publishers go, I would expect that we will start to see small publishers, such as Baen, start to pop up. Many authors do not wish to deal with the need to do anything other than write and would be happy to give a percentage to someone who will take care of providing an editor and marketing the book, while I suspect that plenty of readers will continue to depend on said publishers to filter the flood of ebooks so they (the readers) can get the books they like.

[tubemonkey]

My favorite gatekeepers are public libraries. No need for me to buy books, since they always have something worth reading.

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

There is actually very little barrier to entry for starting up an ebook store. If Amazon starts to act as the gatekeeper for ebooks, then I would expect other ebook stores to start popping up.

The problem I was referring to is this: if the only layer between the user and the content is Amazon, that strikes me as a very powerful proposition on Amazon's part. Not too many competitors can claim to be the ONLY layer in this example, and it makes the barrier to entry for new businesses very, very high.

Even if adding more publishers to the equation seems like it would add another gatekeeper, it at least allows for anything in between the user and the content to be swapped out easier, and in a more idyllic situation, each of these layers would be accountable to each other.

[crossi]

Trad publishers are not needed if you want not a gatekeeper, someone to prevent books from ever being published, but simply a filter to help you separate out good books from bad. Without the trad publishers all you would need is websites, possibly a lot of websites and some of them would be the 6 current major publishers, who would post lists of recommended new releases. People would find and gravitate to the sites whose recommendations best matched their tastes. Just like now a lot of people regularly check the NY Times Bestseller lists when bookshopping. I check some of my favorite reviewers in Locus magazine and Romantic times. I don't need a stinking gatekeeper just good reviews.

[Sydney's Mom]

thanks! Found the article very interesting. The one about author revenue also.

[oj829]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

Yet they still enable consumers to find books that would otherwise be out of print. Their business model was and still remains a laudable goal.

Are you referring to buying used books in the Amazon Marketplace? I agree that as is, it is a wonderful website feature, and, guilty as charged, I've used it a lot.

But as you can use the Marketplace for used CDs and DVDs also, (as well as phones, gadgets, shower curtains, garden fences, etc.) I have trouble seeing their current Marketplace product as absolution for the destruction of the publishing (small m) marketplace. I recommend reading the whole article, especially as it pertains to what authors take home in terms of money.

Pirates often lecture hopeful musicians that they need to sing for their supper: tour, sell merchandise and tickets. Well, what exactly is an author supposed to do?

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by oj829

Are you referring to buying used books in the Amazon Marketplace? I agree that as is, it is a wonderful website feature, and, guilty as charged, I've used it a lot.

But as you can use the Marketplace for used CDs and DVDs also, (as well as phones, gadgets, shower curtains, garden fences, etc.) I have trouble seeing their current Marketplace product as absolution for the destruction of the publishing (small m) marketplace. I recommend reading the whole article, especially as it pertains to what authors take home in terms of money.

Pirates often lecture hopeful musicians that they need to sing for their supper: tour, sell merchandise and tickets. Well, what exactly is an author supposed to do?

I've already discussed my issues with Amazon in the very post you quoted, so that's not new news to me.

I was more discussing Amazon's push to get back catalogs of authors into a common marketplace, which the article discussed for several paragraphs. I feel that the modern commerce model requires not only access to recent but also semi-recent and older books. The older concept of "only the classics stay stocked" seems narrow-sighted; a book could bomb but then suddenly become relevant after a major political movement a decade later.

However, I will note that Amazon is not the only one capable of this. Anyone with a grasp of the internet could have predicted the increased availability that would follow. I only noted my support of Amazon's execution of the idea in a list of many reactions to a long and complex article detailing a long and complex situation.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

I was more discussing Amazon's push to get back catalogs of authors into a common marketplace, which the article discussed for several paragraphs. I feel that the modern commerce model requires not only access to recent but also semi-recent and older books. The older concept of "only the classics stay stocked" seems narrow-sighted; a book could bomb but then suddenly become relevant after a major political movement a decade later.

However, I will note that Amazon is not the only one capable of this. Anyone with a grasp of the internet could have predicted the increased availability that would follow. I only noted my support of Amazon's execution of the idea in a list of many reactions to a long and complex article detailing a long and complex situation.

The problem is that the publishers are not interested in stocking the older backlist unless it's a best selling classic. The backlist is a distraction from their brand new spiffy bestseller wannabee for which they've just shelled out $50k or more for author advance, preprint preparation (editing, etc.), and the fewer alternatives available to readers, the better. For example, does it make economic sense for Tor to sell Isaac Asimov books from the 1940s/50s as $10 ebooks ($1 more than most of their recent live author ebooks) except that they're selling a trade paperback for $16, and they want people to think that *all* ebooks should be priced like a brand new book?

Amazon doesn't really care if these backlist books sell for $4 or $10, but the publishers do, and they want them to sell for $10.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

The problem is that the publishers are not interested in stocking the older backlist unless it's a best selling classic.

Depends who the publisher is. Several publishers are releasing a lot of backlist books: Hachette, for example, have their "SF Gateway" imprint, which publishes backlist SF, while Constable and Robinson publish a lot of backlist crime.