9 ms·

The Guardian article quoted here is a bit more substantive (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/15/french-bookshops-revolt-after-prize-selects-novel-self

by Jun8 8y ago

The Guardian article quoted here is a bit more substantive (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/15/french-bookshops-revolt-after-prize-selects-novel-self-published-on-amazon https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/15/french-booksho...). Basic story is: Author (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Koskas https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Koskas, no English wikipedia page) who had other books published, could not find a publisher for his latest book, so self publishes it on Amazon's Createspace. So, this is not a book published by Amazon, which I first thought was the case. Is this any different from, say, giving an Oscar to a movie that Netflix produced and only available (at least initially) through it? See here for a discussion on precisely this question: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/netflix-the-oscars-the-battle-for-the-future-of-film https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/netflix-the-osc... Amazon is stamping out bookstores, so fighting against that, I think, is perfectly OK; however, pushing back against original content just because it came from Amazon sounds absurd or protectionist.

Aissen 8y ago
What seems to piss the bookstore syndicate, is the fact that they'll have to buy this book from Amazon if it ever wins this prize (or simply not distribute it, which was never seen); and Amazon is their arch-enemy, on a crusade to destroy all bookshops.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  Just a shower thought: Why doesn't the bookstore syndicate simply offer an option for self-publishing, too, instead of complaining around? I am not a particular fan of Amazon, but I believe that the best way to set bounds to Amazon is to offer an alternative or even something better.
  - pkaye 8y ago
    Thats a lot of work. What everyone wants is a cut of the winnings.
    - WalterSear 8y ago
      And a return of the gate that they've made their living keeping.
  - lozenge 8y ago
    Amazon has probably completely automated the process. Without knowing whether the book will sell 1 or 100,000 copies they can automatically switch between print-on-demand and printing runs. They can do this because they can ship from any warehouse to your door. They can send the initial short printing run to a single warehouse and then scale up if necessary. A bookstore relies on having enough copies available at every store, so they would need to at a minimum ship and shelve some copies to all their large branches.
    - killjoywashere 8y ago
      > A bookstore relies on having enough copies available at every store The bookstore syndicate could collaborate with a third-party, like alibris.
      - wolfgke 8y ago
        > > A bookstore relies on having enough copies available at every store > The bookstore syndicate could collaborate with a third-party, like alibris. This is exactly my line of argument and the reason why I wrote "Why doesn't the bookstore syndicate [...]". A single bookstore clearly cannot manage this on its own. The bookstore syndicate, on the other hand, has much more options available.
        lozenge 8y ago
        Either they are selling online only like Amazon, or they need to print and ship books to hundreds of retail stores. Whether they are a bookstore or a bookstore syndicate makes no difference.
        killjoywashere 8y ago
        The stores can cast themselves as warehouses, print one copy and see if it sells either in-store, or online through Alibris. If yes, print 2, warehouse at 2 other stores (which can incidentally be "warehoused" on display shelves). If sold, print 4. If sold, print 8. O(n^2) up to some point then switch to linear or O(log(n)) growth. Eventually, your last run will print.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    That would require actually doing work and delivering value and competing, while complaining is easier. Same story with the Uber/Lyft vs taxis. I don't like Amazon that much but I fully support them on this front.
    - kuschku 8y ago
      Except, the value Uber provides is entirely in being cheaper than the competition. There have been apps to book taxi rides in Germany for years, some of them even existed as early as 2007 and allowed booking the ride online and paying online ahrad of time. Yet, the only reason Uber had an advantage while it was operating in Germany was the massivr ad budget they had due to taking higher fees from drivers, and their cheaper prices due to not paying for insurances or ensuring that the drivers actually had the correct drivers licenses.
      - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
        surely uber also had the advantage of being able to have more drivers available at peak times.
      - Rjevski 8y ago
        The value Uber provides to me is a ride within minutes of the request. Taxis in London (which have their own apps like Gett and MyTaxi) can't match that from my experience. Uber also provides me with a way to claim money back should any problems arise directly from the app, where as the process for a taxi is much more time-consuming.
  - tanilama 8y ago
    They probably don't havv sufficient tech, workforce for it.
  - hef19898 8y ago
    That is the one big question, isn't it? Just image that book stores collaborate and find a third party to do the printing-on-demand? It is not always Amazon who's doing this, so these printers will work for everyone else. All you need is a webshop and an interface to said printing company. Logistics would than be handled by say FedEx or DHL, same as for Amazon. But that would mean to change the way they run their business, so it is easier to fight change for them and hope for the best. PoD also makes life for publishers a lot harder. Traditionally they had to filter books they thought would sell well to justify the costs for marketing, printing, distribution etc. Now, PoD allows to publish basically everything with close to zero marginal cost, even for paper books. And THAT goes against the very core of publishers culture as gate keepers. There are even, at least in Germany, companies specialized already in media distribution and logistics. So they would be the first candidates oneight expect to jump into the PoD market. For some reason they didn't.
