As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, here was a major kerfuffle between Amazon and Macmillan over the weekend that is so hugely important it will necessitate the postponement of my planned “Last Week in Publishing” post. I KNOW. Didn’t Macmillan and Amazon realize the implications to my blog???
Stay with me, because I’m going to go into the weeds a bit to break this down. And to do that I need to provide some background info.
The Background Info
The whole issue revolves around e-book pricing: many publishers have long been extremely uncomfortable with the $9.99 price point that Amazon established for e-books, feeling it’s too low and acclimating consumers to a price that is, from a publishers’ perspective, unsustainable. In the words of Hachette CEO David Young when Hachette announced that they would delay some e-book releases: “I can’t sit back and watch years of building authors sold off at bargain-basement prices.”
Here’s the interesting thing about that, and something to keep in mind because it’s not often mentioned in the discussions surrounding Amazon: major publishers weren’t getting paid based on the $9.99 price point. According to the NYTimes, for a new release publishers have been receiving roughly the equivalent of half the hardcover retail price. For a $24.99 hardcover book available as an e-book for sale at $9.99, again, according to the NY Times, Amazon pays the publisher somewhere around $12.50 and uses it as a loss leader, presumably to sell Kindles.
Along comes the iPad and Apple’s “agency” model. Apple is allowing publishers to set the list price of their own titles, and they pay publishers a 70/30 split. E-books will cost no more than $14.99. This means that for a $14.99 iBook, publishers will receive $10.43. (note: Random House hasn’t come to an agreement with Apple and is still in discussions)
Do you see what’s interesting about this?? Take this hypothetical $25.00 new release hardcover. Publishers are willingly taking less money from Apple ($10.43 in our hypothetical example vs. $12.50 for Kindle) in exchange for setting what publishers feel is a more sustainable list price.
Assuming all these reports are right. Also my math.
The Kerfuffle
This past week, as Macmillan CEO John Sargent explained, Macmillan told Amazon they wanted to use the Apple agency model for Kindle e-books. Essentially, Macmillan was proposing that Amazon could pay them less money per title if Amazon would let them set their own e-book prices.
Amazon reacted with what Mike Shatzkin called the “nuclear option”: they took down the buy buttons for nearly all Macmillan titles. As in: they pulled down the buy buttons not only for the e-books, but for print books as well. Some customers reported that Amazon removed Macmillan titles from their wish lists and deleted Macmillan sample chapters off of Kindles. Yowza.
The dust settled somewhat Sunday afternoon as Amazon said that they would “ultimately capitulate” to Macmillan’s demands and abide by the agency model with Macmillan, though the buy buttons have not yet, as of this writing, been reactivated. And that brings us up to speed.
Say What Now?
So. Why would a publisher willingly take less money per e-book copy sold in exchange for, essentially, the ability to charge consumers more money for an e-book? And why would Amazon react so vehemently when Macmillan was proposing that they receive more per copy?
Well, you’d have to ask them yourself to get the real answer. I have a few guesses though (and everything below should be taken as such).
Amazon’s position is relatively easy to guess at: they want e-book prices to be as low as possible to entice more people to buy Kindles and to make sure they have the lowest prices period. The more people who buy Kindles, the more people who are locked into their proprietary format, who are probably likely to stay with Amazon to buy e-books in the future, and, by the way, who may be less likely to buy paper books from a bookstore, further consolidating Amazon’s position as the dominant player in the bookselling world. They want the ability to sell products to consumers at as low a cost as possible.
Presumably, publishers are (presumably) concerned about losing control over the price of their books in the marketplace, especially when they compete with higher priced editions of the same work.
And, of course, lurking behind all of this is the iPad.
The iPad Factor
I plan on delving into the book world implications of the iPad in a later post, but one of the great ironies of the iPad, as Bloomsbury publisher Peter Ginna recently noted, is that Amazon and Apple are very likely going to be competing against each other on the very same device. Apple will be selling e-books through the iBooks store, and Amazon will (I’m guessing) make books available via its Kindle app.
