The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So, the narrative falls apart rather quickly. Heck, even the $350 dedicated ebook reader narrative falls apart when you look at the actual prices of the various kindles. $350 is the price for a maxed out top of the line eBook reader. One can buy a basic kindle for $120.

I don't have time at the moment for a point by point rebuttal, but the $350 price was clearly referring to the 2007 to 2009 time frame.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I don't have time at the moment for a point by point rebuttal, but the $350 price was clearly referring to the 2007 to 2009 time frame.

Doesn't particularly matter. That was some 13 years ago and prices came down rapidly. Amazon was always about selling content, not making money on the devices. The whole point about $10 eBooks was to force a price point on the publishers, not to sell more Kindles.

[rcentros]

It seems to be the article writer's point of view that Apple's and the Big 5 Publishers' collusion "shunted" the eBook revolution. I think the real issue is that young people simply aren't reading many books any more. It's all blogs and social media. Personally I think selling eBooks for more than paper books is shortsighted and a missed opportunity. But I'm rehashing what I've said elsewhere.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Doesn't particularly matter. That was some 13 years ago and prices came down rapidly. Amazon was always about selling content, not making money on the devices. The whole point about $10 eBooks was to force a price point on the publishers, not to sell more Kindles.

It does matter. At that time, over 10 years ago, people were posting that they were expecting savings on ebooks over pbooks to render their device essentially free in less than a year or that it had already paid for itself.

[DiapDealer]

I never expected to recoup my $329 (Kindle 2US) in ebook savings. Cheaper books is not why I bought in. I enjoyed $9.99 best-sellers while they lasted, but ebooks were typically the same price as their print counterparts before the first Kindles, and then they were typically a little bit cheaper after agency. Cheap ebooks for everyone wasn't actually the motivator for adoption that people want to remember it being. At least not for everyone anyway.

[binaryhermit]

I find it interesting that /. posted about this spinning it as blaming Apple's conspiracy (fair) and millenials (which I consider unfair)

Also, aren't KDP-published books generally sold under the agency model when sold in ebook form, yet they're generally significantly cheaper than their dead tree counterparts?

EDIT: I also suspect that the move to agency allowed Amazon to profit on ebooks, which let them sell kindles near cost whereas they used to almost have to have the kindles subsidize the books they often sold at a loss?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Lparsons21

Yeah, 20% is nothing to sneeze at! If for no other reason, ebooks have made self-publishing available to budding authors.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

And 20% is only for the ebook-hostile multinational publishers.
The real number, once Indies and hybrids are factored in is probably closer to a third of the market. And that still doesn't include Oyster, Kindle Unlimited, and whatever Kobo has managed to snag for *their* rentals.
Or library ebook distribution, which must be significant given the ongoing attempts to stifle it by at least one multinational.

Besides, that reported 20% is by revenue at the multinational publishers, where ebooks are priced to hurt. As pointed out, Indies and Hybrids are much lower (typically $2.99-$4.99, depending on genre) so real world unit sales willbe much higher. In fact, the last publicly reported numbers had ebooks holding 80% of romance sales (all those backlist and hybrid Harlequin refugees!) and nearly two thirds of SF&F.

It should also be noted that in SF&F the BPHs have taken to heavy discounting of their deep backlist, so even their 20% by revenue understates reality.

Not that 20% is trivial, it isn't; just that it is the tip of a much bigger unreported iceberg.

Also, since I'm at it: tying ebook sales to ereader sales totally ignores all the reading happening on phones, tablets, and PCs.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

It does matter. At that time, over 10 years ago, people were posting that they were expecting savings on ebooks over pbooks to render their device essentially free in less than a year or that it had already paid for itself.

I'm not sure what alternate reality you are channeling, but it certainly isn't the reality that I lived through. People who want cheap books can get books a lot cheaper than Amazon's $9.99 price point. What they couldn't do is get NYT best seller books cheap before the paperback edition came out.

Apple didn't enter the market until Spring of 2010. The Kindle hit the market in November of 2007 (I bought one for Christmas that year to go with the Sony PRS-500 that I bought the previous year). So Amazon had some two and a half years for customers to recoup those initial $350 prices. In 2010, a new Wi-Fi only Kindle cost $139. By 2011, you could by an ad supported kindle for $79. So, agency pricing and $350 Kindles never existed at the same time.