- eftychis 8y ago
  Yes in this case, the publishers shot themselves on the head. This is so interesting; if this book wins, it will be a major banner that Amazon empowers authors. I have to say that I can not find myself sympathetic to the publishers' argument here at all.
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    I'm sure the trees which are not paper, due to the author's misfortune of finding no other publisher, are applauding the novel's inclusion.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Amazon Createspace lets you sell both paper and digital. (In fact, to be precise, selling on Kindle is quasi-independent of selling PoD from Createspace.) I've actually published a print copy of a book through Createspace without a Kindle version because the non-DRM PDF digital version is free from my website.
      - brewdad 8y ago
        Are the paper books "print on demand" or is there an initial print run like a publishing house would have? Still a good way to prevent waste if the only copies actually printed are already sold.
        ghaff 8y ago
        No idea. I assume it's a decision that Amazon makes based on the numbers. They probably start with on-demand and, if a book is actually selling a lot of copies, they may do a larger print run at a lower unit cost. In any case, it's transparent to the author in my experience.
        TomVDB 8y ago
        AFAIK they are printed on demand when the volumes are low. It's incredibly easy to publish (you're essentially uploading a .pdf file). I assume that tons of books only sell a handful of copies. E.g. the only copies of a book that was written by a family member where those that he bought himself.
- lkrubner 8y ago
  This is incorrect. Now that the book has won a prestigious prize, normal publishers will likely offer to publish the book the normal way, and so these bookstores will be able to stock the book in the normal way.
  - slowmovintarget 8y ago
    If the author's assertion is true, and this novel, unlike his others, was passed over due to antisemitism, then those publishers likely still won't publish. Additionally, if the author believes that, why should he give them a cut now?
    - sgift 8y ago
      > If the author's assertion is true, and this novel, unlike his others, was passed over due to antisemitism, Anti-Israel, not antisemitism.
      - stale2002 8y ago
        Those two things are often related. The book was about the experience of jews, not Israel. If someone's anti-Israel attitude results in them discarding the experiences of people who are merely jewish, then there isn't much difference between that and being antisemitic.
  - Aissen 8y ago
    It hasn't won anything yet, it's only listed, the prize winner will be announced next month. Whether or not it will find a publisher on short notice is dubious, there's likely still editing work to do to bring to the level acceptable by many publishers. It might find a distributor though.
adventured 8y ago
> Amazon is stamping out bookstores, so fighting against that, I think, is perfectly OK Actually they've only stamped out the mega chain book stores. Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, Borders, Books-A-Million. After a bad run, independent book stores have been thriving for the past decade. "But not only did the independents refuse to die, they rebounded and even experienced a growth spurt. In 2018, the ABA has 1,835 members operating 2,470 locations — a 31 percent increase in companies and a 49.6 percent increase in the number of physical stores in just nine years." "Revenues from hardcover book sales were $5.92 billion in 2017, an increase of 10.7 percent in four years, according to the Association of American Publishers. During the same period, eBook revenues declined by 36 percent to $2.08 billion last year." The recovery has been written about a lot and is broad-based across the US - https://www.bookweb.org/for-the-record https://www.bookweb.org/for-the-record
- irrational 8y ago
  This is interesting to me. Mostly because I no longer purchase physical books and am actively working on getting rid of the thousands of physical books in my house (I don't want to ever move them again). I've gone to pure digital books. Of course my surprise that physical bookstores are rebounding is just me projecting my own experience onto everyone else.
  - steve19 8y ago
    I think it's in part due to publishers artificially inflating print prices verses ebooks. I frequently find books on Amazon where the Kindle ebook is more expensive than the paperback. But like you I have also gotten rid of almost all my print books, although I bought one from a bookstore yesterday. Impulse buy.
    - michaelt 8y ago
      The print book has to compete with used copies; the ebook doesn't.
      - 8y ago
dang 8y ago
Ok, we've changed to that article from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/amazon-france-prestigious-literary-prize-prix-redaudot-a8539091.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/amazon-france-prest.... Thanks!
- spraak 8y ago
  It'd be so useful to have a diff feature/version history of posts on HN. If someone missed this comment they'd never know it was modified.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
Well, well. Bookshops see it as a book problem, the author see it as a text problem.
_rpd 8y ago
Surely the bookstores are hurting themselves by not stocking this book? If French consumers start shopping at Amazon, it might be habit forming.

