Amazon vs Hachette

[sirmaru]

The Colbert segment on Amazon was very funny. I watched it last night from the DVR recording of the previous day.

I guess its clear that folks can pay higher prices for Hatchett eBooks if they really want to avoid the monopsony fixed. low Amazon prices.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

I guess its clear that folks can pay higher prices for Hatchett eBooks if they really want to avoid the monopsony fixed. low Amazon prices.

What higher prices? Many other retailers are falling all over each other to offer promotional deals on Hatchette titles to entice people to shop with them during this "crisis" (of course they're only doing so for the good of the industry).

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by tompe

Amazon is 10 times the size of Hatchette. So it is one big company and one smaller relatively seen. Of course Amazon will win the fight if they want since they have more money.

Chances are you are right. But that is why businesses are started in most cases, to make money. The world is rapidly becoming a place where a business must be big and often predatory to survive. I don't see this as a good thing, but I can't see it as being evil for a company to grow as much as they can. If Amazon became much less aggressive, someone else would jump in and Amazon could possibly be in trouble.

I am not sure what people expect here?

Helen

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Chances are you are right. But that is why businesses are started in most cases, to make money. The world is rapidly becoming a place where a business must be big and often predatory to survive. I don't see this as a good thing, but I can't see it as being evil for a company to grow as much as they can. If Amazon became much less aggressive, someone else would jump in and Amazon could possibly be in trouble.

I am not sure what people expect here?

Helen

That's my question too. If people want to make sure no one company becomes too aggressive, it's simple to shop around. B&N has a big Hachette sale going on. I blogged it. There's a perfect opportunity to spread business out. Walmart also has a sale on Hachette titles from what I understand.

Not to be left in the dust, Minatour has a big ebook sale going on this month and you can buy those sale books at Amazon or Kobo books for certain (I couldn't find a direct link at B&N, but they may very well be on sale there too.) There really are plenty of options and this little spat has actually created more deals than it has negated.

I still maintain that Colbert is taking advantage of the negotiations to get his book out front and center--he's turning it into an opportunity and will probably sell more books because of it.

[keeska]

I still maintain that Colbert is taking advantage of the negotiations to get his book out front and center--he's turning it into an opportunity and will probably sell more books because of it.

I agree. He is out to get all of the money he can out of the publicity surrounding this. For that to happen he has to support Hachette getting as much money as they can.

I do not usually support Amazon but in this case they are correct. Buy a product wholesale and sell it retail. The seller gets to choose what price to sell it at whether they they are the wholesaler or retailer. But the wholesaler has no right to influence the price the retailer charges.

kees

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Synamon

Commonly??? Only if by commonly you mean that after 2 years of a pilot project with a single library system, Hachette finally agreed to sell their ebooks to all public libraries . . .

Why is it that Hachette is getting criticized for past conduct when Amazon Publishing gets a pass for current behavior?

Originally Posted by Synamon

. . . at an inflated price.

If I was on the library board, I'd argue that the eBook is worth much more to us than the paper book because the electronic copy doesn't occupy rented or mortgaged space, and doesn't require heating, air conditioning, roof repairs to keep it dry, costs of cataloging and checkout, costs associated with patron theft, etc. Now, if the eBook price is high enough, it still could be a worse value than paper. But without calculating the total direct and indirect cost per borrowing, and comparing that to what the library is charged for the book, you can't just assume that the overall value of the eBook title is worse.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by keeska

But the wholesaler has no right to influence the price the retailer charges.

So every company that has minimum prices is violating your rights?

Read the last good Hachette book I read to find out how common this practice is:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...=9780316219266

The big name here is Apple, but there are lots more. Here are the minimum prices my local supermarkets are allowed to charge for milk:

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal...il_pricing_pdf

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Why is it that Hachette is getting criticized for past conduct when Amazon Publishing gets a pass for current behavior?

I'm happy to criticize Amazon Publishing for not selling their ebooks to libraries, but you implied that Hachette plays nice with libraries which is hardly the case. Since they wouldn't license frontlist ebooks to libraries for 2 years, there are only a small number of Hachette ebooks at most libraries.

Clarification, not championing Amazon was the reason I posted. I actively try and reward Random House and HarperCollins by purchasing most of my ebooks from them since they have always allowed libraries access to their entire catalog. I avoid Amazon Publishing imprints the same way I avoid Hachette (and Penguin and Macmillan and S&S), only purchasing when deep discounts tempt me.

If I was on the library board, I'd argue that the eBook is worth much more to us than the paper book because the electronic copy doesn't occupy rented or mortgaged space, and doesn't require heating, air conditioning, roof repairs to keep it dry, costs of cataloging and checkout, costs associated with patron theft, etc. Now, if the eBook price is high enough, it still could be a worse value than paper. But without calculating the total direct and indirect cost per borrowing, and comparing that to what the library is charged for the book, you can't just assume that the overall value of the eBook title is worse.

