8 ms·

Amazon's Plan to Conquer the World of Publishing

120 points by ekovarski 7y ago

alexis_fr 7y ago
Amazon’s self-publishing product is horrible. Basically there is only 1 type of book that can be made from it (i.e. no color, only 1 type of cover, only 1 type of paper... only 1 font). Im surpried they wouldn’t start with proper options, if they want to conquer the world.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  Sounds like they save a lot of cost by pointless variation in the process.
dmix 7y ago
I worked at a startup that was doing NLP/AI stuff on Amazon books for a while (a "smart" email newsletter book recommendation service). You'd be surprised at some of the books that top those Amazon sales charts. The biggest consumers are middle-aged women and Amazon self-publishing is where the giant harlequin novel industry moved to. One of the more bizarre books that popped up included a Dinosaur/cave girl love story [1] and some other fantasy related themes mixed with romance. Each of those would have tons of real reviews. There was also tons of sketchy business books and self-help stuff. I'm sure this stuff was really popular before too, but people tend to be less shy and far higher quantity when buying 'anonymously' online with a Kindle. Bookstores would only carry 'respectable' titles'. So the quiet online bestsellers look very different than NYTimes list just from consumer behaviour alone. [1] NSFW https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dinosaur+romance https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dinosaur+romance
- kranner 7y ago
  I cannot believe what I just read. The top search result was shortlisted for a Hugo award (for Best Short Story). Pasting from Wikipedia with some light censoring: > In April 2016, Space Raptor B??? Invasion was shortlisted for a Hugo Award for Best Short Story in the prestigious Hugo Awards for science fiction. This stemmed from a campaign by the alt-right "Rabid Puppies" group, a faction of the Sad Puppies movement that laments the perceived politicization of science fiction. However, Tingle disavowed the campaign, saying via his Twitter account that it was the work of "devils", and that if his book were to win, video game designer and anti-harassment activist Zoë Quinn would accept the award on his behalf. His story did not win. Tingle subsequently published Pounded in the B??? by My Hugo Award Loss.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    That was a sort of glorious fiasco in the annals of science fiction. The Rabid Puppies basically decided to troll the Hugos (anyone who purchases at least a supporting membership to the World Science Fiction Convention that year can make a nomination). It apparently never occurred to them that someone who wrote books with titles like "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" just might be better at trolling than they were.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - cperciva 7y ago
      In a similar vein of authors trolling the trolls, after receiving complaints about his decision to use female sysadmins as examples in his tech books (IIRC he usually alternates genders in examples), Michael Lucas published a "Manly McManface" edition of Ed Mastery which has an all-male cast of sysadmins... at a much higher price.
      - JustSomeNobody 7y ago
        This is pathetic. But good on the author for not taking that crap.
      - astura 7y ago
        This is pretty funny >Every so often, men contact the author complaining that his books use both male and female pronouns. This special edition, using only male third-person pronouns, is for those special people. As the market is so much smaller, it’s u̶n̶f̶o̶r̶t̶u̶n̶a̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ priced higher. >For each copy of the Manly McManface edition sold, the author will donate one dollar to his local chapter of Soroptomists International. This is what Soroptomists International is >A global volunteer organization that improves the lives of women and girls through programs leading to social and economic empowerment.
  - skrebbel 7y ago
