Kindles for sale through independent bookstores

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JoeD

I'd expect the small print has a clause where Amazon only pay a % of kindle ebook purchases for X years.

No small print about it: the press release makes it very clear that the revenue share option is a two year deal involving off the shelf standard Kindles.

The Waterstone's deal may or not be the same--I've heard the Kindles they sell have custom firmware so they may get a longer revenue share deal. They are certainly big enough to be "more equal".

For the US indies the deal is pretty straightforward: get a two year piece of the kindle pie, even from upgraders, an open-ended piece of the Kobo pie (but only new Kobo customers, so far), or get nothing from other epub customers. They don't really have much to offer so Amazon probably doesn't care much if they accept the offer or not.

Amazon just wants it on public record that they offered bookstores and small businesses a piece of the ebook action and were summarily dismissed by most.

That is priceless.
Cheap antitrust insurance.

[hansl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid your logic eludes me. Why would you run?

It's not necessarily logic. But when a bookseller starts selling readers (electronic) which cannot display its books this will cost readers (human) and I better support a store which is not a willing bait.

hansl

[tubemonkey]

Conquer from within - brilliant marketing strategy

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by hansl

It's not necessarily logic. But when a bookseller starts selling readers (electronic) which cannot display its books this will cost readers (human) and I better support a store which is not a willing bait.

hansl

If people are going to buy ebooks anyway, surely it makes more sense for a bookshop to make some revenue from that process, than none?

[hansl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If people are going to buy ebooks anyway, surely it makes more sense for a bookshop to make some revenue from that process, than none?

If they don't buy my ebooks anymore because I invited them to buy the ebooks somewhere else, I'd say it's a short-sighted profit. Also I wouldn't want to live from the charity of a giant. I mean, I help my strongest competitor to sell more books. Is that resonable? But since Amazon is too big to sense myself as competitor it's even more careless to tempt my few customers to move on.

If I could sell Kindles and AZW books with my shop preinstalled on the Kindle without paying any kind of franchising, license or whatever fee i.e. acting as seller and not Amazon-reseller, I'd probably change my mind. But this would be closer to competition than Amazon probably likes.

I would not have any special preference for epub if AZW were open. I like mobi and occasionally read mobi books on my Symbian phone when my T3 isn't with me. Of course I'd appreciate most if epub (with ADE DRM) and AZW could coexist on a Kindle.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by hansl

Of course I'd appreciate most if epub (with ADE DRM) and AZW could coexist on a Kindle.

They coexist fine on the Kindle Fires.
Took me two minutes to get Nook on my Kindle.

On the eInk Kindles they would if ADEPT weren't a for profit venture for Adobe requiring its own licensing fees. But as long as Adobe competes against Amazon they aren't getting a free ride on Kindles.

[hansl]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They coexist fine on the Kindle Fires.
Took me two minutes to get Nook on my Kindle.

Sorry, I forgot that this is the news forum and had only eInk readers in mind.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

On the eInk Kindles they would if ADEPT weren't a for profit venture for Adobe requiring its own licensing fees. But as long as Adobe competes against Amazon they aren't getting a free ride on Kindles.

I doubt that since they don't even support non-DRMed epub.

Also, its not a free ride since the user pays for the eInk Kindle.
If Amazon would offer epub with Adobe DRM I could read it on my Sony. And Amazon for sure wouldn't worry about this user paid ride on a Sony.

And Adobe has no bookstore except for books about Adobe software, with an incarnation as the Adobe Bookstore at Amazon! So where is the competition except that between DRMs which isn't a competition really as long as Amazon's is bound to AZW on Kindles?

[charmian]

I don't understand your reasoning. Why is it relevant in this situation that the user pays for the e-ink Kindle? Anyway, isn't it widely speculated that Amazon sells their e-ink readers for near-cost and makes their profits on the bookstore?

[Waylander]

Conquer from within - brilliant marketing strategy

Are you being sarcastic, and if not, why do you want Amazon to take over the book world?

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by Waylander

Are you being sarcastic, and if not, why do you want Amazon to take over the book world?

Just a guess, but I would think sarcastic is probably a moderately reasonable bet .............

