Guardian article: The True Price of Publishing

aruna · Sep 15, 2011

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/aug/04/price-publishing-ebooks

Interesting...

It's still early days in the ebook story, and no doubt there'll be many disputes and disruptions along these lines in the future. But here's a final thought for now. Was it wise to allow a situation in which a single company – Amazon – became market leader in terms of both a digital product (the ebook) and the hardware through which it's delivered?

A.R. Starr · Sep 15, 2011

Oh this is bull***t.

This argument would be fine if this was indeed what publishing houses were doing. But increasingly it seems only the bigger names get the luxury of editing, marketing and so on. Newer authors are expected to do all this themselves, so where's the advantage (and cost justification) then?

No reputable publisher doesn't edit or market their books. If the author has to do it theirselves, they're self published, vanity published or just plain scammed.

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 15, 2011

What? Allow? How would they have planned on stopping Amazon? "Excuse me, but we'd rather you weren't so successful selling books online." Is it amazon's fault they saw a market years before anyone else did -- even the publishers themselves?

gothicangel · Sep 16, 2011

Shadow_Ferret said:
What? Allow? How would they have planned on stopping Amazon? "Excuse me, but we'd rather you weren't so successful selling books online." Is it amazon's fault they saw a market years before anyone else did -- even the publishers themselves?

Amazon's success wasn't always so certain. Go back to the dot.com bust in 2000, Amazon nearly went down the toilet. Amazon only actually started making profit within the last few years.

So, they haven't always been so successful at selling books.

gothicangel · Sep 16, 2011

OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

All empires fall in the end. I have no doubt within the next ten years, Amazon will not hold a monopoly. There are always entrepeneurs who can will devise away to make Amazon look like a dinosaur.

Momento Mori · Sep 16, 2011

I've been saying for a long time now that I can well imagine the European Commission getting involved in this at some point in the future because Amazon is one of (if not the) biggest on-line book retailer and its integration model could be argued to be anti-competitive. At the least, it wouldn't surprise me if Amazon end up having to allow competitive ebook formats on its website to increase customer choice.

MM

shaldna · Sep 16, 2011

Momento Mori said:
I've been saying for a long time now that I can well imagine the European Commission getting involved in this at some point in the future because Amazon is one of (if not the) biggest on-line book retailer and its integration model could be argued to be anti-competitive. At the least, it wouldn't surprise me if Amazon end up having to allow competitive ebook formats on its website to increase customer choice.

MM

I suspect Amazon will eventually be forced to break down into smaller independant companies in much the same way Microsoft was.

Deleted member 42 · Sep 16, 2011

This is a very stupid article. It's woefully ignorant on all sorts of things—including the assumptions about how ebooks are made.

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 17, 2011

gothicangel said:
Amazon's success wasn't always so certain. Go back to the dot.com bust in 2000, Amazon nearly went down the toilet. Amazon only actually started making profit within the last few years.

So, they haven't always been so successful at selling books.

Not disagreeing, but I don't recall that. I remember them going online in 1995 and then just rolling along, moving from books to CDs, DVDs, acquiring CD Now, then becoming an everything to everyone website. And as I recall the dot.com burst, that had more to do more with rapidly rising stock prices on dot.coms and those that folded didn't have a good business model.

Guardian article: The True Price of Publishing

aruna

On a wing and a prayer

A.R. Starr

Writing Addict & Proud Of It

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

gothicangel

Toughen up.

gothicangel

Toughen up.

Momento Mori

Tired and Disillusioned

shaldna

The cake is a lie. But still cake.

Deleted member 42

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester