Latest Authors United letter to Amazon Board

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Those aren't lonely, quirky, painful endeavors.
.

Yeah, because musicians, photographers, fashion designers, directors, actors, are lower forms of life whose creativity pales before the glory of the AU gang.
After all, *they* are important!
There has never been as important assemblage anywhere at any time.
They said so themselves.

Everybody else is an assembly line hack or, worse, foreign...

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Which leads to - BPHs aren't special snowflakes either.

OMG, you take that back!

[Barcey]

Amazon has every right to refuse to sell consumer goods in response to a pricing disagreement with a wholesaler. But books are not mere consumer goods. Books cannot be written more cheaply, nor can authors be outsourced to another country. Books are not toasters or televisions. Each book is the unique, quirky creation of a lonely, intense, and often expensive struggle on the part of a single individual, a person whose living depends on his or her book finding readers.

It made me laugh that James Patterson signed off on this. Maybe it was one of his ghostwriters. He really has no shame.

I'm sorry but as soon as you put a price on it and toss it in a bargain bin it's a mere consumer good. I think that was done long before Amazon was an eeeeeevil glint in Bezos's eye.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by lovewisdom

The only real winner is Amazon, always. Amazon manipulates and manages its website networks to quench down nearly all competitors and opponents, then good for itself for money sucking.

Yes, I can see how Amazon's website networks quenched, say, that BWM competitor ebookstore.

Or any other competitors who are fully capable of making their own website as good as Amazon's (well, except for the lack of interest).

P.S. What is "quench down" and how is it different from "quench"? Also, which competitors have been quenched, and by whom?

Originally Posted by lovewisdom

So called customers are only Amazon's hostages to get more and more profits from others. Amazon is run for its money, not for the people or so-called customers. Don't be blinded or fooled by Amazon's business strategies.

zOMG. Please don't forget to retrieve your tinfoil hat on the way out.

Okay, then. What makes Amazon different from any other company of any description on the planet? Or is it just Amazon that lacks an altruistic desire to serve culture?

Amazon is a business. Businesses are created as a mechanism of selling things. Selling things implies profit.

In fact, Amazon is somewhat unusual in that it does that by being good for the so-called "so-called" customers.

(What does that mean anyway? Are they not buying things from Amazon? Do you have a different dictionary which says customer is not "one who purchases" or (Wiki) "recipient of a good, service, product, or idea, obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier for a monetary or other valuable consideration")

[crossi]

Yes, that bit about "so called customers" is puzzling. I pick out an item, send Amazon some money and they send me my purchase. Isn't that sort of the definition of customer? If I am not a customer what am I?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by crossi

Yes, that bit about "so called customers" is puzzling. I pick out an item, send Amazon some money and they send me my purchase. Isn't that sort of the definition of customer? If I am not a customer what am I?

Apparently a "hostage". I really would love to know though, just what am I supposed to be a hostage to? Amazon never forces me to buy anything, I go out of my way to order there

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Sure, there are a handful of people who buy "generic books", some of whom are quite vocal here, but they are outliers.

So some people (who buy generic books - whatever that is) are consumers, but the other not? So we do not only have things that are selled but not consumer products but also two kinds of book buyers: One enlightened species and the profane "consumer".

[fjtorres]

There actually is a GENERIC BOOK.
http://www.amazon.com/Generic-Studie.../dp/0226092917

Not terribly popular (Ranked in the 8M range with your typical philosophy treatises) but the Au gang would approve of the pricing.

Btw, anybody notice which element the important group's initials point to?
No mistake there...

[RDaneel54]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There actually is a GENERIC BOOK.
http://www.amazon.com/Generic-Studie.../dp/0226092917

Not terribly popular (Ranked in the 8M range with your typical philosophy treatises).

I always thought generics were cheaper! Good golly, is that expensive.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

I always thought generics were cheaper! Good golly, is that expensive.

Obviously it is Aurum-plated, just like the Preston gang.
Truly precious...

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Disconnect? Not really. It seems obvious to me that what the authors mean is that books are not consumer goods from the stand point that people do not go out and buy generic books. They go out and buy the latest J.K. Rowlings or whomever is their favorite author. Sure, there are a handful of people who buy "generic books", some of whom are quite vocal here, but they are outliers. There are some genres where the author isn't nearly as important as the imprint. The old Harlequin romance novels are prime examples, but by in large, the people are looking for something specific when they buy a book. The majority of the time, it's the author's name. That's why authors can move between publishers and people still buy their books at more or less the same rate.

