7 ms·

Why “OpenBSD Mastery: Filesystems” Is Not in Amazon’s Kindle Store

312 points by zdw 4y ago

quickthrower2 4y ago
Are Kindles / Kindle store that much of a moat anymore? Because now everyone has a good smartphone and can read on that using whatever app. For a niche book I seek out I am happy to install a specific non kindle reader.
- awestroke 4y ago
  You are completely disregarding E-ink screens
- knorker 4y ago
  To me there are three reasons that reading on a phone is a nonstarter: 1. Screen is too small. And for everything except reading books "a large phone" is a bad. I've tried big phones. I don't like them. Other use cases either are best served with a phone-sized screen or a laptop. 2. E-ink. I could not imagine reading on non-e-ink. I'd rather buy the physical book, then, and that's a big ask. I'd really have to want to read this particular book. 3. No distractions. Notifications. "Just check my email real quick".
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  The moat isn't the hardware; the moat is the user experience and relationship. If you want to set up your own ebook store it's actually fairly straightforward, at least technically. You just need a normal e-commerce website that sells access to PDF or EPUB files. The problem is that most people who buy ebooks do not want their collection split across multiple platforms. This is because each platform has their own DRM and app you have to read books in. If you get a new phone and need to redownload your collection, would you rather open up 200 websites to download each author's EPUBs or one app that keeps track of everything you bought? Yes, I know you can work around this with cloud storage. But that's extra steps; and extra steps add friction and keep people from buying. Furthermore, this all assumes you're willing to sell your book DRM-free. If you want DRM, or your publisher demands DRM, then you need to ship a mobile app instead of a website with downloads. And that poses a new problem: Apple and Google are not going to distribute your app unless you pay them the same royalties that you'd pay as an indie author on Apple Books or Google Play Books[0]. That's their moat. So if you're trying to create an indie publishing platform, you have to either charge two royalties and screw your authors, or make users jump through hoops to buy books on a website so it appears in an app. DRM is in fact so much of a trap for authors and publishers that some platforms just outright refuse to distribute DRM-free books; Audible is the worst offender in this regard. Locked-down platforms also trap authors; in fact, the justification that Apple uses[1] for locking down the iPhone is that users can't pirate apps if they aren't savvy enough to get developer creds. Oh, and your special locked reader app is never going to work on Kindle e-readers, because they don't support apps period. [0] I have no clue if Google even has a bookstore, I'm just assuming this is what it would be called. [1] To developers, not to the general public, of course
rjzzleep 4y ago
Wow I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was this bad. On a side note one of worst things(but not the only bad thing) about the Kindle Scribe is the fact that you can't easily load ebooks from other vendors on it, making note taking a hassle. I wonder how much of the ebook sales happen through the kindle store in the west. China and other places clearly have their own stores that seem to sell larger volumes. It's somewhat interesting that you cannot really buy ebooks from amazon.co.jp outside the country either.
- easytiger 4y ago
  Does the scribe not support the @kindle.com send document facility? Not that I trust Amazon to keep that around
- causi 4y ago
  You can't plug it into your computer and drag files onto it?
  - innocenat 4y ago
    You can drag-drop books in Kindle Format as Kindle doesn't support EPUB natively. But notetaking require conversion to KFX, which is not a trivial format to convert to without sending it via Amazon Server. (I actually don't know if side-loaded KFX actually support notetaking on the Scribe)
    - iamtedd 4y ago
      Calibre can handle KFX conversion, though it requires a plugin and Kindle Previewer from Amazon (https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202131170 https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202131170). At least then it doesn't require uploading to Amazon's servers.
      - innocenat 4y ago
        That is what I meant by non trivial.
thedailymail 4y ago
Amazon should introduce a progressive scale similar to the ones widely used in tax bracketing. The higher rates only kick in at price points that ensure the sale of a higher priced e-book will always result in more revenue for the author, even if the general trend is to take a bigger cut of higher priced items. (Not that I am a fan of Amazon's publishing model - it just seems they are tripping over an already solved problem.)
- Un1corn 4y ago
  Maybe they intentionally want to keep books below 10 dollars? Maybe they figured that in the end they have a lot more cheap books than a few that might be more than double because of the non-progressive scale.
  - Linosaurus 4y ago
    For sure it’s an intentional strategy to keep books cheap. And indirectly also to prevent any competitors from selling the same books at a higher price.
- messe 4y ago
  They should just drop the bracketing entirely and give 70% to the authors in all cases, instead of the continued predatory gouging you’re suggesting.
  - sneak 4y ago
    It is neither predatory nor gouging, with TFA serving as perfect evidence. No one is compelled to agree to these terms.