    For the not extremely prudish: The story is called "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" and the section quoted above is the second paragraph from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Tingle#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Tingle#Career
thr0waway98121 7y ago
I don't ever post on HN, but this article convinced me to create an account and respond. >But experts who spoke with me said that the publishing house serves not authors but another master—Amazon Prime. This is intentionally written in a way that describes Amazon and APub as being nefarious. I worked in APub for almost 4 years before moving to a different FANG. It was a fantastic place to work. I'm sure engineers in other parts of Amazon get paged all the time. There was essentially no on-call burden for my team. We got to launch some really cool programs and learn about the publishing workflows end to end (ideation all the way to an ebook or physical title). This company was where I became a really strong engineer (my previous job was at a non-tech company building small scale CRUD apps). First and foremost, authors were our customers. We did anything and everything for authors - it was meant to be a VIP experience. Does Amazon want to increase Prime subscriptions? Absolutely. But portraying that I or my team "served another master" is disingenuous horse shit.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  The article seems pretty well Amazon-friendly to me, generally spinning Amazon Publishing positively and quoting only supporters and one neutral analyst. Amazon is a monopoly which (a) exerts huge control over the whole culture’s literary output, and (b) has driven / is driving many competitors and suppliers at every stage of the publishing process out of business, using its combination of vertical integration, scale, and ruthless contract negotiation. I’m not sure “nefarious” is the right word. But it is dangerous having unaccountable private institutions wield such power. Some of Amazon’s business practices seem to me like violations of anti-trust law (disclaimer: I am not a lawyer or legal expert), but the past few decades of Supreme Court precedent have reinterpreted/eroded antitrust laws to the point that there will probably be nothing done about it. I don’t see what their treatment of engineers making the software has to do with the business model or larger cultural impact. (But if you’re worried about labor relations, how do you feel about Amazon’s mistreatment of warehouse workers?)
  - ghaff 7y ago
    At a minimum, you're replacing/have replaced a huge number of publishers of various sizes and booksellers of various sizes (including very boutique and personal operations in both cases) with Amazon. OK, that's an overstatement. You have other major publishers especially in specialty areas like textbooks--but as a general rule... On the one hand, the barriers to actually publishing something are way down. You don't necessarily need to submit your proposal and sample chapter to 100 different publishers. You can just self-publish on Amazon if you're so inclined and do your own marketing. But discoverability is now significantly in the hands of Amazon's algorithms. And those algorithms are designed with Amazon's interests at heart--such as driving more Prime subscriptions. A more efficient and data-driven world isn't necessarily worse than schmoozing with New York or London-based editors over lunch. But it certainly tends to concentrate power.
despera 7y ago
How about start with fixing the completely garbled by the OCR science ebooks they already selling through kindle platform before trying to conquer the universe of publishing and be taken seriously?
vfc1 7y ago
Last time I checked, Amazon was essentially forcing you to sell your 1000 page years of work e-book for $9.99 or less, taking "only" 35% of the price sale (used to be 30% a couple of years ago). If you want to sell it above $10, then their commission becomes 70%! Also, if your ebook is not exclusive to Amazon, then you don't get access to important marketing tools (KDP program) like free promotions, which are essential to build up social proof and get initial reviews. Without a prior audience and without those tools your ebook is dead on arrival. If this is not a horrific monopoly and flat ou author extortion, then I don't know what is. $9.99 is just too low, many books are worth more than that. Also, they will send emails to your readers suggesting ebooks from competing authors. I think the Amazon stranglehold on authors is preventing a lot of books from even being written, as the authors know that they won't be able to make a living ou of them. For technical and instructional books, self-publishing is a much better option, with organic marketing done via blogging. You can sell the ebook for say $49, get the whole price sale and the customer email.
