Library E-Book Lending Poses Rising Problem for Publishing Industry

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It was a win/win because Apple didn't think they did anything wrong. They basically did the same thing with music. The publishers did get caught colluding, but Apple simply said, hey if you want to set the price, that's fine with us, just don't sell it to someone else for less, a fairly standard clause for such deals.

The decision caused major damage because Apple finally said, screw it, we are just going to stick with servicing existing Apple customers and not push the ebook store, thus removing a major competitor from the ebook market. Major win for Amazon, which is why they worked with the DOJ to make it happen that way.

Sure, believe it all you want. If Apple seriously didn't think they did anything wrong, then why did they try to hide it so well?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by issybird

Windowing seems like such a non-issue to me. First, it seems to imply a steady stream of new books, so that having to wait eight weeks means you need to go eight weeks without library books, which is silly. In any case, new books aren't released in a constant steady stream; there are seasons during which the books expected to be most popular are released at once.

Second, when I see a new book at Overdrive and my library has one copy with a long waiting list already, I know they will be buying more. So you get on the list and see your wait time decrease drastically once the purchases hit the system. I think libraries may play a game of waiting to assess demand before committing to purchases, which seems reasonable. Windowing will just make that inherent.

I know some here feel they must read a new book by a favorite author as soon as it's released and why not? But they buy it. Personally, I can only identify two types of books where it's important to read it right away. The first are topical books, especially about the political scene, where you want to be part of the conversation when it comes out and by waiting six months not only have you missed out on the chatter, it's old news. With that type of book, exhaustive news coverage of all the best bits makes it less compelling for me anyway. The other, extremely limited type of immediate must read, is such an overwhelmingly popular fiction book that it would be impossible to avoid being spoiled if you don't read it now and stay offline while you do it, too. The last Harry Potter book was like that; if GRRM ever came out with the next book in his saga, it would be another. Not saying various communities don't have others where you need to read the book right away or miss out on the squeeing, (maybe the next Outlander?), but there really can't be that many of them for any one person.

TL;DR: Go ahead, window. It won't affect me and I doubt it will affect most people.

I agree with this.

Like leebase, when I was a kid, all my books were either from the library or kid's classics that my parents bought. Libraries didn't carry much in the way of SF&F in those days since it was looked down on by the literary types, so when I was a young teen, I started buying books with money I earned from various jobs (paper boy, reading tutor, etc...). So I never really developed a sense of entitlement with regards to library books.

Libraries have never been a "we have all books ever written, available instantly" sort of thing that some seem to expect. Most of the libraries that I've worked in were heavy on the non fiction, since they tended more towards the educational side of things, and many of the fiction were books that had been donated over the years. As a teenager, libraries were where I went to do research for papers, not where I went to get the latest best seller.

Obviously, ebooks don't work this way. For one thing, you can't donate them. So perhaps libraries do have to buy more fiction than they did with paper books, but still I don't understand some people's expectation with regards to instantly available best sellers for free.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Sure, believe it all you want. If Apple seriously didn't think they did anything wrong, then why did they try to hide it so well?

After the fact, they didn't. They even did a press release about their ebook store. During the fact, it's called negotiations.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

After the fact, they didn't. They even did a press release about their ebook store. During the fact, it's called negotiations.

Negotiations which were nefarious at best, and illegal after all as shown in court.

ETA: You are absolutely right, Amazon turned out to be the real winner of it. In hindsight they might even have planned for something like this to happen by aggravating the publishers enough to drive them to consider collusion.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Negotiations which were nefarious at best, and illegal after all as shown in court.

ETA: You are absolutely right, Amazon turned out to be the real winner of it. In hindsight they might even have planned for something like this to happen by aggravating the publishers enough to drive them to consider collusion.

It came out a year after the initial trial that Amazon lawyers wrote the initial DOJ brief. At the time, Amazon had something along the lines of 90% of the ebook market.