    - messe 4y ago
      When you own such a large portion of the ebook sales market, it very much could be considered predatory (bordering on monopolistic). Larger authors are not compelled to agree to these terms sure, but if you’re a smaller publisher or author trying to get your work out there and noticed, it can be hard to gain ground without selling via Amazon.
asicsp 4y ago
I have a more simpler reason for not using Amazon. They don't let you sell ebooks in PDF/EPUB formats. I don't mind Kindle for fictional books (I have KU subscription and even published a short story few years back), but for technical content I prefer PDF/EPUB. Gumroad/Leanpub give better rates too compared to Amazon. With services like Gumroad, it is also easy to build an email list and get in touch with your existing readers to promote new products, inform them of book updates, etc.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  Kindle is switching away from MOBI and to EPUB. You already can't use "Send to Kindle" with MOBI according to the news articles I found.
  - asicsp 4y ago
    Good to know. So, if you get a DRM-free book on amazon, you can download it as epub? Also, I wonder if longer code snippets are still wrapped around or are they introducing horizontal scrollbars? (for those who read on Kindle devices, web/mobile app, etc)
    - lxgr 4y ago
      You can download it in Amazon‘s format, which (for DRM-free books) converts well to ePub in Calibe. I think at this point the difference between AZW and ePub is even mostly in the container format.
      - lwkl 4y ago
        Did Amazon change their DRM so it's harder to remove? I didn't have any issues with using calibre to remove the DRM from the e-books I bought on Amazon when I backed them up.
  - Finnucane 4y ago
    They take epub files from publishers, but I believe what you buy from them still gets a kindle wrapper.
decide1000 4y ago
I try to buy books from physical book stores. Often it takes a few days before it gets delivered. Michael W Lucas has a great book about OpenBsd Jails, worth the read.
- andix 4y ago
  Can you buy eBooks there? I don’t like physical books, I never have them with me, the use up space, I can’t find them, they are bad for the environment, …
  - lxgr 4y ago
    This is actually something I‘d really like to be able to do: Discover a book in a physical bookstore, then scan a QR code or similar, and the bookstore gets a fair share of the sales price.
- pull_my_finger 4y ago
  > has a great book about OpenBsd Jails FreeBSD Jails*. OpenBSD does pledge/unveil in lieu of jails AFAIK.
codetrotter 4y ago
I love the books that Michael W Lucas has written. I bought physical copies of several of them (the “FreeBSD Mastery: Jails” book, “FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems”, “FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS” and “FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS”) on FreeBSD Mall. I finished reading the “FreeBSD Mastery: Jails” book, and am currently reading the “FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems” book. I also recently bought the Total Mastery eBook bundle of his from his Tilted Windmill website. It includes eBook versions of the above books that I already have in physical copies, along with a bunch of other eBooks. In the future I might buy physical copies of more of his books. There is something special about physical books that makes them far more comfortable to read for me than to read eBooks even though I have a eBook reader with eInk. The ability to flip through a physical book, and to feel the physical dimensions of the book adds something for me that eBook readers cannot. I also want to investigate whether it is possible to donate books to some libraries. I think as a community we could buy IT books that we particularly like, and donate them to libraries, to make them available to more people. It would be especially nice to help books about FreeBSD and OpenBSD reach more people.
- Sakos 4y ago
  Do you use FreeBSD regularly? Are these books useful reading for somebody who doesn't use FreeBSD?
  - mrweasel 4y ago
    The ZFS books are pretty useful for Linux users as well. The rest I haven't read.
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    I’ve been a longtime FreeBSD user. For a while I was even running FreeBSD on my main laptop and my main desktop. These days I run FreeBSD on servers and also on a Raspberry Pi. If you are familiar with other Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, and you would like to use FreeBSD, then I think the FreeBSD Mastery books that I mentioned which I have physical copies of are useful also. If you are not familiar with Unix-like systems at all then the FreeBSD Mastery books are probably not yet so useful for you. The FreeBSD Mastery books are the most useful to someone who is already using FreeBSD in my opinion.
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molticrystal 4y ago
I don't know if it works for every book or even for this one, but perhaps where applicable trying to split the book into 2 or more parts, each priced moderately below the $9.99 limit. It would be interesting to find out if the lower price of part one increases sales enough to compensate for the lesser amount of sales of the latter parts, and if in the end the income is higher, lower, or about the same.
- mcherm 4y ago
  What's clever about that, is that it also avoids Amazon's "best price here" policy since the two half-books would be Amazon exclusives.