This set up an interesting scenario where these models could potentially compete against each other head to head: Amazon presumably selling an iPad compatible e-book for $9.99 and Apple selling an iBook for $14.95. This led Ginna to ponder whether the iPad was actually a trojan horse for Amazon, who could use their app presence on the iPad to further corner the e-book market. Or, even if Amazon decides against making an iPad app available, they could still offer the same e-books at a lower price on the Kindle in order to retain a key Kindle selling point.
And that, I would postulate, is the one of the keys to all of this. Macmillan’s books will now be the same price on the Kindle as they are in the iBooks store on the iPad (and on the Kindle App on the iPad if Amazon goes that route). Amazon made an audacious bid to retain the ability to be the lowest priced e-book vendor for Macmillan’s books. Amazon blinked.
Oh Yeah, What About the Consumer?
This ain’t over. Not by a long shot.
As we’ve seen repeatedly in digital media (hello, music industry!), consumers are the ones who are going to have the most power to determine what the coming e-book landscape is going to look like. And this is where consumer experience and expectations, DRM, proprietary e-book formats, piracy, and competition are going to come together to dictate prices. I’m not exactly going out on a limb to say that consumers have their own expectations for what an e-book “should” cost, and these might not mesh with what a publisher thinks they “should” cost.
And as a recent NY Times article points out, customers are not exactly lacking for free or cheap e-book options. On the iPad and similar devices of the future, they’re not going to be lacking for cheap or free non-book distractions either.
You didn’t hear it from me, but they might even still want their books on paper too. Which they bought at their friendly neighborhood bookstore.
When the dust clears on all of this, will publishers regret accepting a lower price per copy in exchange for the ability to set higher prices? Or was Macmillan smart to take a stand against very low discounting to help level the playing field? Have we seen Amazon’s peak as an e-book player or will they continue to dominate the coming e-book world? Will publishers follow Macmillan’s lead or work out their own arrangements? Are you on Team Amazon or Team Macmillan? Or maybe even Team Can’t We All Just Get Along?
You tell me. I’m extremely curious to know what you think about all of this.
I'm on Team My Head Hurts.
I know that some Kindle users a upset but, really, the lost leader pricing and Amazon cornering the book market isn't good for anyone.
Though it may hurt me, personally, as a Macmillan author, I'm 100% behind my publisher's decision. I think WHEN the other big 6 follow their lead, it will be a good thing for readers.
No matter what Mr. Moneybags says when you pass GO — Monopoly is BAD.
This is more than a matter of competitive pricing. This is more like "drive the other guy into the ground so I have no competition pricing. Without competition, that lovely low price tag will ratchet itself up and up and up.
Amazon acted like a spoiled child. For them to systematically remove the buy button for all of MacMillan and their imprints was extremely childish.
I'm not an e-book reader, don't own a device and this really doesn't make me inclined to want to buy one especially from Amazon if they can unequivocally go into my device and remove what I've purchased.
Something like this needed to happen. But I see Amazon being accused of anti-trust laws in the near future.
um, my captcha is lying??? (I'm not, I swear!)
As an author under contract with Macmillan and also a Kindle bestseller, see my analysis of all this here:
onlinebookreview.org
If anything, this is making me stall any decision of ever getting an eReader from anywhere, especially Amazon…until there's a format that plays nicely with all the other eReaders.
And if that doesn't happen, well, I guess I'll be sticking to the old-fashioned way of paper 😛
I don't think Amazon blinked, I think they feinted. Rather than being the gorilla who beat the publishers into submission, they said it should be A, Macmillan said it should be B, Amazon argued, Macmillan insisted, and now the public will say, No, we want A. Amazon will then get to turn to all the other publishers and say, see? We know what we're doing. Follow along kiddies.
Good business strategy (if it works, which I think it will), but disappointing in that it's Amazon and I dislike the Kindle.
Next step in the ebook war is machine-neutral sales with a national/global? storefront/visiblity. I think Borders got there too soon.
