Amazon’s Book Monopoly : A Threat to Freedom of Expression?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Ironic that Amazon's 65%-80% of the eBook market is a "monopoly," whereas Microsoft's 90-some% of the Desktop OS market is not.

I think it depends on whose ox is getting gored.

Well, now...
1- Judge Penfield Jackson did declare them a monopoly and put them on double secret probation for ten years.
2- We're in the Post-PC era, havent you heard? Desktop conputers are passe and don't matter anymore.
3- Back in '95, MS as a company was apolitical and did very little lobbying, which is why Reno was ordered to go after them. They had no politicians "on retainer". Since then they've learned tbeir lesson.

And, as pointed out above, so has everybody else in the tech world. So unless they screw with their employees' job mobility or partner with a bunch of loudmouthed idiots who don't delete incriminating emails they have a lot of latitude.

Now, as to Amazon specifically, the problem the tradpubbers face is that Amazon is only big in consumer trade book publishing. Which is a tiny fraction of publishing in general. Note that when Penguin merged with Random House the two companies controlled a bigger portion of trade book publishing than Amazon does now and the DOJ and FTC signed off on the merger with no conditions because there is a whole lot more to publishing than that little pond by the bigger sea.

Back in the day, the hanging judge had to deprecate servers, clusters, mainframes, minis, workstations, embedded systems, and above all, *mobile* to be able to declare Microsoft an OS monopoly.

The gold-plated anti-Amazon gang is going to have to buy a lot more that the NYT front page to get the government to ignore 90% of the publishing world. Which they may very well be doing.

You never know what evil lurks in the hearts of politicians.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Ironic that Amazon's 65%-80% of the eBook market is a "monopoly," whereas Microsoft's 90-some% of the Desktop OS market is not.

I think it depends on whose ox is getting gored.

Well, the big publishing houses gored their own ox, and they find it increasingly hard to generate sympathy.

[leebase]

Price fixing and price setting are two different things. Amazon needed to generate sales for its $400 reading device and did so by selling the complete NYT best sellers at below wholesale prices. Publishers didn't like the value of their hard back books being destroyed but were powerless to go war individually against Amazon. We saw Amazon refuse to sell any books by a publisher in any form over these disagreements.

"We need price competition" the chattering classes here demanded.

Well, you don't have it. Nobody is allowed to compete on price with Amazon. And if you aren't careful, you will lose money selling books on Amazon if one of your other distributors puts a book of yours on sale.

So not only has Amazon eliminated price competition, they are putting a barrier on other stores. People would rather not list books with Google than deal with the possibility Google will cause them to lose money with Amazon.

[darryl]

@leebase. And all this time I thought price competition was about "lower" prices! My head hurt trying to follow Apple's arguments about how their entry into the market increased competition whilst driving up prices! I thought that Hachette had no contract with Amazon (because they were not in a hurry to reach agreement) and that Amazon generously sold their books anyway! I thought a book's intrinsic value was not the same thing as whatever "price" it happened to be selling at at any particular time. I thought that it was okay for a business to match a cheaper sales prices at a competitor. I thought it was Google which was denying authors the right to control whether their books went on sale.

And worst of all, I still think that I was and am right.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by darryl

@leebase. And all this time I thought price competition was about "lower" prices! My head hurt trying to follow Apple's arguments about how their entry into the market increased competition whilst driving up prices! I thought that Hachette had no contract with Amazon (because they were not in a hurry to reach agreement) and that Amazon generously sold their books anyway! I thought a book's intrinsic value was not the same thing as whatever "price" it happened to be selling at at any particular time. I thought that it was okay for a business to match a cheaper sales prices at a competitor. I thought it was Google which was denying authors the right to control whether their books went on sale.

And worst of all, I still think that I was and am right.

If I remember right, Google and Amazon both reserve the right to put an ebook on sale if they feel like it.
The difference being Google will still pay the royalties on the price the author set, whereas Amazon pays on the price they sell it for.
So if Google puts a $5 book for free, the person still gets the royalties on the $5. When Amazon price matches the person gets shafted.

