Amazon gets exclusivity deal

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

And that seriously annoys me.
At least for game, it can be justified by the porting costs...

Assuming you can port. Current games tend to be graphics intensive, and are often written for specific hardware. One of the things gaming console manufacturers compete for is developer interest. You're a games developer. You make your living creating games that will sell. What platform will give you the most exposure and best chance of success?

Serious gamers normally have more than one console, so they aren't locked into what is available for a particular platform.

The video game industry strongly resembles the film industry. Current games tend to be time consuming and enormously expensive to develop, and if your latest and greatest game that took years and cost millions to develop tanks, well, so does your studio.
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Dennis

[EowynCarter]

Assuming you can port.

True. But if you want the game your making to work on more than one console, you think it that way from the start. Most games for ps3 goes out on Xbox too. wii is different.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

True. But if you want the game your making to work on more than one console, you think it that way from the start. Most games for ps3 goes out on Xbox too. wii is different.

Wii is very different. For that matter, there are whole classes of games aimed at handheld platforms which are very different animals from console games.

Part of my question about making my game work on more than one platform is how much I want to.

Portability is possible but hardly easy, especially when your software depends heavily upon underlying hardware, and large parts of your code will be device specific by necessity. If I've acquired significant expertise in coding for say, the Xbox, and have titles that are doing well and paying the bills, I may wonder how much I really want to expand. I'll need to bring on developers experienced on the other platform to do it well, and while I'll double my chances for success, I may double them for failure: there's no guarantee my Xbox title will sell to PS3 gamers.

I may just decide I'm comfortable right were I am, thanks, and if you want to play my games, get an Xbox.
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Dennis

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

True. But if you want the game your making to work on more than one console, you think it that way from the start. Most games for ps3 goes out on Xbox too. wii is different.

That is today.
Remember *last* generation?
The PS2 market share was so overwhelming that many developers chose to develop solely for PS2 because the incremental sales for ports didn't justify the costs.
The same happened early this generation (2006-2007) when many developers (even Japanese companies) were doing 360 exclusives out of necessity; the PS3 installed base wasn't there.

The point DMcCunney made above:

You're a games developer. You make your living creating games that will sell. What platform will give you the most exposure and best chance of success?

...applies to Wylie's new publishing venture; "Which ebook delivery platform will give you the most exposure and best chance of success?". If Wylie is to annoy the BPHs by getting into the ebook publishing aspect of the business, it *has* to succeed. "When you strike a king you *must* kill him." The venture *must* succeed.

They are making a bet that a two-year window with Amazon will provide enough sales to justify going into competition with their "customers", the BPHs. As Kindle exclusives they can count on not only direct access to all Amazon customers (which all Kindle ebooks get) but an added marketting nudge and (probably) other financial considerations that would not be available if they were "cross-platform". These preferrential considerations could very well be the difference between success and failure.

What nobody knows is what comes at the end of those 2 years. Wide-open release? A new exclusivity contract? Maybe with B&N? The business is young and changing rapidly; anything can happen.

And probably will.
The entire publishing industry is in unheaval and the oligopolistic empires of old are under stress and in some cases collapsing; and when empires fall there is always an extended period of disrruption until a new baseline/status quo emerges.

Wylie is running an experiment. Good for them.
We will see more experiments. And it will be good for us.
There is a need for new publishing business models to replace the tired 19th century schemes now in play. Let's see how things play out (on hardware, software, and retail channels) before decrying anything or anybody.

There are no good guys here, no bad guys; just a bunch of companies (some more "confused" than others) scrambling to keep up with change.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

Maybe for Amazon. I question the deal for the authors and publishers. Again, they are telling potential customers, "I don't want to sell you this book." It's not even "I am going to make it difficult or inconvenient or expensive to buy this book," which has been most of the arguments with the agency plans and DRM and the other things that annoy us. It's "I do not want to sell you this book." I don't see how that is good for the author or publisher--in particular the authors.

Like I said, you have to start somewhere.

Amazon is the world's largest catalog retailer, and largest book retailer. If I'm dipping my toe in the ebook waters, it's likely the first place I'll try in offering my wares, simply because I'll reach the largest potential audience of any single outlet. And I'm not exactly discriminating against too many people. With the Kindle app available for the PC, iPhone, and Android based devices, you don't have to have a Kindle to purchase, download, and read the books.