So..... Romances are generic books? Is Science Fiction generic? Is Fantasy generic? Or is just those special snowflakes that signed that special letter to BOD that have **REAL** non-generic books. You are one condescending piece of work.

Because, you know those generic books are making a shitload of money for the publishers. Kameron Hurley reports on her blog that even though she sold out her first run of paper books on her latest novel, she's saying that 70% of her sales are ebooks. But that's just genre generic. Doesn't mean anything. Right?

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I *would* be interested in knowing how a copy of any book is any different from a CD, DVD, game disk, poster, or piece of clothing (say a baseball cap with a team logo).

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Yeah, because musicians, photographers, fashion designers, directors, actors, are lower forms of life whose creativity pales before the glory of the AU gang.

[truncated]

To be fair, I can enjoy and appreciate Asian or French musicians, photographers, fashion designers, directors, and actors as is. I can wear Asian made baseball caps. I can enjoy French wine. However, I cannot read books written in Chinese or French. Personally, those books have little value to me. Doesn't mean they are less important or their creators are "lower forms of life." There are certain things I'd rather not have farmed out and English language books/authors are one of them.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Barcey

I'm sorry but as soon as you put a price on it and toss it in a bargain bin it's a mere consumer good.

Books are different because of the risk of censorship of ideas. If Amazon used it's market power to discourage sales of books with ideas Jeff Bezos dislikes, that would be a big problem to me.

But, while respecting it, I don't quite share the Authors United outrage. That's because Amazon's discouragement of buying many Hachette products is a business decision, not an ideological one. Exhibit A is The Everything Store, a Hachette book that an Amazon spokesperson has denounced because of its content, and supposed disrespect to Mrs. Bezos. So how it is treated at Amazon.com? Well, at least tonight, the hardcover ships immediately, and the eBook price (US$9.99) is reasonable compared to others.

Take this you anti-specialness Amazon-lovers: Amazon itself treats books as special. If Amazon treated publishers the way it treats laptop manufacturers like Apple, the only way you could buy a Hachette title at Amazon would be through a third-party vendor.

Amazon would be treating Hachette way worse if its executives weren't thinking that books are special.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There actually is a GENERIC BOOK.
http://www.amazon.com/Generic-Studie.../dp/0226092917

Not terribly popular (Ranked in the 8M range with your typical philosophy treatises) but the Au gang would approve of the pricing.

Btw, anybody notice which element the important group's initials point to?
No mistake there...

http://www.sff.net/people/lucy-snyde...ric-books.html

Even more generic than that. Plain black and white covers.

http://custardandclues.blogspot.com/...s-mystery.html

Greg

[darryl]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Books are different because of the risk of censorship of ideas. If Amazon used it's market power to discourage sales of books with ideas Jeff Bezos dislikes, that would be a big problem to me.

But, while respecting it, I don't quite share the Authors United outrage. That's because Amazon's discouragement of buying many Hachette products is a business decision, not an ideological one. Exhibit A is The Everything Store, a Hachette book that an Amazon spokesperson has denounced because of its content, and supposed disrespect to Mrs. Bezos. So how it is treated at Amazon.com? Well, at least tonight, the hardcover ships immediately, and the eBook price (US$9.99) is reasonable compared to others.

Take this you anti-specialness Amazon-lovers: Amazon itself treats books as special. If Amazon treated publishers the way it treats laptop manufacturers like Apple, the only way you could buy a Hachette title at Amazon would be through a third-party vendor.

Amazon would be treating Hachette way worse if its executives weren't thinking that books are special.

Oxford Dictionary Definition
CENSORSHIP
The practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts: details of the visit were subject to military censorship.

Even if Amazon were to refuse to sell Hachette titles, which they have not done, risk of censorship is quite simply not an issue. The situation is no different in this way from the BWM's rejection of manuscripts when their oligopoly was effectively the only game in town. And Amazon is not the only game in town. Such rejections were not always on the basis of lack of quality. But where were the protests that not publishing these books carried the risk of the censorship of ideas? That the BWM had to publish because of this risk? Well, you should rejoice that these "censored" ideas can now fly free, liberated in no small part due to Amazon's fostering of self publishing.

As for Amazon treating books as special, I would certainly hope so. But your use of special here is not in the same sense as used by the publishers. I think books, or at least some of them, are special. On this reading forum I'm sure we have few if any who don't think books, or at least some books, are special. A good friend of mine names her motorbike and thinks it is special. Others regard their cars or computers or any number of other consumer products as special. This does not make them special snowflakes. Sharing a characteristic with other consumer goods logically prevents the bestowal of special snowflake status, unless, of course, the other goods sharing that characteristic are also accorded such status.