[darryl]

@Cinisajoy. Thank you. You caught me out there. I hadn't heard of Amazon forcing anyone to put their book on sale, but then again I haven't published anything myself so I'm not that familiar with the details of their terms. One relevant clause is:

"5.3.4 Customer Prices. To the extent not prohibited by applicable laws, we have sole and complete discretion to set the retail customer price at which your Digital Books are sold through the Program. We are solely responsible for processing payments, payment collection, requests for refunds and related customer service, and will have sole ownership and control of all data obtained from customers and prospective customers in connection with the Program."

This is the sort of thing you expect from a large corporation. When confronted and asked to change a clause like this to exclude the unilateral ability to set the retail price the response from most companies is invariably we insist on having it but we never use it, or it is only for extreme situations. Which may be true now, but what of the future? I can well see why Amazon wants such a clause, but quite frankly I am disappointed that Amazon insists on the power to do so unilaterally and without consent, even if they don't use it.

I have no problems with royalties based on the actual selling price but not when combined with the effect of this clause. This policy is a fail for both Amazon and Google. Google apparently use it? Do Amazon?

[Cinisajoy]

AFAIK Amazon has never put an ebook on sale without the author's knowledge.
I do know that Google has put ebooks on sale without the author knowing in advance. Of course, Amazon then uses the you can't have a lower price clause and price matches.
Oh who is that author? Viola R (I cannot think of her last name) lost several hundred dollars when Google put her box set free. Amazon price matched. Several free book sites picked it up.
She is a romance writer.
I think it took her two days to get it off free.

[AnemicOak]

A report on some of what took place at the "event"...

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...d-c-event.html

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

A report on some of what took place at the "event"...

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...d-c-event.html

A lot of accusations in the article -- not much in the way of facts.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

A lot of accusations in the article -- not much in the way of facts.

Now, now, when have facts mattered to the AU gang?
Propaganda and brand libel don't need facts. Facts get in the way of the mission.

The thing was a purely political exercise and what matters isn't what theysaid but rather which, if any, politicians showed up or sent a high-ranking staffer.

That is what matters to the propaganda campaign at this point and that covering would require actual journalism from the rah-rah publishing media. Not going to happen. Especially if no politicians showed up.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

A lot of accusations in the article -- not much in the way of facts.

Now, now, when have facts mattered to the AU gang?
Propaganda and brand libel don't need facts. Facts get in the way of the mission.

The thing was a purely political exercise and what matters isn't what they said but rather which, if any, politicians showed up or sent a high-ranking staffer.

Of course, covering that would require actual journalism from the rah-rah publishing media.

Check these two for more evidence of the politician focus:

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue...ue=2676#m31200

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue...ue=2675#m31183

Notice that it is now Amazon's fault when a BPH turns down a book they don't think will sell.

[fjtorres]

Here's hint of the reason for the "Amazon is evil" campaign:
http://qz.com/587994/amazon-has-offi...ishing-market/

Key phrase: "multi-billion dollar self publishing market".
As in, more than two billion.
As in, bigger in trade publishing than anybody this side of the Randy Penguin.
As in, more money in author earnings than tradpub authors get from the BPHs and, in fact, more money than the BPH multinationals squeeze out of the BPHs.

That is two billion that isn't going to the BPHs and other tradpubs, whose sales are flat or declining (depending on the metric) since before Kindle came out.

By contrast, this:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/0...venues-down-2/

As veteran political reporters Woodward and Bernstein said: "Follow the money", and watch it go from the AU gang to Indie pockets. And since those fools see Indie books as "churned out by Amazon" (not merely hosted or distributed) they want Amazon dead and buried.

Or try the "exercise in logic" debunked here:

http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/01/24/96732/

The premise? Amazon is evil so Indies shouldn't sully their souls dealing with them. Instead, they should pay others to deal with Amazon for them. Yeah, right.

Don Quijote had better chances.

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

A report on some of what took place at the "event"...

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...d-c-event.html

They have so lost this fight. If your best strategy is only to bitch about the situation and hope the government steps in to save you...sorry guys, you are not too big to fail

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The thing was a purely political exercise and what matters isn't what they said but rather which, if any, politicians showed up or sent a high-ranking staffer.

Thanks for the links -- interesting reading.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Conan46

They have so lost this fight. If your best strategy is only to bitch about the situation and hope the government steps in to save you...sorry guys, you are not too big to fail

As they say in the tech world; first one to resort to the courts has already lost the game.