The question here is what Wylie will do after the two year exclusive period is up.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Honestly, I'd be honored to have my stuff up on the pirate bay.

Easy. Create a torrent file of your stuff, and upload it.

Yes, that seems a bit counter intuitive, but think of it this way. If pirates (while that's not the correct term for them, since everyone here calls them pirates anyways, I may as well use the term, even though it's grammatically and technically incorrect) won't share your stuff, then it's either not worth sharing, or you're not known well enough to be worth pirating. It's sorta like all the copycat acts in the music industry. The more people there are doing covers of your songs, the more popular you likely are. The same goes for books. If you're not worth pirating, they won't pirate you. So if you get pirated, consider it an achievement.

It's not counter intuitive at all.

Back when the RIAA was making waves going after music sharers, the ones demonstrably being hurt by the practice were the multi-platinum stadium acts that everybody wanted. The new and mid-list bands might just be happy at the exposure: more people would hear their music.

(An old friend is leader of a band. They've had a couple of major label and a batch of indie label releases. They have a following, and make their living touring. He'd like you to buy their CDs, but it you rip them to MP3 and share them with your friends, fine by him - the more people who hear their music, the more who will come to see them when they play.)

And no, I'm not condoning piracy. I'm merely pointing out a fact that pirates only pirate what they feel is worth something. The only exception might be if you're offering something they feel is worth it for free from another location. If it's free, and easy to get, they won't pirate it usually.

Yes and no. For instance, a little poking around reveals torrents for stuff you can get through the Baen Free Library, but I haven't seen any thus far for the non-free titles Baen sells through Webscriptions. Baen's stuff is not encumbered by DRM, and it would be dead easy for someone who bought it to make it a torrent, but it doesn't seem to be happening.

Baen seems to have created a culture among Webscriptions buyers of "We will share the freely available stuff far and wide to promote Baen and the authors we like, but we won't share the stuff you need to buy. Baen is offering everyone a good deal, and we're not about to pee in the soup!"
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Dennis

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And just how do the BPHs determine those sales figures?

The same way everyone else does, by gathering the reports released by the publishers, then collating them into viable sales figures. In the case of SP, POD, and some PTP houses, it's up to the author to provide those numbers. In some cases the numbers are actually pulled from the quarterly reports of the major book distributors like Ingram. There are a lot of independent groups too who collate this information and determine approximate sales figures. Nobody really knows exactly, save for the publishers (and authors where applicable) what the actual numbers are, but most get pretty close in determining the total sales. Where do you think the New York Times and others get their information to create their best seller lists?

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Easy. Create a torrent file of your stuff, and upload it.

Meh. I did that and the pirates ran for the hills. They thought that since I posted it myself, I was trying to trap them. It's a reflex response they have from being hunted by the big studios. You wouldn't believe the number of traps the copyright mafia puts out there on P2P networks. I know this because, as a Linux advocate and FOSS evangelist, like many others such as myself, I keep close tabs on the P2P world, because it's both our friend and our enemy. Plus things that happen there tend to come back at a later time to haunt FOSS. So we're pretty up to date on stuff happening in the darknet.

So in the end, it's best to simply promote your book and make it popular enough that one of the release groups picks it up and posts it. That is *if* you want your stuff to get put on the P2P networks. Pirates trust release groups. They *do not* trust much of anyone else.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

BPHs are are in the business of acquiring and marketing content. They are not printers, distributors, or warehouses.

Incorrect. There are quite a number of BPH's that actually have their own print facilities as it's cheaper for them to print their own stuff and run their own plant than to contract out. The only ones who don't usually run content that's cheaper to outsource than print internally.

Yes and no. For instance, a little poking around reveals torrents for stuff you can get through the Baen Free Library, but I haven't seen any thus far for the non-free titles Baen sells through Webscriptions.

