Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I've been finding harder it and harder to find really good SF and Fantasy books for close to 40 years now. In my opinion, the major publishers haven't been doing that good of a job of grooming their writers. There seems to be more a tendency to keep pushing the "established" writers long after their stuff has become stale. Kind of like movie studios pushing sequel after sequel or making a movie out of every lame TV show that ever existed.

Look to the SF bestseller lists and you'll find few new tradpub authors at the top; it is either old established veterans or indies.

It has been documented, too.

http://authorearnings.com/report/the...author-report/

[tompe]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

How?
Adobe shut down the authentication servers for the pdfs.
At most, Amazon could have given them a free pbook but they no longer had the right (or means) to distribute pdfs.

Give them the paper book and maybe also money so the customer can buy the ebook somewhere else.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tompe

Give them the paper book and maybe also money so the customer can buy the ebook somewhere else.

For something they didn't cause and that buyers were warned of for months ahead of time?
Not even Amazon is that customer-friendly.

At least with the LITs Microsoft kept the servers running for years after sales ended so the books remained useful for a decade-plus.
(And there was C-Lit.)

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by John F

As far as a can tell, so far, Amazon has been good for readers.

I agree with this, up until recently.

The biggest hurt to me, as a reader, in my lifetime, has come from the decline of newspapers. And Amazon has helped with that by providing a new revenue stream for newspapers. And they did this while also providing means for some readers who can't afford newspapers to get much of that content through Kindle 3G (up to the 3rd Kindle generation), and by creating a platform Calibre can build on.

Amazon also helped readers who like self-published literature to discover a lot more of it.

Amazon has also helped those readers who can afford to buy recently released trade books to get them at a somewhat lower price.

On the other hand, lack of cooperation with Overdrive library borrowing, outside the US, is a big hurt to less affluent readers. So is the refusal to allow library borrowing of titles to which Amazon has bought US rights, such as most James Bond books.

Power corrupts. Paul Krugman, the OP author, shows us how Amazon is being corrupted by power.

[eschwartz]

I may not like Amazon excluding OverDrive, but I do consider it fair tit-for-tat, considering the libraries will generally not consider buying the pbook.
Nor will paper booksellers stock them.

Not really surprising that Amazon considers their exclusive ebooks to be exclusively theirs.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I may not like Amazon excluding OverDrive, but I do consider it fair tit-for-tat, considering the libraries will generally not consider buying the pbook.

What titles are you thinking of?

This is famed for having been a high-advance commercial flop, but is still, in paper, in loads of libraries:

http://catalog.brooklynpubliclibrary...ch/i0547892624

Of course, no Overdrive.

Virtually all libraries have the James Bond books, in paper only because of Amazon, as a publisher, not cooperating with Overdrive, or 3M, or Axis 360. Most paper copies were purchased before Amazon got the rights, but I'd like to see your evidence that libraries refuse to replace copies as they wear out.

[disconnected]

I have some old prc books I bought from Mobipocket. After Amazon bought it and left it for dead I wrote to Amazon asking if there was any way to transfer the books to my Amazon account. They said no. I was much luckier with my ereader/Fictionwise books, almost all of which made it over to B&N.

It wasn't a lot of Mobipocket books, and I've since found Alf anyway, but it killed any warm fuzzies I might have felt for Amazon. I think Kindle books are much safer, but only because so many of them have been sold that there would be a giant uproar if they were abandoned.

[Dopedangel]

Most of you have gone off topic how about how Amazon has been good or bad for you. The article is not about how Amazon is effecting you the customer but publisher and authors that are the sellers. I have updated the link to the article.
As much as I hate publishers I have to agree that Amazon has too much power to make or break a new author. But I think partially the publishers themselves are to blame.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

What titles are you thinking of?

This is famed for having been a high-advance commercial flop, but is still, in paper, in loads of libraries:

http://catalog.brooklynpubliclibrary...ch/i0547892624

Of course, no Overdrive.

Virtually all libraries have the James Bond books, in paper only because of Amazon, as a publisher, not cooperating with Overdrive, or 3M, or Axis 360. Most paper copies were purchased before Amazon got the rights, but I'd like to see your evidence that libraries refuse to replace copies as they wear out.