(As an aside, I've purchased three B&N ebooks and read them on my Blackberry with free downloaded software. While I don't want to buy paper books any more [my shelves can't handle them], I lament the fact that I won't be able to read the books years from now when the B&N is no longer supporting its software and single-use machines have faded into niche sales.)
The word author seems to be missing in these discussions. Do you anticipate that one day more authors will not give permission for their works to be sold as ebooks until many months after publication? Is it something that will need to be written into the author/publisher contracts?
A higher price point for ebooks may give book stores more of a fighting chance to stay afloat. It would be sad to lose even more book stores.
Gah! How dare they delay our 'Last Week in Publishing' tidbits!
Seriously, though, from a consumer standpoint, I prefer hard copy books that I can display on my shelves and go 'oh, yeah. I'm a bookworm' as opposed to carrying about a book that can break if I -inevitably- drop it. There's plenty of techo-savvy people out there, but there's plenty of us who aren't, which is why we have to call for assistance when our gadgets break.
In my mind, paying more for an eBook than a paperback doesn't make any sense. I will not be buying any eBooks that cost > $10. My level of comfort with eBook pricing is about $7-8 max.
I see this as the first of many battles over e-book formats and pricing. I'm standing with Ink here, right behind the Team My Head Hurts sign.
I think Macmillan's strategy is better for the book industry overall. Amazon just wants to kill the book industry and make ebooks another widget they can sell in quantity.
Team Macmillan all the way.
Yeah, I'm on Bryan's team, though whatever happens, I wouldn't bet against Apple.
We authors ultimately suffer, regardless. I think iPad isn't the gamechanger it's made out to be – unless it fully supports all eReader formats through apps eventually.
Whatever the case, writing as an exclusive career has gone from 1 in 1,000,000 to 1 in 1,500,000. I hope you are writing for the love of storytelling… Like I am…
I'm terrible at making predictions, but I did find the Amazon tantrum interesting (and in bad taste). It will be interesting to see where this all leads!
Now that Macmillan got what they wanted – from Amazon – and I am shocked that they worked this out at a lightening speed a Jedi Knight could admire… I think they were right.
I've worked in digital entertainment for over a dozen years and the 'content pull' only hurts the consumer. I'm glad Nathan mentioned the music industry because it is important to look at other content driven media – even if they are not exactly the same- and learn from their mistakes.
In this case Amazon does care a lot more about the consumer. I've worked at some huge companies who didn't care if they pulled a major partner's content away for years. The users didn't know, they don't pay attention to specific companies they just want the content they want and when it's not there you drive them away to competitors or heaven forbid- the library!
Apple did the same thing in music pricing songs for .99 cents once again creating a singles market to sell iPods. Amazon prices some singles at .89 cents because by that time the record labels were so annoyed with Apple. Amazon consumers buy full albums & it's a different consumer, one that isn't left out of the iTunes 'indie rock cool kid' world and feels looked after by Amazon.
It did bother me to see Amazon pulling the same 'loss leader' business to sell devices. Publishers and writers don't get a cut of those devices. $2.50 is not a lot when it helps you sell a $259 item. Now that the Macmillan content is back, I have to applaud Amazon and I can't wait to see what products are out there in five years. In the long run when you have a competitive market it means a lot more consumers are paying attention. A device that only sells books may not appeal to younger consumers who are used to consuming 3 or more types of media at once (TV, Radio, Computer, Smartphone, etc.) I know there are 3 million Kindles out there but this makes consumers want to read more. I can't argue with that!
I would not buy a first generation anything from Apple though. It's also irritating that they made this announcement right a month after the holidays. Suddenly that shiny new Nook or Kindle may not be as attractive to owners (although mine still makes me giddy!)
Macmillian is following Baen Books (www.baen.com)example of e-book distribution. Flexible and scalable pricing that is driven by "time on the e-shelf" discounting. (Early releases cost more than later releases — which matches the hardback-to-paperback pricing scale.) The official letter is here https://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58701
The fact that the iPad release and iBookstore allows publishers to renegotiate in favor of getting affordable e-books in the hands of the readers is a good thing.
