Indies on Amazon Kindle Only

[barryem]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Don't like Amazon?
Don't use them.

I do like Amazon and I use them a lot. I get excellent service, a lot of variety, low prices and delivery to my door, usually with no shipping charges and in 2 days. I retired to a very small town and don't have a car so they're vital to me. My life would be a lot more difficult were it not for Amazon.

But I don't think they're perfect.

Barry

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by barryem

I do like Amazon and I use them a lot. I get excellent service, a lot of variety, low prices and delivery to my door, usually with no shipping charges and in 2 days. I retired to a very small town and don't have a car so they're vital to me. My life would be a lot more difficult were it not for Amazon.

But I don't think they're perfect.

Barry

Nobody does.
Not readers and certainly not Indies.
But they're useful for those looking to make money.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by barryem

I do think that even as a niche product there are enough people using ereaders that manufacturers might find them worth making if they didn't have to compete with readers that were subsidizes by book sales. That would give us more choices. Anyway my post was really a "wouldn't it be nice" type of post. Maybe someday ...!

Barry

We're mostly there.
Look at the prices of the readers from hardware-only vendors and compare them to Kobo and Kindle prices. Not much difference once you factor in the kindle ads.

Btw, it's not ebook sales that subsidize the low-end Kindles: it's the ads. And the ad business was created as a way to match Nook pricing, so Kindles seeded their ad business. And it's now starting to really bloom:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/423...etting-started

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by barryem

I do realize all that. I think I made it fairly plain that my post was wishful thinking.

I don't think you made it as clear as you think you did. There is not a single indication in your post to let me imagine you didn't really mean what you said you did.

Look at this, for example:

I think what might eventually change some of this will be when the justice department decides that exclusive books are anti-competitive, which, of course they are.

You are stating as fact that exclusive books are anti-competetive. What actual grounds do you see how you can convince the justice department of this opinion in a case of court? Exclusive book deals as in selling the exclusive right to distribute? That is covered and allowed under copyright law. The author gives a publisher the exclusive rights to distribute. That publisher can decide which retailer to grant permission to sell their books on their behalf. The retailer is under no obligation to accept the terms of the deal. So under copyright law exclusive books are legally allowed and happen all the time.

Instead of trying to change copyright law (tough chance) you could try to legally forbid a publisher to be a retailer as well. Tough luck with that as well. New cars, for example, are sold exclusively through licensed dealerships. That is now anti-competitive as well?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Instead of trying to change copyright law (tough chance) you could try to legally forbid a publisher to be a retailer as well. Tough luck with that as well.

Many of the self-publishers going wide also sell direct from their web sites so they are author, publisher, and retailer.

People keep hoping the government will overturn its own laws to conform to their dated ideas of how modern commerce is carried out. To what end I have no idea since books are in no way special; they are no different from other forms of content or, for that matter, razor blades. None of the proposals are feasible, much less likely. Not in this universe.

Exclusivity deals are a well-established practice that consolidates sales channels to maximize leverage with the authorized distributor. In every case, the distributor pays more for the exclusive content than for non-exclusives.

[DuckieTigger]

@fjtorres: I completely agree there with you. It was an attempt to have a discussion on the difficulty (impossibility?) of this fairy tale dream. Some dreams come true, for others you would need this mystical improbability drive to succeed.

[pwalker8]

Don't let them steamroller you Barryem, I think it's an interesting discussion, even if some appear to want to squash it.

There are a couple things going on. First, exclusive deals have been around a very long time and in many different categories. It is, of course, on it's face anti-competitive, but like cornering the silver market, it's pretty hard to actually make it work. Amazon is trying to lock people in, but a lot of authors try it and then back out of it when they discover it's not such a good deal. That basically means that KU is going to remain a niche product, much like the old used book swap stores.

As far as ebook stores with their own devices, I don't really see it as a big issue. Actual ebook devices seems to remain in the niche market with more and more people reading on their phones and or tablets. I think that it really comes down to people not wanting to carry a bunch of devices around with them.

It sure would be nice if there was a standard mechanism for getting books on a device so that your reading app wasn't tied to your ebook store, but I don't see Amazon, Apple or B&N or Kobo going along with that and I don't really think that most people really care all that much. Most are quite happy reading with the Kindle app or Books app. Heck it would be nice if the ebook stores would simply drop DRM just like most of the music stores have done, but I don't really see what would drive that change.

[Hemmi]

I refuse to support authors that are exclusive to Amazon because I refuse to buy from Amazon. I'm sure they don't miss me at all.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

You are stating as fact that exclusive books are anti-competetive. What actual grounds do you see how you can convince the justice department of this opinion in a case of court?

I doubt seriously I could convince the justice department of this, even if I was a lawyer.

Exclusive book deals as in selling the exclusive right to distribute? That is covered and allowed under copyright law.

Amazon isn't a distributor. It's a retailer. If only one retailer can sell a book it's obvious that other retailers can't compete. I'm not a lawyer and I wasn't stating a legal case. I was giving my opinion of the situation. Exclusive deals prevent competition, by definition.

Barry

[gmw]

The answers already given pretty much cover why an author would choose to go exclusive with Amazon: KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited being the big ones. In order to do any sort of promotion through Amazon you have to be exclusive with them. Authors can, and some do, remain exclusive for only a limited period in order to take advantage of KDP Select, and then publish more widely, but Amazon counts on many authors staying exclusive with them for the convenience of ongoing promotional options. It all boils down to there being no argument but that Amazon is the biggest re-seller, and so if you want sales then Amazon is the one you want to appease.

