Amazon pulls MacMillan?

[DawnFalcon]

"it means those nets are not illuminated for common web tools"

Um, no. It comes from the "Darknet paper". There's absolutely nothing there about common web tools.

Google indexes half of them, and uTorrent and eMule index most of the rest. And basically every single one of the generation now teens? They get them. They've grown up with ubiquitous computers. The older people who don't are a shrinking market.

It's the bear in the closet which publishers with their instance on DRM are refusing to acknowledge is there.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by kjk

More authors chime in:
Tobias Buckell
http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2010/01...le-via-amazon/

Read the article. Then skim down to comment 44:



The red text is Buckell commenting on the comments.

Then take a quick look at:



(The rebate is because the book is on sale right now, part of FW's store-wide sale on fantasy.)

Compare that to:



Then decide who isn't "telling the truth, pure and simple."

For the record, I don't think it's Buckell - he's just posting without checking his facts and generally being an asshole, and those are forgiveable sins. It speaks volume's to Macmillan's sincerity, though.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

Considering publishers ask retailers to throw out books rather than return them, I'm not surprised.

With paperbacks the retailer cuts off the cover (usually referred to as "stripping") and sends it back to the publisher for a full refund; hardcovers, having a higher price point, get returned intact, then dumped (either in landfills or on remainder tables, depending).

On average, between thirty and forty percent of all books printed get returned; a return rate of under 15% is considered superb.

[BWhite]

I am not picking sides in this price war.

I am still waiting for the day when you purchase Device XY3, you browse the web on Device XY3 and go to online Book Retailer BCD (who manufactures no device because he/she/it is in the book business, not the electronics business), and then you make your purchase and the volume appears on your device.

You start reading your book.

I know where this perspective comes from - I used to support a web retailer (we sold physical goods). DRM and fighting-over-turf is making this future world a distant thing.

I am not an Apple Fan-Boy (currently only 'own' Quicktime), but looks to me as though Apple is one of a group of folks hacking a path in 2010 towards the world I envision and would like to live in. And yes, some things Apple is doing I do not agree with.

This price war is a sideshow to me and would be relevant IF the already-purchased volumes had been pulled, which would have messed up the vision of 'cloud computing' that some pundits are touting.

I can see how this price war is making for a lousy February for the authors.

[BWhite]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

"it means those nets are not illuminated for common web tools"

Um, no. It comes from the "Darknet paper". There's absolutely nothing there about common web tools.

Okay, thank you for your definition of how you are using the term.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_%28file_sharing%29

http://www.informationweek.com/news/..._IW_daily_html

[DawnFalcon]

Let's see... yea, from the google link:

"A darknet refers to any type of closed, private group of people communicating; however, since 2002[1], the term has evolved to more specifically refer to file sharing networks in general, whether that network is private or readily accessible to the public. The phrase "the darknet" is used to refer collectively to all covert communication networks."

Thanks for agreeing with me

[guyanonymous]

I'm surprised though, as one of the oldest 'resources' for the darknet that is one of the most useful specifically for books, has never been mentioned in the threads I've read on here - IRC.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by BWhite

Now the consumer base for a Sci-Fi author... I will grant you much higher rates.

In my (informal; I don't really feel like sitting down and doing a detailed statistical analysis) study of genre availability on the darknets, you're half-right: as a genre, SF/F dominates heavily.

Looking a little more closely, we find that the overwhelming majority of the SF being shared is scanned-and-OCRed copies of books that aren't commercially available as e-books (or in some cases weren't when the original scan work was done - copies of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy had been kicking around for at least ten years before the commercial electronic release).

So far about what you'd expect, yes? Where it threw me for a loop was in the runner-up genre:

Romance novels. At a ballpark guess, they're about 15% of what's out there (at least in the sites I looked at). And what's more, pretty much all of those titles are DRM-stripped commercial releases.

Make of that what you will.

[Acreo Aeneas]

We're overlooking something very important in all this "price war" business: costs vs. profit.

I can understand pricing dead-tree books at $15+ dollars in order to cover the printing costs, paper, and shipping costs. However, I don't see any justification in using the same pricing model for a digital version (aka ebooks). There's no shipping cost, no printing costs, saves trees, and after the 2nd/3rd editing is done, they can just upload the whole slew and sell them at a webstore. Profit is practically 90%+ and publishers have the option of selling directly from their own sites bypassing retailers.

Those webstores don't cost anywhere near as much as printing and shipping a dead-tree book. You can easily run a webstore with a decent support team and a few thousand a year (dedicated box and e-commerce software).

Pricing should reflect costs, not be arbitrary jacked up to justify some publisher's monetary greed because they think they're big, bad, and can get away with it.

If publishers are really so scared of losing profits, they shouldn't be. With prices dropping on the hardware, I'm see more and more ebook reader owners out there (not just on the forums but also commuting in downtown Chicago). Since I've bought my ebook reader, I've bought more books in a shorter amount of time than I would have if I were buying dead-tree books. I see a increase in sales rather than a decrease or profit loss for the publishers.

[BWhite]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Let's see... yea, from the google link:

"A darknet refers to any type of closed, private group of people communicating; however, since 2002[1], the term has evolved to more specifically refer to file sharing networks in general, whether that network is private or readily accessible to the public. The phrase "the darknet" is used to refer collectively to all covert communication networks."

Thanks for agreeing with me

Lol!

I agree Darknet has multiple definitions, and you threw back one of those definitions. Truthfully, watching your posts I was half expecting this.

Anyway have a nice day and enjoy your RPG's. As I stated, not involved in this price war. Just feel sympathy for the authors.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

I'm surprised though, as one of the oldest 'resources' for the darknet that is one of the most useful specifically for books, has never been mentioned in the threads I've read on here - IRC.

First rule of IRC is we don't talk about IRC.

[guyanonymous]

Actually, I think that IRC is what spawned the term darknet in a roundabout way.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

I didn't know that specifically, no.

Considering publishers ask retailers to throw out books rather than return them, I'm not surprised. Seeing dumpsters full of pocketbooks without their covers in the past, behind the malls I worked in, that really disgusted me. The government might as well pay farmers to throw away excess food...oh wait.

What a ludicrous system.

That is correct, authors make no money on remainders; the publishers sell them to third-party resellers for a buck or two a book, just to try to cut their losses on copies that aren't likely to sell at retail. Authors are usually offered copies of their own books at the remainder price, and I usually buy a couple of hundred when the time comes (all too soon).

As for paperbacks being stripped and pulped, the reason for that is that it's too costly to ship them back and restock them in a warehouse, plus they might no longer be in condition to sell. It's wasteful, yes--but the alternative is higher fuel costs, higher warehousing costs, and more expensive books.

[guyanonymous]

Perhaps legislating for everyone to switch to e-book readers could help our countries meet those carbon reductions!

I knew about the cost savings....it's still disgusting to me. Donate that "garbage" to literacy programs, charities, etc, who can then resell them to benefit others.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

I didn't know that specifically, no.

Considering publishers ask retailers to throw out books rather than return them, I'm not surprised. Seeing dumpsters full of pocketbooks without their covers in the past, behind the malls I worked in, that really disgusted me. The government might as well pay farmers to throw away excess food...oh wait.

What a ludicrous system.

Imagine being the one stripping them and throwing them away. I never got that practice. I understood why they didn't donate them, and I guess shipping them back and storing them was costlier, but man, that's a lot of waste.