Deleted member 42
Bezos has said more than once that he picked books to sell because they're easy to ship and warehouse.
True; but the agency model doesn't give them an effective monopoly, which I suspect is their aim.Don't forget that Amazon would **make more money per book** with the agency model.
They did say the other day, in reference to publishers windowing their ebooks, that if people can't get the ebooks they want when they want them, they'll just read something else.I've been wondering sort of idly (since Hapi mentioned a sneaking suspicion that Amazon isn't run by book people, and they may in fact be a bunch of feral nutbars) how much of this kerfluffle is due to a persistent and fundamental misunderstanding on Amazon's part.
That is, I'm suspecting that they think books are interchangeable -- sort of like bags of peanuts, or types of apples. Publishers, in that model, really resemble brand names or heirloom types....but there are perfectly good small growers of peanuts (or apples) and if they can just train their consumers to stop being such brand snobs, then those consumers will learn to be just as happy with CreateSpace offerings.
I would have thought that the abortive Amazon Shorts program would have cured them of that notion, though.
Yep.It does occur to me that being willing to list anything could encourage a cynical attitude toward books.
Amazon's Kindle system is mostly a text dump. It's heartbreaking to see what they did with some of the hand-made ebooks I produced that had links, animations, and audio. The reference books with thousands of links and carefully created links have been completely ruined.
I just want to say thanks to everyone for a very informative & well discussed thread, however can someone please explain to me what an 'Agency model' is?
I have had to look 'out there' but counldn't find anything useful! Links are fine if you don't fancy scribbling out a full explaination.
Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.
So Macmillan earns the dubious distinction of being the first major publisher to make calculated moves to drive ebook prices higher across all platforms. Thanks to Macmillan's "victory" over Amazon, Macmillan, authors and Amazon all stand to lose sales. Macmillan stands to lose market share. Authors stand to lose readership.
Blog post from an author who doesn't understand why authors are supporting Macmillian's actions in this brouhaha. Your thoughts?
From the linky (my bolding):
Also, recall that Macmillan may be planning to offer Kindle titles in a range from $4.99-$14.99. This isn't good news for their authors either, since Kindle books priced higher than $9.99 will be a tough sell and those priced below $9.99 will net the author a lower royalty. None of Macmillan's intended changes in its Kindle books deal with Amazon stand to benefit Macmillan authors or ebook readers. The intended changes only stand either scare off sales (in the case of Kindle books priced higher than $9.99 or those delayed by 7 months) or reduce author royalties (on Kindle books priced lower than $9.99).
I'm not at all surprised. My Kindle books are full of glitches. One book has a space after every word that begins with "fi," so I get "fi lled" and "fi ne" and "fi gs" throughout the whole book. Another has an extra period after each end quotation mark. Like this: "This formatting sucks.".
Bezos has said more than once that he picked books to sell because they're easy to ship and warehouse.
So here's a question (or two) that might be very stupid: it's my understanding that companies have to pay taxes on inventory, so I'm wondering if an additional motive behind this push for the ebook market could be to reduce what must be a substantial tax burden on the part of Amazon? Which also begs the question: does Amazon actually warehouse their own stock, or do they also shift that burden, either in whole or in part, off on individual producers with whom they have some sort of distribution agreement?