Plus, I don't like that Amazon treats every e-book customer as though they are a thief.
I'm on Team So Glad I Bought a Sony and Not a Kindle.
Seriously, though. I'm in favour of whatever model is best for authors. Maybe it's just me, but I'm kind of confused about what that might be at this point…
As an author I'm watching this with much interest. As a consumer? I'm waiting for the dust to settle. Formats are going to change like the wind along with the devices. I'm cheap, and don't want to lay out cash for books I'm going to lose at the whim of developers.
I buy a lot of eBooks, mainly for my Kindle but I'm also experimenting with nook and Sony Reader Daily Edition. $9.99 seems like the right price for a bestseller or new release. If eBooks start costing more than that, I'll be fewer. And if just a few publishers charge more, I will avoid their books. These are all profit-making corporations, but I think Bezos does look at a larger mission here, one that I will benefit from if he achieves it – every book every published, available in 60 seconds etc. Sounds good to me…
I'm with Team My Head Hurts. Oy.
I think a publisher should have the right to set their own prices, no matter what the format. The customer can always choose not to buy them.
Amazon, on the other hand, behaved badly IN PUBLIC WITH EVERYONE WATCHING. I am not an ebook user, but I can tell you, I am a lot less likely to buy my books through them from now on. And I buy a lot of books.
Thanks for putting this all so concisely, Nathan.
I have to agree with Ink – I'm on Team My Head Hurts too.
To be perfectly honest, speaking as a consumer who Really, Really Wants a Shiny Sparkly E-Book Reader, this whole thing turns me off. I'm anti-DRM because of the profession I work in (providing library services to the print-impaired), but if that's the way things go, I'll suck it up and deal with it. But DRM notwithstanding, until they get their collective act together, I'm not going to shell out the cash for a device. Even though in a perfect world, I'd already own one.
Not counting the bandwagon jumpers who'll go for one or the other because they can't or won't wait, I think they're all shooting themselves in the feet here.
GO MACMILLAN! Macmillan is *great* company–good to its employees, to its authors, etc so I'm rootin' for them!
Quite frankly, I'm for anything that challenges Amazon as the dominant force in publishing. Because what the big six realize, that not a lot of consumers or others do, is that if Amazon starts dictating the prices and closes down any real competition, they will not only be the ones ratcheting up the prices of books, but they'll also have control over what people can and can't have access to. This isn't the first time Amazon has said, "Nope, you don't get to buy that, now." Between pulling devices from the Kindle (haven't learned anything from the first time they pulled a book), the fact that this is what shows up for a homosexuality search even now, after their supposed "glitch" that stripped the rankings of books with homosexuality in them, and their continued capitulations to Scientologists to withhold or ban any comments or books critical of Scientology, I can't say I trust them. The publishing industry certainly shouldn't.
Background – I, too, never thought I would own an ebook device. My husband gave me a Kindle for Christmas – and I caved, hard. I love it! I recently took it on a short trip to Seattle. It was, to use a term that dates myself, very cool. I downloaded my favorite collection of Poirot shorts for right under 5.00 and happily read through the stories while my husband battled the traffic.
Now, I own all those Poirot stories in paperback or hardcover….still, for 4.99 I didn't mind having it on my Kindle. And that is rather my price threshhold for purchasing ebooks. If there's a book I really want – really, really want, like the latest Stephen King or Elizabeth Kostova (hoping to get that one for my birthday)…I'm going to get it in hardcover and enjoy every wonderful moment of feeling the weight of that book in my hands as the story carries me away.
So, having a Kindle does not in any way mean I'm not buying more printed books. Nor am I going to pay 15.00 or 10.00 for ebooks. I download freebies or samples so see if I want to go out and buy the printed book. I guess my Kindle is sort of my way of browsing books from the comfort of my home.