This particular author never went exclusive with Amazon because he has a prejudice against monopolies. Amazon are going to take notice of my quiet protest... any day now... I'm sure they will... It's going to happen... I'm still waiting...


Seriously though, an author is either silly or lazy not to deal with Amazon on their terms because that is by far the biggest market for most genre fiction. Smashwords is a great resource for authors like myself that want to be able to reach outlets like Barnes and Noble (still the next best option after Amazon according to my very limited experience), and libraries and so on, but any author/publisher that ignores Amazon will suffer the consequences.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by barryem

Amazon isn't a distributor. It's a retailer. If only one retailer can sell a book it's obvious that other retailers can't compete. I'm not a lawyer and I wasn't stating a legal case. I was giving my opinion of the situation. Exclusive deals prevent competition, by definition.

Barry

"Amazon" is a distributor as well as a retailer.
For indie books they are both with KDP being the distributor and Kindle the retailer. (See below.) So are "Kobo" and "Nook".

Some products Amazon sells themselves but others they merely connect the consumer to the actual retailer. They actually make more money that way than selling their own inventory, in fact.

It gets confusing because the various arms of the octopus operate under the same brand name but there is a difference between Amazon.com Inc and Amazon.COM LLC. Amazon.com is the online store while Amazon inc is the parent company that owns KDP, APub, Audible, AmazonBusiness, Lab126, and all the other standalone units. Very confusing, in fact. Amazon these days is a conglomerate of companies (like GE) rather than a single company.

In this context, the Company the Publisher deals with is KDP, which distributes the digital product to the Kindle store and the print editions to Amazon.com *and* Ingram. (Under the optional extended distribution contracts.) Audio deals with Audible are separate but can be linked. To make it all more confusing, KDP is open to any publisher, small or big, Traditional or Indie, but the BPHs and some medium publishers deal directly with Amazon.com.

Smashwords, Direct2Digital, XinXii, Kobo Writing Life, Overdrive, and NookPublishing, etc, are all distributors, too. Ingram, iBooks and the now shuttered Google operation, too. (Just harder/more expensive to deal with.) The publisher chooses which distributors to use or not use. (Note that the "Kobo" and "Nook" distributors are also separate operations that allow distribution to the Kobo and nook ebookstores, but also to other channels like Tolino and Overdrive (for Kobo Writing Life) or B&N (for NookPublishing).

The publisher side is very different from the consumer side. What we see is not what they see. That is also a factor in choosing KDP Select vs wider distribution. Dealing with all available distributors take time and effort and given the weakness of most of the non-Kindle ebook channels many Indies don't see the return ($$$) as justifying the effort. The most common approach these days is to go exclusive on Digital but wide (expanded distribution) on print, at least during career ramp up. It takes at least as much effort to manage distribution to Kobo or Nook or iBooks or whatever as on KDP but with KDP accounting for three times the aggregate sales as all the others combined (And KU aggregate payouts outpacing the other channels) the temptation to go Select is very strong.

All authors would prefer a more competitive environment on principle but that's not the world we live in. In the world we live in, for most Indies going wide doesn't pay as well as going Exclusive.
And Money trumps "principle" for most publisher, big or small.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by gmw

Seriously though, an author is either silly or lazy not to deal with Amazon on their terms because that is by far the biggest market for most genre fiction. Smashwords is a great resource for authors like myself that want to be able to reach outlets like Barnes and Noble (still the next best option after Amazon according to my very limited experience), and libraries and so on, but any author/publisher that ignores Amazon will suffer the consequences.

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind:

a- Are you totally wide or do you mix-n-match/rotate?

b- What's your ratio of KDP/other? I've seen some authors report different ratios, with some making major portions (~30%) at Nook or Kobo and others reporting single digits. Obviously the mileage varies by genre, title, career path.

c- Ratio of digital to print? Print editions are important but again, mileage varies. The thought comes to mind that going Exclusive might drive print sales a bit higher.

A "no" is an acceptable answer, btw. No problem. It really isn't my business but curiosity can be an itch.
(Good luck, either way.)

[ottdmk]

The main thing I want to avoid is an Amazon monopsony in the ebook space. So far so good... there are other options for publishers to retail their ebooks, and there doesn't seem to be any danger of that changing in the near to mid term. The long term... well, hard to say. I remain hopeful however.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

The main thing I want to avoid is an Amazon monopsony in the ebook space. So far so good... there are other options for publishers to retail their ebooks, and there doesn't seem to be any danger of that changing in the near to mid term. The long term... well, hard to say. I remain hopeful however.

Not for you.
A bit further south many expect Nook to vanish fairly soon...
...not that it would change the market much.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind:

a- Are you totally wide or do you mix-n-match/rotate?

b- What's your ratio of KDP/other? I've seen some authors report different ratios, with some making major portions (~30%) at Nook or Kobo and others reporting single digits. Obviously the mileage varies by genre, title, career path.

c- Ratio of digital to print? Print editions are important but again, mileage varies. The thought comes to mind that going Exclusive might drive print sales a bit higher.

A "no" is an acceptable answer, btw. No problem. It really isn't my business but curiosity can be an itch.
(Good luck, either way.)

I fall under "lazy" (there's more to the story than that, but the result is the same). No mixing or matching, effectively no marketing, and now far too long since I last published something. As a result I don't think I can offer you a statistically significant response. (It took me ages to come up with that phrase, it sort of answers your questions but sounds so much better than the raw numbers. I'm the poster-boy for what happens when you don't do any marketing.) I'll try to do better with my next novels so I can give a more useful answer.