10-17-2011, 11:43 AM | #16 | |
Wizard
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But I thought Amazon was our FRIEND....
Luckily for us,theyre are other players out there, and they aren't rolling over and playing dead. Kobo is making a player as a global ebook retailer, And Apple and Google are also there. Mike Shatzkin sees it this way: Quote:
As long as there are other big players out there, Amazon might have the upper hand, but they won't be a monopoly. |
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10-17-2011, 12:14 PM | #17 |
The Dank Side of the Moon
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Excellent. This is the direction we need to be heading and Amazon is the only one big enough and in the right place to do it.
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10-17-2011, 12:17 PM | #18 |
The Dank Side of the Moon
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10-17-2011, 12:26 PM | #19 | ||
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Quote:
The idea that B&N (and/or Sony, of all companies) is supposed to save us from the perils of a monopoly is quite amusing, given how they spent years trying to dominate the industry, including cranking out their own line of public domain books. In turn, some upstart could come up with a brilliant idea and blow Amazon out of the water in a few years, at which time you would all complain how Kali Yuga's Ebook Hootch are a bunch of fiends who want to dominate the world of "Direct Brain Book Assimilation." Quote:
I'm also slightly amused that people aren't celebrating the alleged demise of the publisher; it is a Monday, after all. It seems pretty clear to me that retail in the modern age tends to concentrate into a small number of big players, and a large number of bit players. |
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10-17-2011, 01:20 PM | #20 | |
Wizard
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Given that Amazon's entire business model is based on having as little human interaction as possible with both customers and vendors, I'm skeptical as to how successful they'll be at publishing. |
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10-17-2011, 01:24 PM | #21 | |
Wizard
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At this point in time, it is entirely possible to start an ebook publishing business with literally nothing invested except time. For every little independent web site selling books that Amazon runs out of business, there will be a hundred more they never even hear about. The bottom line is, once you have a monopoly, if you exploit it the way you intended to when you created it, you destroy the monopoly. |
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10-17-2011, 01:57 PM | #22 |
Literacy = Understanding
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10-17-2011, 02:02 PM | #23 |
Literacy = Understanding
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Without Random House, Simon & Schuster, and the rest of the Agency 6, Amazon would have a major problem in the book business, especially if other ebooksellers had the books. All the publishers lack is the backbone to do it; if they did it, they'd beat Amazon, which would have a difficult time replacing those books. Rembember the battle with Macmillan. Amazon caved.
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10-17-2011, 02:05 PM | #24 | |
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They cannot conspire to collectively refuse to trade with a particular company, especially one which is becoming a competitor. |
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10-17-2011, 02:06 PM | #25 |
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I have to agree with Kali. At one time many years ago, I went to local bookstores to buy my books (at that time, that was the only way to get books, other than the used bookstore). I was having to deal with their limited selections, list prices with no discounts (unless you found a book on their "great deal" table set out in the aisle. Most of the time, I had to order a book and wait 2 weeks to 2 months for the book to arrive, and still pay full list price (and sometimes the shipping). At that time, Amazon was panned by every wall st. expert, predicting failure within the next few weeks or months.
