5 ms·

Why my books are no longer for sale via Amazon

69 points by ajdecon 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
ajdecon 17y ago
Submitted for having a pretty good explanation of the economics of ebook publishing (through major publishers), and discussion of the recent Amazon-Macmillan dispute.
- ajdecon 17y ago
  Specifically, the big point I thought interesting: at the moment ebooks seem to have a pretty small demand which falls off fast, so they sell more like limited editions than mass-market. This might make it difficult to justify releasing to ebook without higher prices. (I don't have a strong opinion on who's right or wrong here, as I can argue it from both sides. But I'll admit I generally sympathize more with authors than anyone on this, and they seem to have the least amount of control in the publishing process.)
- habitue 17y ago
  Well he is being pretty misleading about the issues surrounding price fixing. Yes with physical goods it causes shortages and surpluses, but with eBooks the entire argument is bull. The amount supplied is exactly equal to the amount demanded in eBooks, and the only relevant issue is whether the publisher makes back the initial costs. Pretending ebooks fit into the same category as rivalrous products is dishonest.
patio11 17y ago
But Amazon pretty much, right now, has a monopoly on online bookselling. They’re huge. As a result, this becomes nearly a form of de facto price fixing. This is not a reason to prefer Macmillan over Amazon. Amazon might arguably have something that is almost a monopoly on online bookselling, allowing them to de facto dictate the price of books purchased online (though not offline, except to the extent that price wars dictate that competitors charge less). Macmillan has an actual monopoly, guaranteed by Congress, on producing Macmillan books. Macmillan is telling Amazon to engage in actual price fixing. Macmillan has told Amazon that if Amazon does not set their prices to exactly what Macmillan says they should be, when Macmillan says this should be, Macmillan will use its actual monopoly to forbid Amazon from distributing their books. Macmillan is doing this to avoid channel conflict -- i.e. establish actual price fixing backed up by the power of law to forbid there to be price-based competition among the various outlets who sell their books. It turns reality on its head to portray Macmillan as the pro-consumer champion of a vibrant, competitive market here.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  That's the best summation of this whole thing I've seen so far today. Thanks.
- cgranade 17y ago
  At the same time, it also turns reality on its head to portray Amazon as being pro-consumer in this case (where's the good old Amazon that helped force Apple out of music DRM by launching Amazon MP3?). In this struggle, it seems that both sides are trying to price-fix, but to different prices, and without much concern for either the consumers or the authors that are so directly affected by their falling-out. Other good perspectives: * http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/01/the_amazon_kerfuffle.php http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/01/the_amazon_kerfuf... * http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-pricing/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-... * http://malkingrey.livejournal.com/577241.html http://malkingrey.livejournal.com/577241.html
  - felixc 17y ago
    The difference is that Amazon is trying to price-fix a ceiling, whereas Macmillan is trying to price-fix a floor.
    - cgranade 17y ago
      The question of which is ultimately better for the consumer is non-trivial to my mind. Not to mention that, because publishers tie author royalties to the physical cost of production, the authors stand to lose a lot in this struggle.
      - Retric 17y ago
        How can any price greater than 0 be the best price for a consumer.
        alex_c 17y ago
        If something won't be profitable to make, it won't be made. The best price for the consumer is the lowest price at which the item desired by the consumer can still be produced.
skolor 17y ago
I haven't really been following this situation, and I'm far from an economics expert, so I have a few questions for anyone who understands this stuff better than I do: First off, I'm not quite sure about what the issue is. I seem to remember that Amazon said they wanted a hard ceiling, no books selling for >$10. The article claims that what the publisher wants is the ability o change book prices based on demand. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that all Amazon was saying was "You know the $10-15 range you wanted to price eBooks at? You can't do that." Second is more of an economics question. The article mentions Price Fixing in relation to gas prices, and how fixing the prices caused gas prices to go up due to hoarding. How does that work in a Monopoly, where the publisher not only controls the only source of the books, but can also make more of a single work at a negligible cost? (Yes, I understand that there is an outlay at the beginning, but after that the cost of producing additional copies of the eBook is nearly non-existent. You don't have to keep a stock of the eBooks that you can potentially lose money on, you don't have to pay in advance to have each copy produced. This changes things, but I don't know how.)
- llimllib 17y ago
  > I thought that all Amazon was saying was "You know the $10-15 range you wanted to price eBooks at? You can't do that." What do you mean by "all Amazon was saying"? That's the crux of the issue: whether publishers will allow themselves to be told by Amazon that they cannot sell over a certain price in their market, or whether they will be allowed to sell at whatever prices they choose. It's a fundamental question about how the online book market, so dominated by Amazon, will work. Your second paragraph doesn't have a clear question; what exactly do you want to understand? I'll try anyway: The marginal cost of producing eBooks doesn't really effect the price-fixing problem. The OP's point is that publishers need the flexibility to try out pricing schemes on the Amazon marketplace to discover what works, but Amazon won't let them. Ultimately, he claims, this will lead to worse results for the consumer because Amazon will be an inefficient marketplace due to the inability of the publishers to recoup costs on books with high initial prices which they can then follow with low prices later.
  - skolor 17y ago
ximeng 17y ago
Bing cache (Google didn't have cache): http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=why+my+books+are+no+longer+on+sale&d=246522576906&mkt=en-GB&setlang=en-US&w=5cdaaa1b,c8bd6c71 http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=why+my+books+are+no+longer+...
- oliveoil 17y ago
  Always makes me smile when people apologize for using Microsoft when they (in theory at least) could have used someone else. (this is general, nothing personal intended ximeng)
- Tobu 17y ago
  http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2010/01/31/why-my-books-are-no-longer-for-sale-via-amazon/ http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:http://www.tobiasbuckell... http://[2a00:1450:8002::84]/search?hl=en&safe=off&tbo=1&q=cache:http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2010/01/31/why-my-books-are-no-longer-for-sale-via-amazon/&btnG=Search&lr= http://[2a00:1450:8002::84]/search?hl=en&safe=off&tb...
prakash 17y ago
surprised to see no mention of books on bingo :-)
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
petewarden 17y ago
His ebook costs breakdown is pretty revealing. $3000 for an original cover? I hardly realize my Kindle books have covers, since they auto-open to the first page. $1000 for a designer? Use a standard font and template. Book publishers have crazy overheads, with authors typically receiving only 10% of the cover price. Editors and proofreaders make sense, but it's hard to see how everything else adds value. The current publishing model seems to be a big part of the problem here.
- waterlesscloud 17y ago
  The Kindle book cover would also probably be used for the Amazon thumbnail image, as well as other marketing purposes. Standard template sure, but little things do make a difference, and tweaking is a smart thing to do. There will be room for quality design in e-publishing, just like there is in print. $3000 would be a lot for self- or niche-publishing, but if I were making a mass market attempt, I could see spending that much. It makes a difference.
  - petewarden 17y ago
    Marketing is worth spending money on if it brings in more money than you pay. I'd agree that it might be worth it if you're shooting for a bestseller, but the author lays it out as an unavoidable expense. I love books, and being a writer sucks as a way to make a living even for very talented people, but the solution has to involve radical change to the publishing model. Big publishers seem to take a massive cut without improving the quality of the end result. I'm a big supporter of authors looking at alternative models, like Peter Watts with free downloads in the hope of donations: http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
BCM43 17y ago
>Right after I was laid off the $4 difference between $9 and $14.95 was a bit much. I think he means the $6 difference.
johnl 17y ago
Amazon real issue may not be the price issue but that Amazon isn't dictating what the price shall be, someone else is. Amazon may think that if they loose control over price, they loose control over their site.

