Amazon’s Book Monopoly : A Threat to Freedom of Expression?

[darryl]

@dgatwood. Again with the anti-trust legal opinions. Please respond to my previous post https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=167

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

I guess I wasn't precise enough in that comment. Freedom of expression is not a right, except in the very limited context of the government not being allowed to limit it as a rule, so even though discoverability impacts your freedom of expression, it isn't a right, either.

However, competitors do have a right to exist and to be viable. When one company gets big enough to make competition infeasible (and Amazon is rapidly approaching that point), it impacts their right to make money by selling books (and thus expanding your books' reach). In that context, an antitrust judge would see limits on your books' discoverability as a symptom of a larger market distortion (violating the rights of their direct competitors) rather than a rights issue per se.

Of course, there's another legal approach that might actually make discoverability a more direct rights violation. Because Amazon sells books through its own self-publishing platform, it is serving as an agent of the publisher, which in effect makes it a publisher itself. This in effect means that it is competing with any publisher whose products are disallowed on Amazon's selling platform. This is stretching the definitions pretty thin, but there's a small possibility that such an argument might fly....

Please show me this right. I want to see it in writing.

Now Amazon has 3 million + ebooks.
Are you honestly saying that Amazon should make sure every book is visible to everyone.

[crossi]

Every book IS visible to everyone. If they look for it. Now if he was talking about the 10 or 20 books in each person's "recommended for you" section when you open Amazon.com even if they picked 20 books completely at random the chances of seeing some obscure particular book is pretty low, particularly if that section was random everybody would just skip by it as it would be useless to them. Dgatwood's whole argument is ridiculous.

Even physical bookstores didn't make every book equally visible, they couldn't there isn't enough floor space. They didn't even STOCK every book (or indies at all). Amazon at least stocks every book an author cares to make available.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by crossi

Darryl's whole argument is ridiculous.

@crossie. May I take it that you meant to refer to dgatwood's argument?

[crossi]

sorry, yes.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by crossi

sorry, yes.

Easily done. And, with this minor slip remedied, I strongly agree with you.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by crossi

Every book IS visible to everyone. If they look for it. Now if he was talking about the 10 or 20 books in each person's "recommended for you" section when you open Amazon.com even if they picked 20 books completely at random the chances of seeing some obscure particular book is pretty low, particularly if that section was random everybody would just skip by it as it would be useless to them. Dgatwood's whole argument is ridiculous.

Ah, but you're still assuming that people can see it if they are searching for it. In recent years, Amazon has become (for most people) the default search engine for books. As a result, anything not listed in Amazon's database might as well not exist, because most people won't find it even if they are searching for it. That's what I was talking about when I used the word "discoverability".

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

The exclusivity I was talking about has nothing to do with KDP Select. I was talking about the fact that it is impossible to ship the exact same Kindle book via Amazon's store and any third-party store because of a combination of Amazon's policy that submissions have to be produced with kindlegen and their policy that you can't use kindlegen to produce content for sale outside of Amazon's store.

Amazon don't have a policy that submissions have to be produced with Kindlegen. They only support mobi files created with Kindlegen, but they will also accept Word, HTML, ePub, RTF, plain text, PDF or Kindle Package Format (KPF) files. In fact, their "Supported Formats" page in the KDP help section recommends uploading Word or HTML files.

For best results, we recommend DOC/DOCX or HTML format.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Amazon don't have a policy that submissions have to be produced with Kindlegen. They only support mobi files created with Kindlegen, but they will also accept Word, HTML, ePub, RTF, plain text, PDF or Kindle Package Format (KPF) files. In fact, their "Supported Formats" page in the KDP help section recommends uploading Word or HTML files.

...and traditional publishers submit epub mostly. Maybe exclusively.

It isn't an issue anybody in publishing complains about: they submit whatever they want and Amazon delivers Kindle books. Everybody makes money. (Some more, some less.)

Even if they did require use of Kindlegen exclusively it would be no different than Apple requiring use of iBooks Author or Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft specifying which tools or development kits can be used to produce content for their systems.

For example:
http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-us/ed...amedevelopment

Standard business practice, nothing actionable.

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

Ah, but you're still assuming that people can see it if they are searching for it. In recent years, Amazon has become (for most people) the default search engine for books. As a result, anything not listed in Amazon's database might as well not exist, because most people won't find it even if they are searching for it. That's what I was talking about when I used the word "discoverability".

How do you know that Amazon has become most people default search engine for books?

I usually use Google for all my searching needs, including books (saves time navigating).

I doubt I'm the only one.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by ekbell

How do you know that Amazon has become most people default search engine for books?

I usually use Google for all my searching needs, including books (saves time navigating).

I doubt I'm the only one.

No, you are not the only one.

[DiapDealer]

I can't remember the last time I typed a book title into Amazon's search engine, actually.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I can't remember the last time I typed a book title into Amazon's search engine, actually.

I think I did 3 days ago but it wasn't to buy it.

[Dazrin]

I use the Reading Recommendations forum, my library (overdrive), Goodreads, and Google more than I use Amazon's search engine for finding books. I do often go to Amazon from those results but rarely start there. The exception is if I am looking for a specific book and I am already at Amazon, then it becomes the easiest way to get there.

[John F]

I use Amazon to search by title and author. If I'm interested in an author's bibliography, I'll use wiki (via Google).