For some reason, some people seem to think that digital books should be dirt cheap and that none of the normal expenses of producing a book should apply to eBooks. The only expense that doesn't apply to eBooks is the actual printing, binding and storage cost. Amazon actually changed the dynamics of storage cost quite a bit. Once again, if you want cheap books, you can buy them. The current indie price point for authors who produce books on a monthly basis seems to be around $3-$4 bucks.

The whole Agency pricing is to blame for eBooks not taking over the book market simply ignores a lot of dynamics with regards to the reading market in general.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

Also, aren't KDP-published books generally sold under the agency model when sold in ebook form, yet they're generally significantly cheaper than their dead tree counterparts?

EDIT: I also suspect that the move to agency allowed Amazon to profit on ebooks, which let them sell kindles near cost whereas they used to almost have to have the kindles subsidize the books they often sold at a loss?

To the first: Amazon's original KDP terms were a 50-50 split between them and Indies. They switched to 30-70 in november 2009 when their stool pigeons inside the conspiracy warned them of the Apple terms. At that time Indie ebooks were a very small part of the nascent Kindle business. The Agency pricing then triggered a gold rush of authors dusting off their reverted backlst. Especially in romance where Harlequin's policy of reversion-on-request lasted until they were sold off. Once reports of writers making more in one month of ebook sales than in the book's entire pbook run surfaced, it was off to the races. Other genre writers followed suit.

To the second: yes and no. Near-cost ereader pricing was indeed another of the indirect results of the conspiracy but it wasn't Amazon's idea: it was B&N that triggered it, thinking somehow they could undercut Amazon's Kindle 2 when their reader cost more to build.

https://www.manufacturing.net/indust...uts-nook-price

https://www.fastcompany.com/1662394/...-nook-and-ipad

It is easy to forget that Amazon's immediate response was to drop prices and undercut tbe Nook reader price...with refurbs and ads. It took them months, until the K3 came out, to actually undercut Nook at $149. And that was with their near-exclusive Pearl screens. *That* was the turning point for Kindle.
Before the agency-inspired B&N price cut, Nook had gone from zero to a quarter of the market and Amazon had gone from 90% of a tiny market (tens of thousands of units of the K1) to 55% of a much bigger market. When K3 came out they started selling by the million.

So yes, Agency fostered both Indies and cheap ereaders, as well as walled gardens and the marginalization of interoperability as a selling point. The latter ended up *helping* amazon and hurting buyers.

Two added points:

First, the Kindle ads got Amazon's foot in the door of ad sales, which has beome a multibillion dollar business for them across readers, tablets, video, and online. And rapidly growing to the point it now outstrips the book side. Law of unintended consequences at work.

Second, Amazon has *never* lost money on ebook sales. DOJ said it. And so do teardown analyses of tbe various Kindles. Fully documented. The first Kindles sold at 40-55% markups which was the going rate set by Sony. When B&N switched to near cost, the Kindle 2 was at $259 and with hours moved to $199 which was still $10-30 above build cost calculated by teardowns. Even today, Kindle prices follow Kobo, usually higher without ads. Essentially, they're back to market pricing and with 30-40% markups on the sales.

When Amazon first hit $99 the teardown cost came in at...$96. Just enough to stay clear of the law, which Amazon's book side has been scrupulously obeying to the letter.

The myth of Amazon selling books below cost comes from two misunderstandings propagated by bookstores: the first is that Amazon gets their books direct from the publishers so their price only reflects the profit margin of the publisher and Amazon (no middleman distributor, aka, Ingram, adding their profit) and *publishers'* volume discount policies. So yes, Amazon often sells books below the cost on physical booksellers...but not below *their* costs. The second is a misunderstanding of basket pricing and loss leader sales, which is a standard and totally legal traffic generator practice. Losses in the sale of one book leading to increased sales of another. The perfect example are the FIRST READS, Prime monthly titles, where each nominally free to the reader book (PRIME actually pays for those books) generate added consumer sales for those books as well as others. In basket sales, one unit sold cheap or nominally free, generates further full price sales (think BOGO deals) that generate a net profit. Lots of retailers all over do it.