I apologize I was talking about Amazon books in general.

I meant to say the pbook of Amazon exclusive titles in general will not be purchased by OverDrive and bookstores, the same way Amazon then refuses to offer the ebooks to OverDrive.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

Most of you have gone off topic how about how Amazon has been good or bad for you. The article is not about how Amazon is effecting you the customer but publisher and authors that are the sellers. I have updated the link to the article.
As much as I hate publishers I have to agree that Amazon has too much power to make or break a new author. But I think partially the publishers themselves are to blame.

As opposed to the BPHs making or breaking authors based on how much payola they budget to support their book? Or just plain breaking them by getting getting into a fight with a retailing chain and forbidding them to appear at signings they organized and paid for out of their own pocket? Or by sticking their books with horribly inappropriate covers? Or pricing them too high for their target market? Or colluding to depress royalties, limit bidding at manuscript autions, or any of the hundreds of ways tradpub has been screwing over others because they had a stranglehold on distribution?

That kind of power?

What I see is the publishing establishment fretting that Amazon *might* someday do what they have *certainly* been doing for decades. Because screwing authors is *their* privilege and they are not about to have it usurped by some techie company out somewhere in the hinterlands.

Perhaps someday Amazon will start acting like the Manhattan mafia and it will then by time to "do something" about them. But so far they haven't and there is no need.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

Most of you have gone off topic how about how Amazon has been good or bad for you. The article is not about how Amazon is effecting you the customer but publisher and authors that are the sellers. I have updated the link to the article.
As much as I hate publishers I have to agree that Amazon has too much power to make or break a new author. But I think partially the publishers themselves are to blame.

I don't quite get why you think Amazon is completely at fault here. It appears that Hatchette is trying to force its will on Amazon and Amazon is fighting back. And, considering the hyperbolic "bitch and moan" tactics Hatchette is using (by getting their buddies in the publishing business to back them) I'm guessing it's Hatchette who is unwilling to compromise. At any rate it's hardball negotiations, I guess we'll see who needs whom more, won't we?

[EowynCarter]

What's with all the rant against amazon these day ?

I don't really get it.

[tompe]

I thought the article was clear and convincing about what the problem is.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by tompe

I thought the article was clear and convincing about what the problem is.

So you were unconvinced going in and the article convinced you? Or did it simply confirm a bias you already held??

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

What's with all the rant against amazon these day ?

I don't really get it.

You are safely isolated by the big pond, but the gist of it, is there is an astroturfing campaign by the manhattan publishing establishment to get the US government to *pre-emptively* punish Amazon for competive crimes they haven't committed, market power they don't have and haven't abused, and increasing distribution fees on indie books they haven't increased, on the say so of whiny authors, misinformed or malicious celebrities, and "eminences" that should know better but are too beholden to their agejts and publishers to resist dinging their own careers and reputations for the greater glory of Hachette and the Manhattan collusion gang.

And, here's, the key: despite 6-plus months of that steady crap, Amazon's reputation with consumers is higher than ever, indie titles are selling better than ever, Amazon's competitors have done nothing to improve their bookstores (although Apple has done a lot to improve their Mac-only ebook creation tool), and ebook adoption is steadily marching on. Which is their real crime.

Amazon caters to consumers, not self-important millionaire authors; they promote ebooks based on what they think will sell, not what they're paid to shill, and they are constantly looking for ways to sell more ebooks and make more money for them and the publishers.

So, while Hachette has been stonewalling (while they try to set up their own ebookstore) for ten months and counting, without negotiating, the CEO of CBS, parent company of S&S, bypassed his own underlings and sat down to talk with Bezos *before* his contract expired.

They talked things over, moneygrubber to moneygrubber, and reached an understanding. S&S sent a proposal to Amazon, Amazon offered changes, and in three weeks they had their new distribution contract--a form of DOJ-sanctioned Agency Lite that lets Amazon discount--months ahead of schedule.

So head for cover: the crapstorm is about to get really ugly now.
Six months of campaigning undercut with one deal, leaving the astroturfers out on a limb. The whining is about to notch up even higher because evil Amazon "bullied" weak and vulnerable S&S into signing a bad deal.

The fruitless campaign rolls on.