Now – that iPad looks super cool. I must say the look of the ebooks has me intrigued. The idea of changeable/interactive digital covers – oh, yeah….that speaks to me as a reader and as a writer. All the other things look fun, too….so maybe I'll consider buying it down the road after the reviews are in. Again, the pricing of the books will not make any difference to me.
I do give Macmillan kudos for taking a stand – and it sounds like a smart one, one with foresight. I'm wagging my finger at Amazon for pulling a digital temper tantrum. Growing up is hard to do.
I agree with INK as well – my head hurts with all this posturing and feinting as someone mentioned. It's one-upmanship under the guise of competition.
My main concern is for the writers and the consumers. The whole industry revolves around the STORY/NOVEL, yet we have the people who support the distribution of the written work haggling over who gets the bigger piece.
What happened to those agencies that break down monopolies? The big players in these public spectacles of marketing gone bad seem to be getting carried away with their own self-importance.
I'm for the Author Team, the person who should benefit the most from their creative effort of writing a book (with the support of one's agent, of course).
One thing about the Kindle's proprietary format–you can get it elsewhere. My new book, The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles, is available in the Kindle format (.mobi) at both Amazon and at Smashwords.com. But I make more off of a Smashwords sale. Don't know how this will turn out as the release day was today.
This whole smacks of blu-ray vs. HD-DVD (or beta vs. VHS back in the day) when the studios were taking sides. I'm waiting til the dust settles. Best place to get free books is still the library as far as I'm concerned.
I'm on Team Traditional Books.
Both parties are Team rabid monkey as far as I'm concerned.
However, I believe Amazon's actions were long-term better for the developing digital market and I am *passionately* against a supplier telling a retailer how much they can discount. There's an economic term for that, folks, and it's still illegal in a lot of countries. If Macmillan wanted to sell in whatever venue at whatever price, they were free to do so– but they actually wanted to force another party to comply with their prices. And this pressure involved goods which, by definition as creative content, have no real competition– effectively giving Macmillan a monopoly position.
I am also absolutely floored by the hoo-rah St. Jobs rhetoric coming from the adoring crowds here. Has everyone forgotten that Jobs and Apple did *exactly the same thing* to the music industry by insisting on a stable price point for so long? Eventually they did allow dynamic pricing, but only after they had set a standard from which the consumer wasn't going to accept a lot of deviation.
(my disclaimer– I someday hope to be a published writer. I spent most of my day job career in a combination of retail and new media publishing, so I see things from the balance sheet side of the page.)
Watch piracy start to skyrocket on these overpriced, DRM crippled ebooks.
I spoke to a few of my friends who own Kindles, and they all say they will either buy used, borrow, or pirate these titles, rather than pay $15 for a DRM crippled e-book.
I'm a bit of an idiot on e-reader matters, but didn't Amazon break a legal agreement with Macmillian? Couldn't Macmillian sue Amazon for breach of contract?
I suppose that soon all of this will get settled, but in the meantime, it sure doesn't make me want to run out and buy a reader gizmo, especially from Amazon. I'm sure that Macmillian merely wanted to discuss its proposition. I don't see that as a reason for Amazon to go postal. Its behavior surely doesn't make for a very good public image. I'll bet its marketing department is going bonkers right about now. 🙂 n
I follow about a third of that, but I still think e-books will fail to make the same impact as CDs and DVDs. For one, the mentioned "book in hand" factor, and two, the lack of a dramatic improvement over the reading experience.
For travelers stuck on planes, trains, buses, airports…I get it. Very convenient, but not so much so that the price can't still come down for both books and readers.
In the end, words are words. If somehow they became "better" words through technology, then fine. I like my MP3's over my vinyl records for the most part. But until then, I'm in no hurry to budge.
Team Macmillan, because as Deborah Blake said above
. . . a publisher should have the right to set their own prices, no matter what the format. The customer can always choose not to buy them.
