The Battle of Kindle: A Call to Arms

[eBook Resistance]

Yesterday, January 29th, 2010, a day that will live in infamy, all readers of electronic books were suddenly and deliberately attacked by the combined forces of the Macmillan Tyranny.

Although Kindle users are taking the brunt of the onslaught today, make no mistake that if we were to break under the forces of the enemy, Nook and Sony and iPad users will suffer the same $15.00 fate in the future.

Let our Nook and Sony and iPad kindred realize that their destiny is tied to our destiny. That their freedom is tied to our freedom. That their price is tied to our price. That none of us can walk alone.

Let all readers of electronic books declare, that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Macmillan, a state of war has existed between all eBook readers and the Macmillan Tyranny. Hostilities exist. War has begun. There is no blinking at the fact that our format, our eBooks and the price we pay for them are in grave danger.

This is why I make this call to arms, to our Nook and Sony and iPad brothers and sisters, to put aside our petty loyalties and stand together, not for a particular reader or format or platform or store or company, to stand together not for those things that divide us but for those things that unite us.

To stand and fight together for all ebooks, whether they come from the plains of the Kindle, or the forests of the Nook, or the beaches of the Sony, or the mountains of the iPad, to be priced at a value that not only honors the labor of the author, that not only satisfies the greed of the publisher, that not only covers the burden of the store, but that also respects the dignity, yes the dignity of the reader.

I call for our Nook and Sony and iPad brothers and sisters to join us in this sacred struggle, to boycott and shun books from the Macmillan Tyranny, not only in their devices but in the retail stores too.

Let us speak with one voice, let us hope with one heart, let us buy with one wallet, let us all share the bounty of the same dream. A dream where users of the Kindle and the Nook and the Sony and the iPad, will come together and join hands and sing "$9.00 at last! $9.00 at last! Thank eBook Almighty, $9.00 at last!".

The Battle of Kindle has begun. Upon this battle depends the very future of the eBook. The whole fury and might of the enemy will fall on us. The Macmillan Tyranny knows that it will have to break us or lose the eBook War. If we can stand up to it, all eBook readers everywhere may be free of the $15.00 chains and share in the $9.99 dream. But if we fail, then the whole world, including our Nook and Sony and iPad kindred, will sink into the abyss of a new Print Age made more expensive by their dominance of the digital format.

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long days of struggle and of suffering. Neutrals will ask, what is our policy? Let us say: It is to wage war, by store, by author, by publisher with all our might and with all the leftover dollars Uncle Sam has seen fit to leave us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of digital crime. That is our policy.

The neutral will ask, what is our aim? Let us answer with one word: victory. Victory at all costs over $9.99, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no liberty.

Let that be realized; no liberty for our beloved electronic books, no freedom from the greed of the publisher, no independence for all that eBooks have stood for, no survival for the hope and dream of the ages.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated attack, electronic book readers everywhere, in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. We will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but we will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Let us have full confidence that if we all do our duty, we shall prove ourselves able to defend our eBooks, to ride out this storm, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Even though a large number of eBooks and many old and famous works have fallen or may yet fall into the grips of the $15.00 Empire, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength, we shall defend our eBooks, whatever the sacrifice may be, we shall fight on the internet, we shall fight in the stores, we shall fight in the blogs and in the media, we shall fight in the hearts and minds of the readers; we shall never surrender!

Even if, which we do not for a moment believe, this Kindle or a large part of it were subjugated by the enemy, then our eBook readers brothers and sisters beyond, armed and guarded by the Nook and the Sony and the iPad, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New eBook Readers, with all their power and might, step forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.

So let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves witness that in the future, when readers of electronic books get their Kindle 8s and Nook 6s and Sony 10s and iPad 4s, they will look back to today and say, 'This was their finest hour.'

[dragonbone]

LOL!!!! Thanks, that was excellent!

[dreams]

Thank you for such an elegantly expressed post.

Many of us are concerned and are watching closely.

[Pardoz]

Delightful! I must say, your oratorial skills easily match those of the greats of the last century.

[Bremen Cole]

Too long a post, but good anyway....

I for one will not buy any books from them. I will however read books from them, the dark side is your best revenge in these matters. Hit the money flow, it is THE power we consumers have.

[The Old Man]

Never have so many owed so much to just one.

[lilac_jive]

Hear hear!


Hey, does anyone have a list of the publishing groups under MacMillan?

[scottjl]

LOL. Funny post. Good luck in your efforts.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

Hear hear!


Hey, does anyone have a list of the publishing groups under MacMillan?

http://us.macmillan.com/splash/publishers/index.html

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by Barcey

http://us.macmillan.com/splash/publishers/index.html

Thanks! I was worried that two books coming out soon fell under their banner, but they don't.

[ardeegee]

Meanwhile, the more publishers tighten their grip on ebooks, the more people will slip between their fingers to the dork side of the farce.

Luuuuke-- use the usenet, Luke.

[Connallmac]

Below is the text of the e-mail I just sent to Mcmillan.

To Whom It May Concern,

I'm sad to see your books removed from Amazon.com. However, there are still plenty of books for me to purchase and read on my Kindle. If you cannot sell your e-books at Amazon's $9.99 price point then you really need to examine your business model. I have always bought many books, as I have been a voracious reader since childhood. However, I used to haunt used book stores, library sales and the like to get them as inexpensively as possible. It was very rare indeed for me to buy a new book, usually only when I had a gift card or there was a particular author whose work I could not wait to read. Since purchasing my first Kindle a little more than a year ago I have gone on a book buying binge, buying well over a hundred e-books. The vast majority of these books would have been purchased second hand, if at all, if I was still buying paper books. You have the potential to sell me many more books if you can sell them in the Kindle store for less than $10. I won't be paying more than $9.99 for e-books by any publisher, and if you cannot reach a reasonable price point I won't be buying any books from you. As I said I would like to continue doing business with you, but if you continue to try to do business with your mid-20th century model I fear we may have parted ways for good. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.


Sincerely,

Connallmac(Named change to protect the indignant!)
Satisfied Kindle Customer

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Connallmac

Below is the text of the e-mail I just sent to Mcmillan.

Nice letter, and I agree with most of your sentiments. If you want to get it noticed, though, print a copy (email gets ignored) and address it to:

John Sargent,
c/o Macmillan
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
USA

It will still be ignored, but not as completely as an email will be.

[Connallmac]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Nice letter, and I agree with most of your sentiments. If you want to get it noticed, though, print a copy (email gets ignored) and address it to:

John Sargent,
c/o Macmillan
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
USA

It will still be ignored, but not as completely as an email will be.

Good point, consider it done!

[kacir]

EDIT at the end of article
I am afraid the situation is more complicated than our new member eBook Resistance realizes.

macmillan NEVER sold their bestsellers in e-book form for $9.99. It was Amazon.com that sold the books with the loss. So instead of selling the book for the 20 bucks list price they sold it for $9.99. Normally, Amazon.com sells an ordinary e-book for its list price - $20 (just a nice round example, not representative value, so I do not have to do any complex computations), keeps 35% and pays the publisher the remaining $13. If a book is on the New York Times bestseller list, Amazon.com sells it to you for $9.99, and pays the remaining $3.01 out of their own pocket. They do that to become a monopoly so they can dictate any prices they wish gouging readers and publishers alike.
What macmillan did here is they refused to let Amazon.com to sell the books at the loss.
So macmillan did not come suddenly with an idea that a bestseller should cost 15 bucks. They always sold the e-books for that price, if not more.

macmillan executives are scared of all this new e-book fashion, because it means that they will have to change. And instead of trying to use the new technology to their advantage they are trying to turn the clock back. I do not think they can put the Genie back to the bottle.


EDIT:
There is nice article, explaining the point of view of macmillan here:
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com...n_30jan10.html
The article was referred to in another thread about Amazon macmillian war here https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71750