Authors call on FTC to investigate Amazon’s alleged monopoly in bookselling

[ZodWallop]

A group of authors, booksellers, and an antitrust think tank claims Amazon is harming the bookselling industry.

Article from The Verge. I'm not surprised to see people mad at Amazon, though I'm surprised it took this long.

The Authors Guild, American Booksellers Association, and Open Markets Institute... accuse Amazon of dominating “almost every aspect of the book market,” citing data that the company sells over 50 percent of all physical books in the retail market, 90 percent of physical books sold online, and over 80 percent of all ebooks on the market.

For me what's always seemed most likely to cause them trouble was the exclusivity they force on small fry authors, but not larger, more known authors in Kindle Unlimited. And the fact that they are also a publisher who doesn't share their titles with other booksellers.

“Amazon has an oversized power to control what readers see when browsing for books. Only Amazon understands how its algorithm works,” the letter reads. “Amazon can up-rank and down-rank titles at a whim. As Amazon steers readers towards its own titles and away from rivals, many readers end up buying books that are less relevant, less interesting, or of lower quality than had they been able to choose in an open and competitive market.”

Personally, I haven't found that to be the case with books, but have noticed it when searching for other items.

[theducks]

B&M stores have issues paying the current rents.
It takes a HUGE $ volume just to pay current minimum wages and the per foot rate many landlords want (It was $10+ back in 2000 in the SF bay area. It looks like some places have dropped a lot) for decent locations.

That is at least $360 in sales/hr just to pay for 1 sales clerk

Exclusivity is a 2 edged sword. Trad pub promoted the work, designed the books look.

Many indies go it alone to save $. There is more than one ART involved in a great book.

Others use Amazon's services and Exclusivity is part of the price for those extras (There are some very nice covers on some indie books)

If you are really talented in the many aspects of a great presentation, the going it alone means more of the pie in you hands.
"Ya gotta know you skills and limitations. "
I think this is why I see certain names along with others on many covers. The Story teller and the writer.

[Apache]

Very few stores are paying minimum wage now. Even fast food is paying $15.00 to $20.00 an hour.
Apache

[JSWolf]

Apple and the price fix six gave Amazon more control when it comes to eBooks as they caused a number of eBook shops to have to close.

Apple and the price fix six wanted to do a number on Amazon but all they ended up doing was getting a number of eBook stores to close because they could not do business under the agency model.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Apache

Very few stores are paying minimum wage now. Even fast food is paying $15.00 to $20.00 an hour.
Apache

Minimum wage is quite a bit higher here in Ca, even for unskilled jobs.

What gets me, is those that have debt from training (or YEARS of experience), have not seen more $ along with Minimum wage hikes.

Too much experience (euphemism for Age )

[John F]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

... And the fact that they are also a publisher who doesn't share their titles with other booksellers. ...

Don't a lot of businesses do this? Costco has Kirkland, Stop & Shop has Nature something, ...

[theducks]

Originally Posted by John F

Don't a lot of businesses do this? Costco has Kirkland, Stop & Shop has Nature something, ...

Kirkland is a HOUSE BRAND.

Lots of business do that as a way to:
1) avoid direct price comparison
2) control reformulation / redesign (cost reduction)

Many years ago What was basically a 2 head RCA VCR appeared in the sop wearing many badges. RCA, Sears, Radio Shack, JC Penny

The Epson MX-80 printer even had a HP logo, Radio Shack, Texas Instruments.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by theducks

Too much experience (euphemism for Age )

I would hate to have to go back to working for someone else. 44 years as a bench jeweler and jewelry stores do not pay us very much. The last time I saw any figures on pay scales for our industry, bench jewelers averaged $32,000.00 a year. I don't think it is very much higher than that now. Of course there are some out there that shouldn't even be making that much. They should think about going to work as butchers.
Apache

[SteveEisenberg]

I'm open to being anti-Amazon, but was not impressed with the letter of complaint. Take this:

The ultimate effects of Amazon’s business model . . . include the unfair promotion and suppression of specific ideas, authors, publishers . . .

This would be very bad! But they failed to name a single author or publisher suppressed by Amazon. As seen by googling, that is because there are very few books Amazon refuses to sell. And I'm thinking that the signers of the letter failed to list any of those very few because they mostly agree on their being too extreme to sell just as much as Amazon does.