Amazon, on the other hand, behaved badly IN PUBLIC WITH EVERYONE WATCHING. . . . I am a lot less likely to buy my books through them from now on. And I buy a lot of books.
aren't most book prices set in accordance with the costs of printing and distributing the product?
the only real reason ebook prices should match those of physical books is to cover the costs accrued by printing and distributing physical books.
it doesn't cost anything to type the manuscript and send it around digitally.
I have one thing to say about all this:
Amazon is a big fat meanie.
And team why can't we all get along.
I'm on Team Consumer of Books, even though I'm a writer. Only because I think you can't arbitrarily set a price that is higher than consumers want to spend, or feel they get value for, and expect it to last.
Also: those cheap e-books are going to spring into the fray
I like the idea of E-book prices being scalable according to how long the hardcover has been released — the E-book gets cheaper after the hardcopy has been out for a while — so in that this returns some control of pricing back to the publishers = good thing.
Hey, publishers, here's another idea — why not offer the E-book at a substantial discount to readers who pop for the new hardcover release?
Nathan thanks for writing this post…this is a HUGE deal. My GUESS is that Amazon is trying to play hardball with the publisher, but the game is over.
My husband wanted to get me a Kindle for Christmas (showing his support of my novel writing aspirations and voracious appetite for reading); I said no. I'm big on books because I am all about the front and back covers and want color.
Then, comes the iPad announcement. He comes home and starts talking about this that very day. Granted, he is an early adopter of high-tech gadgets, but we are both iPhone users. (Seriously between my iPhone and the Dyson vacuum cleaner as the two best inventions in the last decade…) The fact that I can pick up the iPad and use it like I do my iPhone and keep my book collection right there in COLOR and turn the page just like I do on my iPhone, I'm sold.
Kindle is a "killed app" because it is strictly an e-reader and limited and has all kinds of rules. I checked it out and that reinforced my feeling that I didn't want one.
iPad is the game-changer. Apple will get all their iPhone users to buy at least one for the household. I think the estimate is 5 to 8 million units in year one. Amazon has maybe sold something like 3 million plus/minus units. They are evasive. And, if you think that Amazon is selling e-books for $9.99 for the consumer—no way! They're trying to corner a big share of the market, but they just lost. Think Sony BETA vs. VHS. Think Blu-ray versus HD DVDs….
Fantastic post, Nathan. And welcome back.
I think Amazon knew exactly what it was doing. It had time to think up strategies. It's flexing it's muscles without alienating the consumer for too long. It doesn't want to drive consumers away, but it is sending a very clear message to McMillian. For example, since Sunday, MacMillian lost money.
Did people really expect Amazon to just roll over and play nice?
No matter how much better the IPad may be than the Kindle, people have consumer loyalty to Amazon. They are not used to thinking of Apple as a place to go for books. I think Apple is still in a weaker position here.
But what do I know? 🙂 I'm just talking because it's fun. High drama.
I also think that whatever happens to day will change by tomorrow. Should be a fascinating ride.
And don't count out the writer in all this. This writer, at least, is watching. 🙂
Great post. Thank you for breaking it down. It seems to me that the 9.99 won't be a loss leader forever – once Amazon had made the consumer believe that e-books should be 9.99, then publishers will be forced to accept, perhaps, a 70/split from there (6.99 per unit). Don't you think that downward pressure on pricing will eventually be passed on writers? Won't it hurt hardcover sales too? I'm happy Macmillan took a stand and that Apple chose a different model. More power to them. I hope the other five follow…
I believe in consumer choice, but when the price points (between new hard cover and e-book) are a world apart, the consumer is trained to believe that books should be less than $10. It will hurt everyone in the chain accept Amazon (because they can unload $259 devices). Rather than have one gigantic super-ultra-mega-store dictate price, why not let the publishers decide price? Competition between houses would be more effective than Amazon's dictate.
As far as the comparison with the music industry. Songs are generally 99 cents, albums 9.99. That's 10-12 songs. If Amazon charged 99 cents per chapter than we'd be talking about a $30-$40 ebook, which isn't right either. The music discussion doesn't translate. Now, Amazon does sell some short stories fo 3.99. I wonder how we see fine with 3.99 for 6,000 words, but 9.99 for 100,000 words. It's out of whack, and I'm afraid the value of the art is being held hostage.