The music industry did exactly the same thing with Amazon when they were trying to break the iTunes hold on digital music, i.e. they all got together and agreed to let Amazon sell music DRM free, while refusing to let Apple do the same for well over a year. The idea that it's legal if Amazon does it, but illegal if it's done to Amazon is a logically inconsistent position. So it's pretty straight forward why Apple would think that what they did was completely above board.a

IMPO, there is a lot of results oriented arguing going on. We like DRM free music so it was perfectly fine then. We like cheap ebooks, so anything that gets in the way of that is bad. The fact that Amazon was perfectly fine with agency pricing once they got Apple out of the way and Cote's order expired, which is why we now have agency pricing, seems to be ignored.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

IMPO, there is a lot of results oriented arguing going on. We like DRM free music so it was perfectly fine then. We like cheap ebooks, so anything that gets in the way of that is bad. The fact that Amazon was perfectly fine with agency pricing once they got Apple out of the way and Cote's order expired, which is why we now have agency pricing, seems to be ignored.

Not to mention....the deed was done. The Kindle business was established off of the value proposition of $9.99 NYT's Best Sellers making a $400 dedicated reader device something people would buy.

By the time all of this shook out, the eInk tech was much cheaper and no longer needed to be subsidized by losing money on the best sellers.

The fact that Amazon no longer needs to lose money to sell ebooks....and doesn't have to compete on price after buying up the lionshare of the market....it's just another day in the Amazon world.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Yes, the publishers colluded with Apple to raise the price of eBooks, even though eBooks are much, much cheaper to produce and distribute.

eBooks are cheaper. But up to a point, they cost exactly the same. The same cost to the author and the same cost for editing. The cost for layout may be the same depending on how it's done. If it's done in In Design, then it will be the same cost. What is cheaper is delivery and storage.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by leebase

You get no debate from me about book pricing being pretty much whatever. But the publishers had established a vibrant market for new books at $25-$30 retail....allowing sellers to give 25% to 40% off as standard practice. The wholesale price was $12.50 or so.

Amazon courting their own authors and selling books on the cheap....is a completely different thing than selling the best seller list at $9.99. It’s also different than having a book or two as loss leaders. Putting the entire NYT's best sellers as loss leaders would destroy the perceived value of a new book.

And it worked. Just listen to all here who scream that $14.99 for a new release book is highway robber when $25 for a new book never was.

$25 for a new book is way too high. I would hardly ever buy a hardcover book and if I did, it was on sale at a lot less then $25. Most of the time, I would wait for the mass market paperback at $7.99 list and most time I was able to get it for less.

What I think is that the publishers price the hardcovers at $25 and then they are able to sell it for less as it looks like a good deal when it's sold at $14.99. Really, it's a scam (IMHO).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Which is not relevant to the big publisher's and Apple's decision to collude. I think it would be hard to show harm to Apple (who wasn't even selling books at the time) or to the big publishers, who were getting paid the full wholesale price for their eBooks. Their "problem" was that they (Apple and the big publishers) wanted to control retail prices, instead of letting Amazon do it.

But, if they thought there was a strong case against Amazon they should have brought a lawsuit to court instead of breaking the law with their end-run collusion decision. I've got a feeling they knew their case was too weak and, besides, they figured they were too big to be beaten in court. Not the first time Apple's tactics misfired or that they overestimated their lawyer's abilities.

What the publishers wanted to do was protect their pBook sales.Apple's $9.99 NYT pricing was cutting into the pBook sales. So when Apple offered the publishers the chance to get back at Amazon,they jumped at the chance. It wasn't the publishers wanting to control prices, it's publsihers wanting to save their flagging pBook sales.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It came out a year after the initial trial that Amazon lawyers wrote the initial DOJ brief. At the time, Amazon had something along the lines of 90% of the ebook market.

The music industry did exactly the same thing with Amazon when they were trying to break the iTunes hold on digital music, i.e. they all got together and agreed to let Amazon sell music DRM free, while refusing to let Apple do the same for well over a year. The idea that it's legal if Amazon does it, but illegal if it's done to Amazon is a logically inconsistent position. So it's pretty straight forward why Apple would think that what they did was completely above board.a

IMPO, there is a lot of results oriented arguing going on. We like DRM free music so it was perfectly fine then. We like cheap ebooks, so anything that gets in the way of that is bad. The fact that Amazon was perfectly fine with agency pricing once they got Apple out of the way and Cote's order expired, which is why we now have agency pricing, seems to be ignored.