The thing is Amazon has a big footprint and they think outside the standard retail box. The best example being the PEARL screen limited exclusive. They had almost a year as the only source of those (ahem) clearly superior eink screens. They got that by helping finance the factory that made them via an upfront payment to eInk. eInk got their new product line to market sooner, Amazon and Sony, got first dibs. Sony underestimated tge market and sold out right away but Amazon rrad it correctly. So while others were sellibg 30,000 units a year and bragging of it, Amazon was quietly selling 4-5 million a year.

With their size and volume discounts they don't need to sell below cost to undercut most competitors. They don't go out of their way to prove it because "Amazon sells below cost!" ) is great marketing. Useful.

Wity enemies like these Amazon barely needs friends.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by shalym

Actually, you can buy a basic Kindle for $89.99 with ads, or $109.99 without, so even *cheaper*.

Shari

And that is before the regular holiday ads.
Valentines, mother's day, memorial day, labor day, turkey day, etc.
They even invented Prime day to fill in the summer months.

It doesn't take much waiting to get a $69 Kindle.
For that matter the 7in/8in tablets have the Kindle app built-in.
And those regularly hit as low as $30.

The barrier to entry into the ebook world is very, very low.
You just have to want it.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I think the real issue is that young people simply aren't reading many books any more.

There's also cheap video streaming (a month of Netflix is cheaper than a single corporate ebook) and "free" ad-supported streaming services, games and game subscriptions (a month of XBOX GAME PASS is $10), as well as tons of readily available public domain and fan fiction for those that do read.

Population has grown significantly but the traditional publishing world hasn't.
In reality it has shrunk significantly and was shrinking before ebooks: the business has been consolidating since the 80's so where once there were hundreds of publishers from NYC and Boston alone we are down to dozens, with the 5 biggest hiding their decline by buying the smaller ones regularly.

What ebooks have done is bring in thousands upon thousands of books to market, both old and new. That is resulting in a Darwinian dilution of sales. this is reflected in the increasingly lower numbers need to reach the so-called bestseller lists and the ever shorter stays on them.

The total number of readers is growing but not as fast as the number of good books out there. Even in the smaller genres it is physically impossible for anybody to read all the great books released in a single year, which used to be doable into the 70's for SF.

The revolution did come, it's all around us.
It just didn't take the form pundits expected.

And that is just ebooks.
There is a somewhat older parallel revolution in *used* pbook sales onlne.
Whole 'nother ness for tradpubs.

[Greg Anos]

The same holds true for music.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

EDIT: I also suspect that the move to agency allowed Amazon to profit on ebooks, which let them sell kindles near cost whereas they used to almost have to have the kindles subsidize the books they often sold at a loss?

I think cheap Kindles came before Apple's collusion. I think it was driven by competition with Barnes & Noble, who had lowered the price on their Nooks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/t.../29kindle.html

I think it was about a year after this announcement that the sub-$100 Kindle 4 (no touch) came out (with ads). Still before the Apple mess.

https://ebookfriendly.com/timeline-kindle-history/

September 28, 2011

Kindle 4 is launched

Amazon’s newest 4th-generation Kindle e-reader is the first one without the full-size keyboard. It sports five buttons and a cursor pad instead. The device is 30% lighter and 18% smaller than Kindle 3.

The silver-gray e-reader is considerably cheaper than its predecessor. The version with special offers costs only $79.

Reduction in size and price was achieved at the cost of the internal memory. The new device offers 2 GB compared to 4 GB of Kindle Keyboard. The device doesn’t support audiobooks and doesn’t have a headphone jack or built-in speakers.

Before that time (according to Amazon) eBooks were outselling all print books (hardbacks and paperbacks) combined.

October 25, 2010

Amazon reveals that in the past 30 days the customers purchased more Kindle books than print books (hardcover and paperback combined) for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books.

[binaryhermit]

It seems that Apple launched their bookstore in late April 2010 (EDIT and the publishers had shoved agency down Amazon's throat by then as a result of collusion with Apple), it could be argued that kindles got "cheap" with the Kindle 3 later that year ($139).

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

It seems that Apple launched their bookstore in late April 2010 (EDIT and the publishers had shoved agency down Amazon's throat by then as a result of collusion with Apple), it could be argued that kindles got "cheap" with the Kindle 3 later that year ($139).

You're right. Somehow I got it through my head that Apple's collusion began in 2012, but I guess that's when the court case got fired up. My mistake.