- rikroots 7y ago
  > If you want to sell it above $10, then their commission becomes 70%! No, that's how much the author earns from each sale. I will say that Amazon's pricing model - divided as it is into geographical regions - is needlessly complicated. It's easy to misunderstand stuff and end up with a less-than-satisfactory overall price for the book.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I think he's right. See https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560 https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560 (This is for Kindle sales. Paperback is different.) But you're also correct that it's complicated across geos.
    - rikroots 7y ago
      You're right that he's right. 70% royalties - paid to the author - are (generally) reserved for ebooks priced under $10.
rikroots 7y ago
I have no relationship with Amazon Publishing, nor am I ever likely to. My experience of publishing with Amazon is entirely restricted to their (now defunct) CreateSpace platform and its successor, Kindle Direct Publishing, alongside publishing works on 3rd party self-publishing platforms and attempting to get those books listed on Amazon. My personal view, developed over a number of years, is that Amazon is a toxic environment for self-publishing authors: - Their price modelling is designed to undercut other self-publishing platforms to the point of damaging them. If an author publishes on a 3rd party platform, Amazon will demand that the price point for the book is double the viable price listing on Amazon - so that they can offer the book to readers at a 50% discount (from day 1 of listing). Authors have no control over when the discount is applied, or the level of discount, or for how long it will last. The last time I checked (several years ago, things may have changed since) authors were paid a percentage of the price at which the book was sold, not its original price point. - Publishing both on Amazon and on a 3rd party platform is not prohibited; however Amazon demand that the list pricing on their platform must be as cheap (or preferably cheaper) than on those other sites (before any discounts are applied). If they find a book listed elsewhere at a cheaper price they will automatically price-match without warning the author. Running a temporary price reduction promotion for a book on another platform can lead to a permanent price reduction for the book on Amazon. - If an author wants to give away a book for free, this is possible on other platforms, but not on Amazon - unless the author enrolls the book in their KDP Select program, which will allow the author to offer strictly time-limited free giveaway windows ... - Except an author can only enroll a book on KDP Select if they remove that book from all other platforms and agree to publish exclusively on Amazon. This includes removing the book from profitable venues such as Google Play and Apple Books (which are ideal for iPad/iPhone and Android devices). - I could go on (but won't). Many people will disagree with my personal 'toxic environment' view. That's fine. Self-publishing on the Amazon platforms is often enough to meet the needs of many self-published authors, and quite often profitable for them too. But for me the above points all indicate that Amazon is interested only in killing diversity and creating a readership monopoly, which in the longer run will damage self-publishing and prove to be toxic to both authors and readers alike.
Paraesthetic 7y ago
As John Mayer famously sang "when they own the information, they can bend it all they want". Couldn't say a bad word about Amazon as a company... even if I wanted to