by Jun8 8y ago

Aissen 8y ago

What seems to piss the bookstore syndicate, is the fact that they'll have to buy this book from Amazon if it ever wins this prize (or simply not distribute it, which was never seen); and Amazon is their arch-enemy, on a crusade to destroy all bookshops.

wolfgke 8y ago
Just a shower thought: Why doesn't the bookstore syndicate simply offer an option for self-publishing, too, instead of complaining around? I am not a particular fan of Amazon, but I believe that the best way to set bounds to Amazon is to offer an alternative or even something better.
- pkaye 8y ago
  Thats a lot of work. What everyone wants is a cut of the winnings.
  - WalterSear 8y ago
    And a return of the gate that they've made their living keeping.
- lozenge 8y ago
  Amazon has probably completely automated the process. Without knowing whether the book will sell 1 or 100,000 copies they can automatically switch between print-on-demand and printing runs. They can do this because they can ship from any warehouse to your door. They can send the initial short printing run to a single warehouse and then scale up if necessary. A bookstore relies on having enough copies available at every store, so they would need to at a minimum ship and shelve some copies to all their large branches.
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    > A bookstore relies on having enough copies available at every store The bookstore syndicate could collaborate with a third-party, like alibris.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > > A bookstore relies on having enough copies available at every store > The bookstore syndicate could collaborate with a third-party, like alibris. This is exactly my line of argument and the reason why I wrote "Why doesn't the bookstore syndicate [...]". A single bookstore clearly cannot manage this on its own. The bookstore syndicate, on the other hand, has much more options available.
      - lozenge 8y ago
        Either they are selling online only like Amazon, or they need to print and ship books to hundreds of retail stores. Whether they are a bookstore or a bookstore syndicate makes no difference.
        killjoywashere 8y ago
        The stores can cast themselves as warehouses, print one copy and see if it sells either in-store, or online through Alibris. If yes, print 2, warehouse at 2 other stores (which can incidentally be "warehoused" on display shelves). If sold, print 4. If sold, print 8. O(n^2) up to some point then switch to linear or O(log(n)) growth. Eventually, your last run will print.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  That would require actually doing work and delivering value and competing, while complaining is easier. Same story with the Uber/Lyft vs taxis. I don't like Amazon that much but I fully support them on this front.
  - kuschku 8y ago
    Except, the value Uber provides is entirely in being cheaper than the competition. There have been apps to book taxi rides in Germany for years, some of them even existed as early as 2007 and allowed booking the ride online and paying online ahrad of time. Yet, the only reason Uber had an advantage while it was operating in Germany was the massivr ad budget they had due to taking higher fees from drivers, and their cheaper prices due to not paying for insurances or ensuring that the drivers actually had the correct drivers licenses.
    - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
      surely uber also had the advantage of being able to have more drivers available at peak times.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      The value Uber provides to me is a ride within minutes of the request. Taxis in London (which have their own apps like Gett and MyTaxi) can't match that from my experience. Uber also provides me with a way to claim money back should any problems arise directly from the app, where as the process for a taxi is much more time-consuming.
- tanilama 8y ago
  They probably don't havv sufficient tech, workforce for it.
- hef19898 8y ago
  That is the one big question, isn't it? Just image that book stores collaborate and find a third party to do the printing-on-demand? It is not always Amazon who's doing this, so these printers will work for everyone else. All you need is a webshop and an interface to said printing company. Logistics would than be handled by say FedEx or DHL, same as for Amazon. But that would mean to change the way they run their business, so it is easier to fight change for them and hope for the best. PoD also makes life for publishers a lot harder. Traditionally they had to filter books they thought would sell well to justify the costs for marketing, printing, distribution etc. Now, PoD allows to publish basically everything with close to zero marginal cost, even for paper books. And THAT goes against the very core of publishers culture as gate keepers. There are even, at least in Germany, companies specialized already in media distribution and logistics. So they would be the first candidates oneight expect to jump into the PoD market. For some reason they didn't.
eftychis 8y ago
Yes in this case, the publishers shot themselves on the head. This is so interesting; if this book wins, it will be a major banner that Amazon empowers authors. I have to say that I can not find myself sympathetic to the publishers' argument here at all.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  I'm sure the trees which are not paper, due to the author's misfortune of finding no other publisher, are applauding the novel's inclusion.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Amazon Createspace lets you sell both paper and digital. (In fact, to be precise, selling on Kindle is quasi-independent of selling PoD from Createspace.) I've actually published a print copy of a book through Createspace without a Kindle version because the non-DRM PDF digital version is free from my website.
    - brewdad 8y ago
      Are the paper books "print on demand" or is there an initial print run like a publishing house would have? Still a good way to prevent waste if the only copies actually printed are already sold.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        No idea. I assume it's a decision that Amazon makes based on the numbers. They probably start with on-demand and, if a book is actually selling a lot of copies, they may do a larger print run at a lower unit cost. In any case, it's transparent to the author in my experience.
      - TomVDB 8y ago
        AFAIK they are printed on demand when the volumes are low. It's incredibly easy to publish (you're essentially uploading a .pdf file). I assume that tons of books only sell a handful of copies. E.g. the only copies of a book that was written by a family member where those that he bought himself.
lkrubner 8y ago
This is incorrect. Now that the book has won a prestigious prize, normal publishers will likely offer to publish the book the normal way, and so these bookstores will be able to stock the book in the normal way.
- slowmovintarget 8y ago
  If the author's assertion is true, and this novel, unlike his others, was passed over due to antisemitism, then those publishers likely still won't publish. Additionally, if the author believes that, why should he give them a cut now?
  - sgift 8y ago
    > If the author's assertion is true, and this novel, unlike his others, was passed over due to antisemitism, Anti-Israel, not antisemitism.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      Those two things are often related. The book was about the experience of jews, not Israel. If someone's anti-Israel attitude results in them discarding the experiences of people who are merely jewish, then there isn't much difference between that and being antisemitic.
- Aissen 8y ago
  It hasn't won anything yet, it's only listed, the prize winner will be announced next month. Whether or not it will find a publisher on short notice is dubious, there's likely still editing work to do to bring to the level acceptable by many publishers. It might find a distributor though.