The exception isn't exactly a rule, but more a commonly seen behavior. In some cases though, you *will* see torrents of stuff that's freely available elsewhere, because the torrents are being used as either A) an additional distribution method (for which BT is very useful), or B) as a promotional method for increasing sales. And before anyone says it, yes, pirates do buy content. Actually, they buy an incredible amount of it. Last I checked, the estimated conversion rates for pirate to purchaser is somewhere in the neighborhood of 70%. And so called "pirates" also tend to purchase 4x's as much as the average consumer, so in the end, if used properly, pirates can be your ally, not your enemy.

[Alisa]

I found it odd that Updike's Rabbit series is mentioned. My local public library's Overdrive service has it. I just checked and all four of them have been up since 2003 in PDF format. I wonder if this means they will be disappearing. I'm no fan of exclusivity but it would bother me even more to see something removed from the public library. I really hope that doesn't happen. It seems odd to me that Wiley could rescind the license but if it's not the case, then they were quite in error claiming that this would be their first time ever in ebook format.

[krischik]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Easy. Create a torrent file of your stuff, and upload it.

It is one thing to upload a torrent but an altogether other thing to have a healthy swarm to support the initial seed.

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Meh. I did that and the pirates ran for the hills.

You should have a secret alter ego for these kind of tasks.

Martin

[SensualPoet]

The Wylie-Amazon deal is for established back-list titles of established authors. Think of it as a sort of an "contemporary classic ebook reprint imprint". (Do NOT try to say that three times quickly after even your first martini of the day.)

As such, it doesn't bother me in the least. I am all for any program which keeps titles "in print". There are so many books out of print, anything which keeps them available -- even with the "restriction" of being forced to buy from the world's largest ebook distributor -- is a good thing. Frankly, geo-restrictions are much more annoying than vendor exclusivity.

And, at the end of the day, all of these "exclusive" books remain available at the library, in paper, in used book stores and on ebay or abe books. Plus, even for someone like me who reads about 60 books a year, losing ebook access to any particular title because I choose not to do business with a vendor isn't a true hardship as there are always dozens of other works sitting in my TBR stack of equal value to me.

[fjtorres]

The other shoe dropped as expected.
http://www.teleread.com/2010/07/26/w...er-publishers/

Wylie's move has scared the pants off the other BPHs who are now flipping their royalty tables and offering 50%-plus rates on backlist ebooks instead of 20%-or-less.

As to how Amazon got the deal? Well triple royalties to the *authors* seems to be part of it.
http://www.teleread.com/2010/07/26/a...oo-much-power/

60% (or more) of gross for access to at least 80% of the market, versus 20% (or less) of the gross (or even net) for access to 100% of the market?

High School math should suffice.

(And Notice, Amazon gets 30% either way. Be sure to thank the Price-Fix Five on the way out.)

[nekokami]

These are all backlist, not new books/authors, but anything that stirs up the backlist ebook market sounds good to me. There are an awful lot of older SF books that I'd really like to have legit ebook versions of.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by nekokami

These are all backlist, not new books/authors, but anything that stirs up the backlist ebook market sounds good to me. There are an awful lot of older SF books that I'd really like to have legit ebook versions of.

The thing is, ebook rights for most of those older books are actually up for grabs.
Baen has been grabbing some but it is doubtful they can grab even just the good ones. Remember, the ebook rights for any book contracted before ebooks existed reside with the author.
They need to be shopped around again.
And while the emerging 50% royalty will make it attractive to the authors it will make it *less* attractive to the BPHs with the treeware rights. And there is only so much money available to secure rights for both new and existing content.
There's still a lot of havoc to play out before things settle down.

[DMcCunney]

From noted agent Richard Curtis:

http://ereads.com/2010/07/will-rando...out-again.html
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Dennis

[Wetdogeared]

Another take on the Wylie exclusive.

The Battle for eBook Rights ~ Matt Stewart: The Huffington Post

What I'm saying is, to get an a$$hole to change behavior, you need your own a$$hole to force it into being. A$$hole logic is the only thing that works. Andrew Wylie is a vicious negotiator, with a terrific nickname to match: "The Jaguar." He also understands that readers don't care if they're buying books from Random House or Simon & Schuster or the Crackhead Publishing Company--all they care about is the book. He knows the market. He wins his battles. He has a battering ram of power-authors on his side. He is the Chosen A$$hole.

(Note: I replaced the double s with double $. Seemed appropriate.)