CNN just announced that Amazon caved and put Macmillian back up with its required download price. Think we're talking legal pressure here. 🙂 n
I have written my last two blogs on this issue. I think Amazon comes off looking like a bully but I think Macmillan is going to find they are wrong about what people are willing to pay for an eBook. Wrote about it here (https://tinyurl.com/yhctsh9 & https://tinyurl.com/yl3l5cz)
I agree with everything this guy says: https://www.ereads.com/richard_curtis/
Consequently, I think it's a good thing for authors. I think ultimately it will be good for everyone.
As e-books become more popular authors should be paid a royalty that is more in line with that burgeoning market. That wouldn't happen without a different pricing model. As an author, I care about that a great deal.
Most of us do not and will not ever make a living from our work. Why should that be compounded by accepting insultingly low royalties on this new market, which may very well become the primary book market?
I consider this weekend to be the first step in turning e-book royalties more our way.
A new book is released for $24.95, but Border's sells the book for $20.95 and then I have a 40% off coupon for being a Borders reward member so I get the book for 12.57 which is almost 1/2 off the cover price. Now, I have no clue what the publisher gets from Borders. But, if a brand new hardback can sell for $12.57, then aren't the books overpriced to begin with?
Yes, I know, that's a whole 'nother firestorm! Personally, I'm going to buy books, no matter the cost, because I like to read. Do I love the $9.99 option through Amazon for my Kindle reads? Heck, yeah. Am I going to grouse a bit by a price increase for one publisher? Yeah, probably! As a potentially published author one day in the future do I want the most bang for my $$$?? Yes.
In the end, rather than working together, Amazon, Apple, and the Publishers seem to work against each other, except in the fact that they contribute equally to the consumer getting screwed. : )
S
I just want to address something that I don't see addressed in other comments. Amazon is the major distributor of self-published works. While the occasional story is okay and was a pity it was passed over by agents, many are not. If publishing wars are going to further stifle an already tough market to break into, I see more people self-publishing, even if they can only sell a book for four bucks.
I'm sure these types of negotiations go on all the time, but customers don't hear about them. Amazon is appearing to be nothing more than a spoiled brat. If you don't come to terms, you don't do business with them — in this case, you don't renew your contract. I would have been fine with Amazon holding the line if they weren't willing to budge on the terms. But to yank paper books, sample chapters on Kindle, and titles from wishlists without any warning shows a complete lack of respect for its customers.
I don't know what the "right price" is for ebooks, but they, and other digital content, have value. As our society moves more towards “everything digital”,we need to get used to the idea of paying for content. Many of us have little problem shelling out $10-$15 for a movie and walking out with nothing but a ticket stub. Why is this so hard?
It is easy to understand what Amazon wants to do, just read this article from Newsweek (probably mention in this blog earlier, but relevant to THIS issue as well).
https://www.newsweek.com/id/227751
Jeff Bezos wants to eliminate books altogether, period. How better to do that then to bargain sell ebooks? Make it so cheap one feels foolish spending the extra money. The article claims that Kindle sales are 48% of the physical book sales. Anyone care to ask how much they are saving on shipping those ebooks???
I do think that the ipad is going to bring some of today’s youth back to reading, which is good. I fear Bezos may be confused about how he wants the Kindle to stay “reading specific”. So many of my students carry their entire lives on their phones, why drag around a Kindle? Many of my friends are already reading books on their ipods. Plus, I have rarely spent $300 on something I have never seen, or tried out. Barnes & Noble has it right with the Nook, putting them on display in their brick and mortar stores. I spent 40 minutes with one the other day and found it rather interesting, but it will be hard to keep me away from an ipad, and print books thanks…
Excuse me. I should have specified "yank paper books from the website…" They don't actually come to your home and grab your books. Not that I see it much here, but people on those Amazon forums jump all over you for an oversight like that…