I suspect the price set by the publisher has nothing to do with value and is intended to keep the number of copies available to loan low and the waiting lists long. Creating artificial scarcity is a way of increasing the friction involved with borrowing ebooks. The libraries haven't been shy in complaining that there isn't enough friction involved with digital libraries.

[fjtorres]

Authors wonder why Amazon is villified for bad things they *might* do to authors in the future while the BPHs get a pass on the things they have been doing to authors for decades.

Try this one:
http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2014/06/E605y.html

Most of the grousing about authors' earnings concerns the base rates imposed upon them1 by commercial publishers. The authors gripe about "25% of net" for e-books, and rightly so. They gripe a little less loudly about 8%/12.5%/15% on hardcover trade fiction as a base royalty rate. They gripe loudly about advances, if seldom with numeric disclosures attached.2 What they neglect, however, is the high-discount clause: In almost all commercial publishing contracts, the author's per-copy compensation is cut in half for copies sold at a high discount (but not "remaindered", for which the author receives nothing).

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Synamon

Since they wouldn't license frontlist ebooks to libraries for 2 years, there are only a small number of Hachette ebooks at most libraries.

Then I misinterpreted your post #285. I read it as saying that there was a two year period, since completed, when Hachette was only licensing eBooks to a single library.

Given all else there is to read, I don't consider the two years you mention as a barrier for fiction, since the world won't have changed enough in that time to make a novel less meaningful. And the two years does not apply to well-reviewed non-fiction such as The Everything Store and the next Hachette title I may read, The Secret Rescue.

The fairest, most humane, system is that the affluent, who can afford to pay get the book first, support, with their purchases, the masses who must wait a bit while retaining the same freedom to read. Hachette, while admittedly not the best, is now participating in that system. Amazon does not participate, instead competing with public libraries through their paid Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

I suspect participants in the Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread may have a different perspective

[AnemicOak]

Don't think this one has been posted yet...

Amazon Is NOT the Vladimir Putin of the Publishing World

Amazon is “like Vladimir Putin mobilizing his troops along the Ukrainian border,” a proprietor of an “e-book discovery site” tells The New York Times. “A bully,” offers Richard Russo, the novelist and president of the Authors Guild (which knows exactly how to bully mere “writers”). Amazon, says author James Patterson, who published 13 detective books last year, is waging “war” and doing unspeakable things for which “the quality of American literature will suffer.”

James Patterson on this...
http://www.jamespatterson.com/about_...p#.U48J2_ldWSo

If the world of books is going to change to ebooks, so be it. But I think it's essential that someone steps up and takes responsibility for the future of American literature and the part it plays in our culture. Right now, bookstores, libraries, authors, and books themselves are caught in the cross fire of an economic war. If this is the new American way, then maybe it has to be changed—by law, if necessary—immediately, if not sooner.

[BearMountainBooks]

The future of American Lit? He writes thrillers. These are not exactly high literature or meaningful literature that every American should be able to access. Like romance novels, they are quick, entertaining reads with very little staying power. Good gads, we hardly need a law that ensures we remain exposed to his books.

I'm all for these books--I read them, enjoy them and whatnot. I like romance, I like thriller, I like genre that is fluff. But Amazon not discounting a few titles or making Hachette ship them instead of them buying and warehousing is hardly a trauma. I'd hope that lawmakers have something better to do with their time. Who will hold hearings on baseball if Congress is off worrying about whether the masses have access to Patterson's books????

[DiapDealer]

Ludicrousness of the Writing Collective Entity known as "Patterson" defending literature aside; the "quality will suffer" argument just doesn't wash with me. It implies that "quality literature" can ONLY come about through traditional, status quo methods. It also implies that readers who are accustomed to a certain level of "quality" are going to suddenly be OK with crappy substitutes. I don't see the reading public at large suddenly embracing crap whole-heartedly. Unless, of course, you subscribe to the idea that the reading public already embraces crap. In which case, if "quality literature" has managed to eke out an existence despite the best-selling, popularity-contest game thus far, then why couldn't it continue to do so?

No, I'm guessing that the real reason behind all the big-name author barking is money, rather than quality. Not the money from their fans--they'll always be able to count on that. But rather the money that comes from the millions who automatically purchase whatever was currently scheduled for the full BPH campaign blitz this month (whether they read them or not).

An Aside: if I'm being truthful, I'd rather see that sort of thing disappear from the game entirely. As the game's currently being played, debut authors can generate millions of sales (and millions of dollars for publishers) long before any kind of public consensus concerning the quality of the work can be ascertained by the common reader. By the time the blitz is over and readers have spoken with a resounding; "meh," fortunes have been made (since the financial success of the venture was never left to chance).

The wrench in the whole works is that the BPH's so rarely hype the "quality" literature that everyone seems to be so concerned about losing (should tradpub fade), in the first place. They hype what they're fairly certain that they can get people to buy, not what they think will enrich people's lives and encourage enlightenment.

[BearMountainBooks]

He's just like Colbert. Taking the opportunity to get his name in the news.

[DiapDealer]

Yep. Cheaper than buying TV spots, I'm sure.