Then Amazon implemented a novel idea, called "customer service". Check out the publishers on this one, and see if they even know what that means, believe me, they don't. I've dealt with Amazon and have always had some type of response for any problem I had within hours or days, I have not received any response at all from any publisher I have contacted in the last 3 years. Not a single one. Who do you think I want to buy from now... Amazon earned their stripes, IMHO. I applaud them for taking on "the establishment" and offering new ways to do business, often in ways that was a risk to them. The old school publishers either can't see this or deny it, and have nothing but alienate of lot of their own customers. Some of the people in this thread have financial ties to the publishers, and have tried to belittle amazon every chance they have, I suspect they are more worried about their wallet than the good of the general reading population. Ever worried about drm and piracy? Did you notice how amazon implenmented a way to social share ebooks, and the publishers fell all over themselves to try to stop it? They want to stop casual piracy, sharing among family or friends, but a amazon implemented a way to do exactly that, and they want to stop it. I'm not an expert like Tools or Rich, I'm just a customer. And there's a big disconnect here that people like them don't seem to want to hear. |
10-17-2011, 02:19 PM | #26 | |
Wizard
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If they never hear about them, they aren't making enough profit. |
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10-17-2011, 02:23 PM | #27 | |
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Quote:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/03...amzn-showroom/ http://hdguru.com/searching-for-an-h...h-amazon/4920/ When I see a competitor whine about Amazon's pricing, I translate the gripe to: "Our bloated overhead means we'd lose money if we tried to match them." Of note, BEST BUY is now quietly offering Amazon pricing for online sales and looking to "right-size" their storefronts and product mix. http://hdguru.com/check-it-out-a-bet...578/#more-5578 Maybe they decided it's more productive to compete than to whine. Many small regional TV stores do in fact price match Amazon and live to tell of it because it is better to make a low margin sale (with high margin add-ons like cables and tv stands) than to serve as Amazon's showroom. Amazon is a tough competitor but they have not repealed the laws of economics; what they have done, others can aspire to. They just have to work as hard and as smart as Amazon. Surely that is not impossible. |
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10-17-2011, 02:25 PM | #28 | |
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10-17-2011, 03:00 PM | #29 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Back on topic:
Signing up established writers is a natural move for Amazon. There's money to be made so, of course they jumped in. The agency model made it easy and inevitable. All they have to tell authors is : "We're getting our 30% no matter what. What you need to decide is whether your publisher is doing enough for you to justify their cut." Publishers that earn their keep and treat their authors right have little to fear. A certain poster-child for self-publishing success recently signed a traditional publishing deal because being able to ofload all non-writing efforts to the publisher made sense for her. She won't be the last. But not all writers that tally up the numbers are going to end up with the same answer. Once the BPHs set a fixed 30% margin on all books, the next logical question had to be: why should a retailer get a bigger cut than the content producer? And that brought up the gatekeeper question: why do publishers get to decide who gets what? Do authors really need a traditional publisher? For a lot of writers, the answer will still be yes. For many it will be no. Getting a manuscript turned into a succesful book takes a fair amount of talent and effort but most of it is one-and-done work that can be contracted for a fixed fee. Some authors prefer to have as much control as possible so that, succeed or fail, it is *their* vision out there. Early reports so far suggest Amazon-the-publisher is a lot like Amazon-the-storefront; they suggest, they guide, but the final decision rests with the customer/author. This will suit many but may not necessarilly serve them best. But then again, it will be *their* name on the cover. There will be successes but there will also be failures. Where Amazon has an economic edge on traditional publishers, and the aspect that will be hardest for traditional publishers to counter, is that for Amazon-the-publisher ebooks are the primary edition. They've made it clear they will only be distributing limited quantities of (essentially pre-sold) print and audio editions. (Of course, there will be no such constraints on the Audible editions.) In other words, Amazon's imprints are starting fresh, with no legacy burdens in workflow or culture and with a primary focus on content suitable for digital distribution. Odds are old school publishers will have trouble unburdening themselves of the print mindset and they recognize it as several are setting up digital-first imprints like HARLEQUIN's CARINA which, surprise! is taking a very similar tack to Amazon. So fear not, Amazon will have ample competition in days to come. The fun part is that those competitors will look and act much like Amazon. As Niven&Pournelle so succintly put it: "Think of it as evolution in action." Last edited by fjtorres; 10-17-2011 at 03:08 PM. |
10-17-2011, 03:31 PM | #30 |
Literacy = Understanding
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They wouldn't be collectively refusing to trade. They would be saying anyone can sell our books but only in ePub with Adobe DRM. It would be no different than the DVD business. Amazon cannot sell DVDs in a format other than as provided.
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