Then there is this:

In 2022 alone, the American Library Association recorded 2,571 unique book titles that were targeted for censorship

OK. So how many of those 2,571 titles are sold, and not sold, at Amazon.com? Googling, I am failing to find the list of 2,571. All I keep on finding is most frequently challenged subsets of the list.

AFAIK Amazon sells all the books on the most frequently challenged lists. And until the letter signers, or American Library Association, uploads the full list of 2,571, there is no basis to think Amazon suppressed any of them.

Then this caught my eye:

Many authors and literary agents complain that one result of how Amazon uses its power is that it has been more difficult for new and diverse authors, and even for many established midlist authors, to be published by traditional publishers. Instead, publishers have been forced to focus more on “blockbuster” titles written by celebrities and well-established authors.

Even for-profit publishers sometimes publish books with poor commercial prospects because staff likes the book a lot. There probably are some commercial justifications for this, such as to please an editor who has brought in a lot of other titles which are very commercial. And, on the other side, there must be books with excellent commercial prospects that a big publishers didn't take on because an important editor despised the book. If Amazon was causing publisher profits to plummet then I could see that their monopoly power would change what gets published to make it more uniformly commercial. But, actually, publisher profits seem to be holding up fairly well in the Amazon era. So it's not plausible, and there's no evidence.

There may be legitimate monopolization concern with having the same big company publish books, and sell them. I won't cry if Amazon publishing ventures are broken out into a separate company. However, I see a lack of evidence that Amazon has effected the claimed harms.

[DNSB]

Perhaps we could toss in the number of authors who are very seriously considering dropping Amazon exclusivity? One author was mentioning that due to sheer number of AI authored books and books authored by a human author with AI assistance, their payout from Kindle Unlimited has dropped precipitously. Some of this is due to the AI authored/assisted books being "read" by AI readers ensuring they will get a disproportionate chunk of the KU pie (two examples were an author who has published a book a day for the last 2 months while another is a series of very similar books with similar author names and content.[*]) They are very seriously considering going back to their "day job" after 4 years where being an indie author was their job.

[*] As my wife complains about the genres she reads, it's bad enough that many indie authors are notorious for jumping onto bandwagons (Stories about vampire aliens are selling! I must write a few!) but now you are getting AI created series that make finding a new author in a genre a quest on the order of finding a needle lost in a 3 hectare hay field.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps we could toss in the number of authors who are very seriously considering dropping Amazon exclusivity?

If they do more then consider it, Amazon’s monopoly power is reduced.

Regarding AI books, I think it in Amazon’s interest to stop selling them. And I think they have more technical ability to write AI detection software than small successors. Left alone, Amazon will fix the issue.

Without seeing a breakup plan, one can’t say, without great uncertainty, what an anti-trust Amazon breakup means to indie authors.

Suppose the breakup meant that Amazon.com could only sell books published by traditional publishers, and that SonOfAmazon.com only sells indie books. I’m guessing that this would hurt indie. But there are other ways to break up the company.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by John F

Don't a lot of businesses do this? Costco has Kirkland, Stop & Shop has Nature something, ...

These are not Amazon store brands.

You can purchase any Amazon imprint book from any bookseller in paperback format. The ebook editions seem to be exclusive to Kindle Store.

[John F]

Originally Posted by tomsem

These are not Amazon store brands.

You can purchase any Amazon imprint book from any bookseller in paperback format. The ebook editions seem to be exclusive to Kindle Store.

I'm not seeing much of a distinction, maybe because I don't understand what an imprint is. Aren't Amazon imprints owned by Amazon?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by John F

I'm not seeing much of a distinction, maybe because I don't understand what an imprint is. Aren't Amazon imprints owned by Amazon?

Imprint is an industry term for 'name of the publisher'.

https://amazonpublishing.amazon.com/our-imprints.html

for example:

- 47North ('Science Fiction and Fantasy')
- Thomas & Mercer ('Mystery, Thriller, and True Crime')
- Lake Union Publishing ('Book Club Fiction')

etc.

[theducks]

Imprint is also what you see on the spine or cover of dead tree book.
Many publishers have many imprints. They tend to represent specific lines and markets.

Berkley Prime Crime (Cozy Mystery?)
Del Rey (SF )