Baen Deal with Amazon and new pricing

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Well, now they have to pay Amazon a cut. That money has to come from somewhere

This is why I hate clauses like the one Apple forced on publishers (most favoured nation). Baen should be free to continue selling books on their own site without the 30% rise to cover Amazons royalties (or whatever the % they have to pay is).

Fine with any other rise they may need to implement to keep their business viable of course. Whether that would put them outside my willing to pay amount, we'll never know. But we should be able to avoid the 30% rise due to Amazons cut if we buy elsewhere.

It's a shame MFN is legal.

I don't sell an even amount of every book *I* put out. I'm sure they don't either. And Amazon (or B&N or Apple) is there to make a profit too. I don't see any way a publisher can list books at 6 dollars on an ongoing basis and stay profitable.

Baen managed to offer those books before on their own site at those prices. Prices I was happy to pay and regularly bought from Baen rather than Amazon or other sites because of it (DRM was also a big part of that). Now they can't and I'm not willing to pay the new prices.

I can fully understand why they've needed to make a deal to distribute through Amazon, but it doesn't change the fact that the deal means pricing raises that I'm not willing to pay.

One question remains, will Amazon require Baen implement DRM on their books now? There's been lots of mud slinging in the past where publishers have said they'd like DRM free but Amazon won't allow it and Amazon saying publishers are free to choose.

Will Baen books remain DRM free?

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Visibility is very tough in the book market and if the eyeballs have moved to Amazon, what can you do?

On a somewhat related note, it doesn't help that Baen doesn't seem to get linked from other book sites. I just today noticed that while Goodreads lists seven places to buy Baen ebooks, Baens own site is not one of them.

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's only $9.99 while the paper book is hardback only. When the paperback is released it drops to $6.99, compared to the current $6.

I agree that people are embellishing the price increase and that patience is a virtue in cases like these.

Not a major increase.

Different people have different price points on books due to financial circumstances, availability of other options, or interest. To some people, this would represent a fairly significant increase (it is over 16%).

Well, at least SF books aren't one of the essentials of life so life will go on.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by JoeD

This is why I hate clauses like the one Apple forced on publishers (most favoured nation). Baen should be free to continue selling books on their own site without the 30% rise to cover Amazons royalties (or whatever the % they have to pay is).

Fine with any other rise they may need to implement to keep their business viable of course. Whether that would put them outside my willing to pay amount, we'll never know. But we should be able to avoid the 30% rise due to Amazons cut if we buy elsewhere.

It's a shame MFN is legal.



Baen managed to offer those books before on their own site at those prices. Prices I was happy to pay and regularly bought from Baen rather than Amazon or other sites because of it (DRM was also a big part of that). Now they can't and I'm not willing to pay the new prices.

I can fully understand why they've needed to make a deal to distribute through Amazon, but it doesn't change the fact that the deal means pricing raises that I'm not willing to pay.

One question remains, will Amazon require Baen implement DRM on their books now? There's been lots of mud slinging in the past where publishers have said they'd like DRM free but Amazon won't allow it and Amazon saying publishers are free to choose.

Will Baen books remain DRM free?

THe article said the books would remain DRM free.

Baen may have picked the 9.99 because of what they now have to pay Amazon for the listing--not necessarily because of the Apple fiasco.

ANY time you publish or carry merchandise with any publisher, the contract has something about "competing prices." NO company willingly allows you to undercut them elsewhere. Not even BEFORE the Apple thing did that happen. It's long been in every contract I've signed that I won't undercut prices anywhere. You can offer discount coupons now and then, but your list price has to be the same. THE STORE can offer discounts if it wants to, but as the originator, I have to offer the same list price everywhere.

You saw discounts in the past because the bookstores offered them--but the price of the book was the same on the cover for all stores. So I think the answer is that Yes, Amazon should be able to discount books from Baen.

It's the same thing if I go buy Minus-33 merino wool products from the website versus Amazon. They can't undercut their own list or Amazon and others would not agree to carry their product. When there is a sale, it's offered by the retailer.