120 points by ekovarski 7y ago

Amazon’s self-publishing product is horrible. Basically there is only 1 type of book that can be made from it (i.e. no color, only 1 type of cover, only 1 type of paper... only 1 font). Im surpried they wouldn’t start with proper options, if they want to conquer the world.

jillesvangurp 7y ago
Sounds like they save a lot of cost by pointless variation in the process.

dmix 7y ago

I worked at a startup that was doing NLP/AI stuff on Amazon books for a while (a "smart" email newsletter book recommendation service). You'd be surprised at some of the books that top those Amazon sales charts. The biggest consumers are middle-aged women and Amazon self-publishing is where the giant harlequin novel industry moved to. One of the more bizarre books that popped up included a Dinosaur/cave girl love story [1] and some other fantasy related themes mixed with romance. Each of those would have tons of real reviews. There was also tons of sketchy business books and self-help stuff. I'm sure this stuff was really popular before too, but people tend to be less shy and far higher quantity when buying 'anonymously' online with a Kindle. Bookstores would only carry 'respectable' titles'. So the quiet online bestsellers look very different than NYTimes list just from consumer behaviour alone. [1] NSFW https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dinosaur+romance https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dinosaur+romance

kranner 7y ago
I cannot believe what I just read. The top search result was shortlisted for a Hugo award (for Best Short Story). Pasting from Wikipedia with some light censoring: > In April 2016, Space Raptor B??? Invasion was shortlisted for a Hugo Award for Best Short Story in the prestigious Hugo Awards for science fiction. This stemmed from a campaign by the alt-right "Rabid Puppies" group, a faction of the Sad Puppies movement that laments the perceived politicization of science fiction. However, Tingle disavowed the campaign, saying via his Twitter account that it was the work of "devils", and that if his book were to win, video game designer and anti-harassment activist Zoë Quinn would accept the award on his behalf. His story did not win. Tingle subsequently published Pounded in the B??? by My Hugo Award Loss.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  That was a sort of glorious fiasco in the annals of science fiction. The Rabid Puppies basically decided to troll the Hugos (anyone who purchases at least a supporting membership to the World Science Fiction Convention that year can make a nomination). It apparently never occurred to them that someone who wrote books with titles like "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" just might be better at trolling than they were.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - cperciva 7y ago
    In a similar vein of authors trolling the trolls, after receiving complaints about his decision to use female sysadmins as examples in his tech books (IIRC he usually alternates genders in examples), Michael Lucas published a "Manly McManface" edition of Ed Mastery which has an all-male cast of sysadmins... at a much higher price.
    - JustSomeNobody 7y ago
      This is pathetic. But good on the author for not taking that crap.
    - astura 7y ago
      This is pretty funny >Every so often, men contact the author complaining that his books use both male and female pronouns. This special edition, using only male third-person pronouns, is for those special people. As the market is so much smaller, it’s u̶n̶f̶o̶r̶t̶u̶n̶a̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ priced higher. >For each copy of the Manly McManface edition sold, the author will donate one dollar to his local chapter of Soroptomists International. This is what Soroptomists International is >A global volunteer organization that improves the lives of women and girls through programs leading to social and economic empowerment.
- skrebbel 7y ago
  For the not extremely prudish: The story is called "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" and the section quoted above is the second paragraph from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Tingle#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Tingle#Career

thr0waway98121 7y ago

I don't ever post on HN, but this article convinced me to create an account and respond. >But experts who spoke with me said that the publishing house serves not authors but another master—Amazon Prime. This is intentionally written in a way that describes Amazon and APub as being nefarious. I worked in APub for almost 4 years before moving to a different FANG. It was a fantastic place to work. I'm sure engineers in other parts of Amazon get paged all the time. There was essentially no on-call burden for my team. We got to launch some really cool programs and learn about the publishing workflows end to end (ideation all the way to an ebook or physical title). This company was where I became a really strong engineer (my previous job was at a non-tech company building small scale CRUD apps). First and foremost, authors were our customers. We did anything and everything for authors - it was meant to be a VIP experience. Does Amazon want to increase Prime subscriptions? Absolutely. But portraying that I or my team "served another master" is disingenuous horse shit.

jacobolus 7y ago
The article seems pretty well Amazon-friendly to me, generally spinning Amazon Publishing positively and quoting only supporters and one neutral analyst. Amazon is a monopoly which (a) exerts huge control over the whole culture’s literary output, and (b) has driven / is driving many competitors and suppliers at every stage of the publishing process out of business, using its combination of vertical integration, scale, and ruthless contract negotiation. I’m not sure “nefarious” is the right word. But it is dangerous having unaccountable private institutions wield such power. Some of Amazon’s business practices seem to me like violations of anti-trust law (disclaimer: I am not a lawyer or legal expert), but the past few decades of Supreme Court precedent have reinterpreted/eroded antitrust laws to the point that there will probably be nothing done about it. I don’t see what their treatment of engineers making the software has to do with the business model or larger cultural impact. (But if you’re worried about labor relations, how do you feel about Amazon’s mistreatment of warehouse workers?)
- ghaff 7y ago
  At a minimum, you're replacing/have replaced a huge number of publishers of various sizes and booksellers of various sizes (including very boutique and personal operations in both cases) with Amazon. OK, that's an overstatement. You have other major publishers especially in specialty areas like textbooks--but as a general rule... On the one hand, the barriers to actually publishing something are way down. You don't necessarily need to submit your proposal and sample chapter to 100 different publishers. You can just self-publish on Amazon if you're so inclined and do your own marketing. But discoverability is now significantly in the hands of Amazon's algorithms. And those algorithms are designed with Amazon's interests at heart--such as driving more Prime subscriptions. A more efficient and data-driven world isn't necessarily worse than schmoozing with New York or London-based editors over lunch. But it certainly tends to concentrate power.