69 points by ajdecon 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

Submitted for having a pretty good explanation of the economics of ebook publishing (through major publishers), and discussion of the recent Amazon-Macmillan dispute.

ajdecon 17y ago
Specifically, the big point I thought interesting: at the moment ebooks seem to have a pretty small demand which falls off fast, so they sell more like limited editions than mass-market. This might make it difficult to justify releasing to ebook without higher prices. (I don't have a strong opinion on who's right or wrong here, as I can argue it from both sides. But I'll admit I generally sympathize more with authors than anyone on this, and they seem to have the least amount of control in the publishing process.)
habitue 17y ago
Well he is being pretty misleading about the issues surrounding price fixing. Yes with physical goods it causes shortages and surpluses, but with eBooks the entire argument is bull. The amount supplied is exactly equal to the amount demanded in eBooks, and the only relevant issue is whether the publisher makes back the initial costs. Pretending ebooks fit into the same category as rivalrous products is dishonest.

patio11 17y ago

But Amazon pretty much, right now, has a monopoly on online bookselling. They’re huge. As a result, this becomes nearly a form of de facto price fixing. This is not a reason to prefer Macmillan over Amazon. Amazon might arguably have something that is almost a monopoly on online bookselling, allowing them to de facto dictate the price of books purchased online (though not offline, except to the extent that price wars dictate that competitors charge less). Macmillan has an actual monopoly, guaranteed by Congress, on producing Macmillan books. Macmillan is telling Amazon to engage in actual price fixing. Macmillan has told Amazon that if Amazon does not set their prices to exactly what Macmillan says they should be, when Macmillan says this should be, Macmillan will use its actual monopoly to forbid Amazon from distributing their books. Macmillan is doing this to avoid channel conflict -- i.e. establish actual price fixing backed up by the power of law to forbid there to be price-based competition among the various outlets who sell their books. It turns reality on its head to portray Macmillan as the pro-consumer champion of a vibrant, competitive market here.