As far as the price--I missed that it was only the new stuff at 9.99. I thought anything that wasn't mass-market was going to be 9.99 without thinking through that it meant hardback and then they'd go to mass market. 6.99 is still very reasonable. And the bottom line is that they have to figure out a way to make money or they go away completely. I get that too.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JoeD

Fine with any other rise they may need to implement to keep their business viable of course. Whether that would put them outside my willing to pay amount, we'll never know. But we should be able to avoid the 30% rise due to Amazons cut if we buy elsewhere.

The overwhelming majority of what Baen sell is back-catalogue stuff. This is going from $6 to $6.99. 16% increase, not 30%.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The overwhelming majority of what Baen sell is back-catalogue stuff. This is going from $6 to $6.99. 16% increase, not 30%.

I'm not as bothered by the 6.99 rise, it's the move to using hardback/paper back and then mass paper back pricing that is the issue. That means for a given amount of time, the price of new releases will be significantly more expensive if I want to buy them.

I won't pay those prices so will have to wait until the mass market price point and by that time i've had ample opportunity to buy lots of other books and possibly lost interest in the latest release for a given series. Not always of course, but it has been the case for me in the past.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by JoeD

I'm not as bothered by the 6.99 rise, it's the move to using hardback/paper back and then mass paper back pricing that is the issue. That means for a given amount of time, the price of new releases will be significantly more expensive if I want to buy them.

I won't pay those prices so will have to wait until the mass market price point and by that time i've had ample opportunity to buy lots of other books and possibly lost interest in the latest release for a given series. Not always of course, but it has been the case for me in the past.

That's always been the case with me too, but that's a game the publishers have played with us for eons. Apparently it works well enough for them because they keep playing by those rules.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by JoeD

This is why I hate clauses like the one Apple forced on publishers (most favoured nation). Baen should be free to continue selling books on their own site without the 30% rise to cover Amazons royalties (or whatever the % they have to pay is).

So despite the two parties involved being Amazon and Baen, and despite this not being a mainstream Agency publisher, it is still Apple's fault?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

That's always been the case with me too, but that's a game the publishers have played with us for eons. Apparently it works well enough for them because they keep playing by those rules.

It beats witholding the ebook until after the MMPB.
The BPHs tried that and it didn't work.

[gbm]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

So despite the two parties involved being Amazon and Baen, and despite this not being a mainstream Agency publisher, it is still Apple's fault?

Do not forget the agents and agency's.

bernie

[HarryT]

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with agency pricing. That's a complete red herring.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It beats witholding the ebook until after the MMPB.
The BPHs tried that and it didn't work.

Completely agree. I don't like the policy, but it apparently WORKS or they wouldn't keep doing it. (And by they I mean all mainstream pubs, not just Baen.) I'm pretty much used to waiting.

[gbm]

Originally Posted by gbm

Do not forget the agents and agency's.

bernie

Do not forget the literary agents and literary agency's.

To make my post clearer.

bernie

[elcreative]

Yes, time to get rid of anything to do with people making a living... anybody suspected of being a writer should be chained to a computer 18 hours a day and allowed to sleep under the desk at the end of the shift, all publishers, literary agents and retailers should be sent to the salt mines or shot and anything to do with Apple should be destroyed on sight or turned into landfill...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Yes, time to get rid of anything to do with people making a living... anybody suspected of being a writer should be chained to a computer 18 hours a day and allowed to sleep under the desk at the end of the shift, all publishers, literary agents and retailers should be sent to the salt mines or shot and anything to do with Apple should be destroyed on sight or turned into landfill...

Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Not. So. Fast.

The idea... has its merits.
But, I'm thinking more like, politicians, lawyers, politicians, UN and ITU officials, politicians, literary agents, and, of course, politicians.
We *really* need to make sure we don't miss any politicians.

Oh, I suppose the odd drug dealer or ten would also be a good candidate for the saltmines, too. But forcing those guys to mingle with politicians and ITU types might be considered cruel and unusual punishment.