[hansl]

Originally Posted by charmian

I don't understand your reasoning. Why is it relevant in this situation that the user pays for the e-ink Kindle? Anyway, isn't it widely speculated that Amazon sells their e-ink readers for near-cost and makes their profits on the bookstore?

It's not a free ride as opposed to what my pre-poster wrote:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

On the eInk Kindles they would if ADEPT weren't a for profit venture for Adobe requiring its own licensing fees. But as long as Adobe competes against Amazon they aren't getting a free ride on Kindles.

And my explanation was:

Originally Posted by hansl

If Amazon would offer epub with Adobe DRM I could read it on my Sony. And Amazon for sure wouldn't worry about this user paid ride on a Sony.

Here I used "user paid ride on a Sony" in order to emphasize that it is not a free ride for Adobe on the Sony and that there are companies which don't lock up their users and that epub books from any source could be displayed on the Sony as long as they are ADEPT protected or unprotected without asking Sony.

I know that ADEPT is the only DRM supported on my Sony but many bookstores and ebook reader devices support it. It is not locked away for Adobe use only.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, you misunderstand the way it works. The Waterstones bookstore is an ePub bookstore, so naturally someone who buys a Kindle isn't going to buy books there. Waterstones receive a commission on books bought from the Kindle store from a Kindle bought from Waterstones...." ]


Yes, I did assume there would some sort of (small) commission somewhere, but presumably not as much as if sold either through their own e-store, or not via a Kindle ?
My feeling is they've done themselves no real favours long term by becoming a kind of Amazon "outpost" - the entity responsible for the demise of "independent" bookstores (see below) - and losing even more any uniqueness or cachet they may have once had.
And, much reason to choose them above others - like Amazon......

["....What do you mean by "independent"? Waterstones are a large company currently owned by a Russian venture capital group.

...."]

Yes, sloppy nomenclature, I must admit, probably because of a lingering bow to past historical reputation - although Waterstones did seem to manage to cling on to that reputation through various trials, tribulations and incarnations !
Anyway, sadly no more, being, as they are, now totally dependent on Russian largesse and the balance sheet .....

[carpetmojo]

Harry, sorrry about the mess above. I hope you can get past my duff construction - tried to edit things, and didn't help.........

[HarryT]

No problem - it's understandable

I find it difficult to shed a tear for Waterstones, given that they are themselves responsible for the demise of a great many truly independent bookshops.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by hansl

I know that ADEPT is the only DRM supported on my Sony but many bookstores and ebook reader devices support it. It is not locked away for Adobe use only.

Every last one of the bookstores (and device manufacturers) pays Adobe, which either comes out of their profits or jacks up the price. That Adobe tax is paid on every ebook sold forever and ever and amounts to a significant slice of the *profit* in an ebook sale. (It is a fixed amount, not a percent, so for cheap ebooks it can run 10% or more of the retailer's gross margin.)

That Adobe tax makes sense for ebook sellers who don't have the technology and resources to support their own DRM encryption, authentication, and management systems so for *them* Adobe earns its piece of the action.
But Amazon owns its technology and its own servers and its own DRM; everything Adobe does, they already do. And in some respects, they do it better. (Direct wireless shopping and delivery, device registration and management, standalone PC-less operation.) So Amazon paying for Adobe DRM is paying Adobe to do things they can do themselves in-house and cheaper. That is the very definition of free ride: getting paid to provide unnecessary services.
And the proof lies in the results: Amazon does just fine without Adobe.

The only reason why Amazon would want to waste hundreds of millions of dollars a year paying Adobe would be to try to absolutely positively kill all competing ebookstores. That would be true monopolistic behavior and would draw the attention of the antitrust regulators faster than a speeding bullet. No way does Amazon want that. And neither do we.

As is, Amazon now runs a legally clean competitive operation. It is cheaper to run than their generic competitors and they choose to pass on the savings to consumers as lower prices.
Consumers get a clear choice: buy into the Amazon ecosystem or buy interoperability. Either choice has its pros and cons but that is life. *Everything* in life is a trade-off. TINSTAAFL!!