despera 7y ago

How about start with fixing the completely garbled by the OCR science ebooks they already selling through kindle platform before trying to conquer the universe of publishing and be taken seriously?

vfc1 7y ago

Last time I checked, Amazon was essentially forcing you to sell your 1000 page years of work e-book for $9.99 or less, taking "only" 35% of the price sale (used to be 30% a couple of years ago). If you want to sell it above $10, then their commission becomes 70%! Also, if your ebook is not exclusive to Amazon, then you don't get access to important marketing tools (KDP program) like free promotions, which are essential to build up social proof and get initial reviews. Without a prior audience and without those tools your ebook is dead on arrival. If this is not a horrific monopoly and flat ou author extortion, then I don't know what is. $9.99 is just too low, many books are worth more than that. Also, they will send emails to your readers suggesting ebooks from competing authors. I think the Amazon stranglehold on authors is preventing a lot of books from even being written, as the authors know that they won't be able to make a living ou of them. For technical and instructional books, self-publishing is a much better option, with organic marketing done via blogging. You can sell the ebook for say $49, get the whole price sale and the customer email.

rikroots 7y ago
> If you want to sell it above $10, then their commission becomes 70%! No, that's how much the author earns from each sale. I will say that Amazon's pricing model - divided as it is into geographical regions - is needlessly complicated. It's easy to misunderstand stuff and end up with a less-than-satisfactory overall price for the book.
- ghaff 7y ago
  I think he's right. See https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560 https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560 (This is for Kindle sales. Paperback is different.) But you're also correct that it's complicated across geos.
  - rikroots 7y ago
    You're right that he's right. 70% royalties - paid to the author - are (generally) reserved for ebooks priced under $10.

rikroots 7y ago

I have no relationship with Amazon Publishing, nor am I ever likely to. My experience of publishing with Amazon is entirely restricted to their (now defunct) CreateSpace platform and its successor, Kindle Direct Publishing, alongside publishing works on 3rd party self-publishing platforms and attempting to get those books listed on Amazon. My personal view, developed over a number of years, is that Amazon is a toxic environment for self-publishing authors: - Their price modelling is designed to undercut other self-publishing platforms to the point of damaging them. If an author publishes on a 3rd party platform, Amazon will demand that the price point for the book is double the viable price listing on Amazon - so that they can offer the book to readers at a 50% discount (from day 1 of listing). Authors have no control over when the discount is applied, or the level of discount, or for how long it will last. The last time I checked (several years ago, things may have changed since) authors were paid a percentage of the price at which the book was sold, not its original price point. - Publishing both on Amazon and on a 3rd party platform is not prohibited; however Amazon demand that the list pricing on their platform must be as cheap (or preferably cheaper) than on those other sites (before any discounts are applied). If they find a book listed elsewhere at a cheaper price they will automatically price-match without warning the author. Running a temporary price reduction promotion for a book on another platform can lead to a permanent price reduction for the book on Amazon. - If an author wants to give away a book for free, this is possible on other platforms, but not on Amazon - unless the author enrolls the book in their KDP Select program, which will allow the author to offer strictly time-limited free giveaway windows ... - Except an author can only enroll a book on KDP Select if they remove that book from all other platforms and agree to publish exclusively on Amazon. This includes removing the book from profitable venues such as Google Play and Apple Books (which are ideal for iPad/iPhone and Android devices). - I could go on (but won't). Many people will disagree with my personal 'toxic environment' view. That's fine. Self-publishing on the Amazon platforms is often enough to meet the needs of many self-published authors, and quite often profitable for them too. But for me the above points all indicate that Amazon is interested only in killing diversity and creating a readership monopoly, which in the longer run will damage self-publishing and prove to be toxic to both authors and readers alike.

Paraesthetic 7y ago

As John Mayer famously sang "when they own the information, they can bend it all they want". Couldn't say a bad word about Amazon as a company... even if I wanted to