ErrantX 17y ago
That's the best summation of this whole thing I've seen so far today. Thanks.
cgranade 17y ago
At the same time, it also turns reality on its head to portray Amazon as being pro-consumer in this case (where's the good old Amazon that helped force Apple out of music DRM by launching Amazon MP3?). In this struggle, it seems that both sides are trying to price-fix, but to different prices, and without much concern for either the consumers or the authors that are so directly affected by their falling-out. Other good perspectives: * http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/01/the_amazon_kerfuffle.php http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/01/the_amazon_kerfuf... * http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-pricing/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-... * http://malkingrey.livejournal.com/577241.html http://malkingrey.livejournal.com/577241.html
- felixc 17y ago
  The difference is that Amazon is trying to price-fix a ceiling, whereas Macmillan is trying to price-fix a floor.
  - cgranade 17y ago
    The question of which is ultimately better for the consumer is non-trivial to my mind. Not to mention that, because publishers tie author royalties to the physical cost of production, the authors stand to lose a lot in this struggle.
    - Retric 17y ago
      How can any price greater than 0 be the best price for a consumer.
      - alex_c 17y ago
        If something won't be profitable to make, it won't be made. The best price for the consumer is the lowest price at which the item desired by the consumer can still be produced.

skolor 17y ago

I haven't really been following this situation, and I'm far from an economics expert, so I have a few questions for anyone who understands this stuff better than I do: First off, I'm not quite sure about what the issue is. I seem to remember that Amazon said they wanted a hard ceiling, no books selling for >$10. The article claims that what the publisher wants is the ability o change book prices based on demand. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that all Amazon was saying was "You know the $10-15 range you wanted to price eBooks at? You can't do that." Second is more of an economics question. The article mentions Price Fixing in relation to gas prices, and how fixing the prices caused gas prices to go up due to hoarding. How does that work in a Monopoly, where the publisher not only controls the only source of the books, but can also make more of a single work at a negligible cost? (Yes, I understand that there is an outlay at the beginning, but after that the cost of producing additional copies of the eBook is nearly non-existent. You don't have to keep a stock of the eBooks that you can potentially lose money on, you don't have to pay in advance to have each copy produced. This changes things, but I don't know how.)

llimllib 17y ago
> I thought that all Amazon was saying was "You know the $10-15 range you wanted to price eBooks at? You can't do that." What do you mean by "all Amazon was saying"? That's the crux of the issue: whether publishers will allow themselves to be told by Amazon that they cannot sell over a certain price in their market, or whether they will be allowed to sell at whatever prices they choose. It's a fundamental question about how the online book market, so dominated by Amazon, will work. Your second paragraph doesn't have a clear question; what exactly do you want to understand? I'll try anyway: The marginal cost of producing eBooks doesn't really effect the price-fixing problem. The OP's point is that publishers need the flexibility to try out pricing schemes on the Amazon marketplace to discover what works, but Amazon won't let them. Ultimately, he claims, this will lead to worse results for the consumer because Amazon will be an inefficient marketplace due to the inability of the publishers to recoup costs on books with high initial prices which they can then follow with low prices later.
- skolor 17y ago

ximeng 17y ago

Bing cache (Google didn't have cache): http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=why+my+books+are+no+longer+on+sale&d=246522576906&mkt=en-GB&setlang=en-US&w=5cdaaa1b,c8bd6c71 http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=why+my+books+are+no+longer+...

oliveoil 17y ago
Always makes me smile when people apologize for using Microsoft when they (in theory at least) could have used someone else. (this is general, nothing personal intended ximeng)
Tobu 17y ago
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2010/01/31/why-my-books-are-no-longer-for-sale-via-amazon/ http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:http://www.tobiasbuckell... http://[2a00:1450:8002::84]/search?hl=en&safe=off&tbo=1&q=cache:http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2010/01/31/why-my-books-are-no-longer-for-sale-via-amazon/&btnG=Search&lr= http://[2a00:1450:8002::84]/search?hl=en&safe=off&tb...

prakash 17y ago

surprised to see no mention of books on bingo :-)

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

petewarden 17y ago

His ebook costs breakdown is pretty revealing. $3000 for an original cover? I hardly realize my Kindle books have covers, since they auto-open to the first page. $1000 for a designer? Use a standard font and template. Book publishers have crazy overheads, with authors typically receiving only 10% of the cover price. Editors and proofreaders make sense, but it's hard to see how everything else adds value. The current publishing model seems to be a big part of the problem here.

waterlesscloud 17y ago
The Kindle book cover would also probably be used for the Amazon thumbnail image, as well as other marketing purposes. Standard template sure, but little things do make a difference, and tweaking is a smart thing to do. There will be room for quality design in e-publishing, just like there is in print. $3000 would be a lot for self- or niche-publishing, but if I were making a mass market attempt, I could see spending that much. It makes a difference.
- petewarden 17y ago
  Marketing is worth spending money on if it brings in more money than you pay. I'd agree that it might be worth it if you're shooting for a bestseller, but the author lays it out as an unavoidable expense. I love books, and being a writer sucks as a way to make a living even for very talented people, but the solution has to involve radical change to the publishing model. Big publishers seem to take a massive cut without improving the quality of the end result. I'm a big supporter of authors looking at alternative models, like Peter Watts with free downloads in the hope of donations: http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

BCM43 17y ago

>Right after I was laid off the $4 difference between $9 and $14.95 was a bit much. I think he means the $6 difference.

johnl 17y ago

Amazon real issue may not be the price issue but that Amazon isn't dictating what the price shall be, someone else is. Amazon may think that if they loose control over price, they loose control over their site.