adventured 8y ago

> Amazon is stamping out bookstores, so fighting against that, I think, is perfectly OK Actually they've only stamped out the mega chain book stores. Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, Borders, Books-A-Million. After a bad run, independent book stores have been thriving for the past decade. "But not only did the independents refuse to die, they rebounded and even experienced a growth spurt. In 2018, the ABA has 1,835 members operating 2,470 locations — a 31 percent increase in companies and a 49.6 percent increase in the number of physical stores in just nine years." "Revenues from hardcover book sales were $5.92 billion in 2017, an increase of 10.7 percent in four years, according to the Association of American Publishers. During the same period, eBook revenues declined by 36 percent to $2.08 billion last year." The recovery has been written about a lot and is broad-based across the US - https://www.bookweb.org/for-the-record https://www.bookweb.org/for-the-record

irrational 8y ago
This is interesting to me. Mostly because I no longer purchase physical books and am actively working on getting rid of the thousands of physical books in my house (I don't want to ever move them again). I've gone to pure digital books. Of course my surprise that physical bookstores are rebounding is just me projecting my own experience onto everyone else.
- steve19 8y ago
  I think it's in part due to publishers artificially inflating print prices verses ebooks. I frequently find books on Amazon where the Kindle ebook is more expensive than the paperback. But like you I have also gotten rid of almost all my print books, although I bought one from a bookstore yesterday. Impulse buy.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    The print book has to compete with used copies; the ebook doesn't.
    - 8y ago

dang 8y ago

Ok, we've changed to that article from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/amazon-france-prestigious-literary-prize-prix-redaudot-a8539091.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/amazon-france-prest.... Thanks!

spraak 8y ago
It'd be so useful to have a diff feature/version history of posts on HN. If someone missed this comment they'd never know it was modified.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago

Well, well. Bookshops see it as a book problem, the author see it as a text problem.

_rpd 8y ago

Surely the bookstores are hurting themselves by not stocking this book? If French consumers start shopping at Amazon, it might be habit forming.