Of course it is different. Not because Amazon did it, but because Apple did not all of a sudden get forced to change how they did things (DRM). There was no need to allow Apple to sell DRM free music. They agreed to it. The ebooks? Different because Apple conveniently forced the best nation clause into the whole mess. Practically forcing the publishers to strong arm Amazon out of the wholesale model. "We will break the contract to sell ANY ebooks unless you agree to our new terms" - no such thing happened with the music.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by leebase

Not to mention....the deed was done. The Kindle business was established off of the value proposition of $9.99 NYT's Best Sellers making a $400 dedicated reader device something people would buy.

By the time all of this shook out, the eInk tech was much cheaper and no longer needed to be subsidized by losing money on the best sellers.

The fact that Amazon no longer needs to lose money to sell ebooks....and doesn't have to compete on price after buying up the lionshare of the market....it's just another day in the Amazon world.

The other thing to consider is non-eink screen tech. LCD and OLED have gotten much better, even more so than the small incremental improvements on eink. Phones have gotten big enough to be perfectly fine as go-to reading device. Not to mention tablets. More ebooks are consumed on non-eink than on eink.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

eBooks are cheaper. But up to a point, they cost exactly the same. The same cost to the author and the same cost for editing. The cost for layout may be the same depending on how it's done. If it's done in In Design, then it will be the same cost. What is cheaper is delivery and storage.

I understand. But the book only needs to be "ePublished" one time. And the additional costs for paper books you mentioned are not insignificant. And you need to add salaries for those who print and warehouse, and the cost of paper (also not insignificant). The bottom line, eBooks are much, much cheaper to produce than "real" books and they should cost less (and and did cost less, and would continue costing less) in a non-colluding world.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I understand. But the book only needs to be "ePublished" one time. And the additional costs for paper books you mentioned are not insignificant. And you need to add salaries for those who print and warehouse, and the cost of paper (also not insignificant). The bottom line, eBooks are much, much cheaper to produce than "real" books and they should cost less (and and did cost less, and would continue costing less) in a non-colluding world.

You are confusing the price of the ebook with the part that the publisher gets out of it. Under the wholesale model the publishers earned more per ebook than they do now under agency. It is what it is.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by rcentros

IThe bottom line, eBooks are much, much cheaper to produce than "real" books and they should cost less (and and did cost less, and would continue costing less) in a non-colluding world.

They do cost less. Amazon imprint e-books, KDP e-books, and even many smaller tradpub e-books cost much less pretty well across the board. Even some agency e-books cost much less. Without competition, sellers are free to set prices at any level they wish, and can operate on very large margins. However, where healthy competition is present, the costs become very relevant as margins are forced downwards. The break-even price for sale of an e-book and the price to make any particular margin is of course lower than for the equivalent print book. If you sell only e-books, this doesn't really impact upon you. If you sell both e-books and print books, it doesn't matter to you so long as there is no or very limited competition. If you sell e-books and print books, and face strong competition, you also face the problem that your e-book prices may result in the cannibalisation of your print book sales. This is of course a highly relevant consideration in pricing your e-books.

Unfortunately, so far as sales are concerned, it seems that many people who will not pay a premium for newly released e-books will still buy the e-book at a reduced price later. This means that sellers are free to exploit the different levels of demand. They will take the hardcover money and the top priced e-book money first, as they always have. They are now experimenting with picking up the market at various lower price points by discounting later when demand at the higher price points have been exhausted.

[leebase]

The cost of a book has NEVER been about the cost of manufacturing and distributing books. Amazon Indie authors, or Amazon Imprint authors are cheaper because they can’t command higher prices.

And there has ALWAYS been competition for books. There are all the other books you could buy. There are library books. used books. More importantly, there is every other form of entertainment vying for people’s attention and dollars.