Online petition over library ebook embargo

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I also pointed out that the books not being sold under an agency contract have a price point fairly close to the agency price, which tells me that's pretty much the market price point for most ebooks.

The average selling price for Big-5 eBooks is the same as for others?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The average selling price for Big-5 eBooks is the same as for others?

If you do an apples to apples comparison, yes, it's pretty close, at least among the authors that I read.

There appears to be a misapprehension that under the agency model, all Big-5 ebooks are priced the same. They aren't. Books can vary in price quite a bit depending on how they are selling. One sees that among indie books as well. You do have to be careful to make sure it's an apple and apple comparison and that you aren't trying to compare the price of some 200 page novella for an author who churns out a book every month with the price of a regularly sized book from an author who puts out one or two books a year.

Of course, indies set their own prices as well, there just isn't the outrage over it that there is when the big-5 does it. Apple allows app developers to set their own prices as well, once again to a lack of outrage. Amazon's ebook store model is actually a lot closer to a flea market model than it is to a regular store.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Very few goods use an agency price model. The agency price model was adopted because Amazon was using the profit in their other lines of business to subsidize selling e-books at below cost in order to set a price point, something they could do with their overwhelming share of the ebook market. As I pointed out, once Amazon had driven much of their competition out of the market, they were quite willing to let publishers set the price.

I also pointed out that the books not being sold under an agency contract have a price point fairly close to the agency price, which tells me that's pretty much the market price point for most ebooks.

Bingo. Amazon has a $500 eReader device to sell...and taking a loss on the entire NYT's best seller list allowed them to buy the market. This is quite different than Target or Costco using the latest Harry Potter book as a loss leader to get people into their stores.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

That is exactly true for pBooks as well, yet they are sold as normal items.
Agency pricing for eBooks exists because it is technologically (and therefore legally) possible. The publishers would prefer to fix prices for pBooks as well, as they used to do, but it is illegal to do so through fixed retail pricing. The law has not caught up with the technology.

I also can't read an ebook from Amazon on a non Amazon approved device/app. At least without additional tools which circumvent DRM and are, at best, in a grey area of the law.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Fictionwise was bought out well before agency, and was thus clearly not doing well, you assert they folded because of agency but only cite that they were shut down after agency pricing had been established, and was being contested.

Hardly damning evidence of agency putting the smaller sellers out of business, since though FictionWise may have been a smaller seller before the buyout they were part of a larger seller before and during agency pricing.

As to BooksOnBoard, I'd be willing to bet not paying publishers would lead to those publishers being rather displeased with you. Again hardly the smoking gun for agency being the nail in BoB.

Of course this ignores that the initial statement was smaller sellers had mostly gone under or been bought out before agency pricing. A point you gloss over as you move the goalposts.

Fictionwise wasn't bought because they were doing poorly. They were bought because B&N wanted their eReader type DRM to use for their eBooks. Fictionwise was doing well until agency made them have to change how they did business.

Shops that had rewards, clubs, sales, and other business models were hit hard when agency came to be. Agency did cause some eBook store dto go under.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

I also can't read an ebook from Amazon on a non Amazon approved device/app. At least without additional tools which circumvent DRM and are, at best, in a grey area of the law.

Not every eBook on Amazon has DRM. Baen, Tor, Star Trek (From S&S) all have no DRM if downloaded in Mobi or KF8. So your blanket statement is only partly correct.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Fictionwise wasn't bought because they were doing poorly. They were bought because B&N wanted their eReader type DRM to use for their eBooks. Fictionwise was doing well until agency made them have to change how they did business.

Shops that had rewards, clubs, sales, and other business models were hit hard when agency came to be. Agency did cause some eBook store dto go under.

Again shifting those goal posts, first it was agency was the death of all those stores, ignoring buyouts, then it was okay some got bought out but the others died because of agency, now it's some were pushed under.

And you're still ignoring that as it stands now, Amazon would still crush any storefront trying to start up because without agency they'd price ebooks at a loss, again, and wait things out.

You want to cherry pick that stores went under while agency pricing was being abused, but ignore that Amazon who has dominated ebook sales didn't use agency pricing at the time.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Not every eBook on Amazon has DRM. Baen, Tor, Star Trek (From S&S) all have no DRM if downloaded in Mobi or KF8. So your blanket statement is only partly correct.

Fair, I'll amend it to the majority of ebooks available from Amazon, or Kobo, are locked to their ecosystem for some formats. And for other formats everything is locked away.

And as I've seen you argue there's no reason for Amazon to have moved to KFX other than locking books to their ecosystem I'm sure you'd agree that Amazon clearly is trying to prevent users from migrating to other devices and readers.

[issybird]

Several posts have been deleted. Members need to take private spats to PM. Back-and-forths with constant repetition of the same point and involving veiled personal attacks are irritating and distracting to other members. Moreover, that tactic that tries to cut off a discussion by saying it's off-topic or has hijacked the thread in order to get in the last comment is obvious. Make your point, and if the discussion has drifted off-topic, make that the end to it yourself. Don't keep coming back and fanning the flames.

[Fbone]

My library has a banner on their website announcing that starting November 1st they will no longer purchase ebooks published by Macmillan.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Fbone

My library has a banner on their website announcing that starting November 1st they will no longer purchase ebooks published by Macmillan.

This seems like the library is shooting themselves in the foot. And I'd think everyone in this thread would agree that this is a bad decision, unless they care to argue its the library playing chicken with the publishers. In which case I'd think the publisher would win.

Look at it from the publishers view they have the following

Library Patrons who only ever borrow books (nothing can be done about this group they'll just borrow a different book)

Library Patrons who would wait 'x' period of time before buying (obvious solution is inflating the wait time)

Library Patrons who borrow or buy on a whim (price changes, or wait times may help influence them who knows)

The library by not buying Macmillan books has removed the choice for two of those three groups, and 100% of the people who Macmillan wants to influence into buying the book.

Yes there's the chance for readers to try to boycott Macmillan to change their policy which I'm sure is the goal of the library in question, but statistically most people end up breaking these sorts of boycotts over time. They may not intend to, but as time passes and things don't change, and you don't have other sources (which you wouldn't for a particular author), you end up giving in.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Fbone

My library has a banner on their website announcing that starting November 1st they will no longer purchase ebooks published by Macmillan.

Very interesting. We will see how that shakes out. If Macmillan ignores this threat they may end up with their wish of only having sales to readers left going forward. Are they going to make more or less money?

[John F]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

This seems like the library is shooting themselves in the foot. And I'd think everyone in this thread would agree that this is a bad decision, unless they care to argue its the library playing chicken with the publishers. In which case I'd think the publisher would win.

...

I don't agree it is a bad decision, and I don't care to argue that the libraries are playing chicken.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by John F

I don't agree it is a bad decision, and I don't care to argue that the libraries are playing chicken.

Would you care to elaborate as to why on either of these?

[John F]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Would you care to elaborate as to why on either of these?

Would you care to answer my question a couple of posts back?