  - tete 4y ago
    Until it catches on and Amazon changes their practices.
medo-bear 4y ago
good for him. it never ceases to amaze me how much privacy and freedom people are willing to forgo for sake of convenience
mgaunard 4y ago
What kind of world do you live in where you can get lunch for two for 10 dollars. It's more like 40 dollars, and that's assuming it's a very cheap place.
- toby- 4y ago
  The kind of life that, in 2012, most 'real people' genuinely lived. (A world quite divorced from the average HN user.)
- capableweb 4y ago
  > What kind of world do you live in where you can get lunch for two for 10 dollars. Many places in the world would allow you to have lunch for two for ~10 USD. > It's more like 40 dollars, and that's assuming it's a very cheap place. You have to realize that's not representative of every place in the world or even every place within the US, right? Prices around the world are vastly different.
  - tdeck 4y ago
    I think food is really expensive in Seattle (where I live) but $40 USD for lunch seems very steep to me. Unless you're ordering room service or eating at a pretty upscale place lunch shouod be less than $25. Perhaps in Hong Kong dollars you'd spend $40 for lunch. I know some places use a dollar with much less purchasing power.
    - tetraca 4y ago
      $40 for two sounds like he's eating lunch at a sit down restaurant.
- andix 4y ago
  All over south-eastern Europe for example (maybe not Greece). Probably the Baltics too. Any many more places.
  - anthk 4y ago
charlieyu1 4y ago
I should make a ebook. I'm currently getting 5% from my publisher.
tete 4y ago
I think Amazon should be avoided, especially for books. I've heard about more than one author being told "Either exclusively (or by far the cheapest) on Amazon or no Amazon at all". That's a really shitty attitude and should be punished by customers. But then there is also a bazillion other reason to avoid Amazon like the plague. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon
- yakubin 4y ago
  That may be an option in the US, but in Europe Amazon is often the only option to get a technical paper book published in the US.
  - openplatypus 4y ago
    Go direct to Manning or PragProg. Go directly to Apress. Fallback on ebooks.com. I am in Europe. Not using Amazon.
    - input_sh 4y ago
      For years I thought I wasn't using Amazon, finding this website called The Book Depository that offers free shipping to where I'm from (while Amazon charges ~$60). One day I randomly looked up who owns it. Amazon subsidiary since 2011. Amazon is mentioned zero times on the homepage, zero times on the about page, zero times in Terms & Conditions, and once in a random help article. So I've discovered I didn't go years without Amazon as I thought I did.
  - nils-m-holm 4y ago
    I am in Europe and publish my books with Lulu Press. Works smoothly and royalties are fair. Not affiliated, just a happy customer. Some of my books are also available as ebooks, but I specifically avoid Amazon, because I dislike their DRM and their "cheap book" policy. $10 for a textbook? Come on.
    - yakubin 4y ago
ilamont 4y ago
It's rare to get the 70% royalty, even if a Kindle book is priced under $9.99. TFA's linked Amazon resource page notes "UK Delivery Costs" are £0.10/MB (it's $0.15/MB in the U.S.), so if a Kindle book has 5 MB of images - not unreasonable for a nonfiction or technical book - that's $0.75 deducted from the royalty, regardless of whether book is priced $2.99 or $9.99. The idea that Amazon is still charging a "delivery cost" for data as if it's a 2007-era Kindle running on a built in 3G connection is ludicrous. Almost all Kindles use Wi-Fi now. There is no real cost to delivering the ebook data; Amazon never retired the "delivery fee" because it's pure profit on the backs of authors and publishers. Speaking of publishers: If an author is working through a publisher, the royalty cut will be eroded further. Is your publisher using a distributor for the physical copies, to get into bookstores? Distributors typically take a cut of ebook sales as well, even though they add no value for ebook delivery or placement on Amazon. Finally, when Apple was lauded for cutting the rate charged to indie developers for app store sales from 30% to 15% in 2020, indie publishers asked for a similar break from Apple for titles sold in Apple Books (formerly iBooks): "While applauding Apple’s decision to grant a bigger share of its revenue to independent software developers, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), representing more than 3,600 independent publishing companies nationwide, calls on the company to extend the same benefits to authors, publishers, and other small businesses using Apple Books for Authors and other ebook publishing programs." Apple did nothing. The company still takes 30% for any book sold on its platform. Source: https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/541675/IBPA-Calls-on-Apple-to-Reduce-Its-Commission-from-30-to-15-on-Apple-Books-for-Authors-Platform.htm https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/541675/IBPA-Calls-on-Apple-...
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Wow, that is absolutely fucked. The only way that those delivery costs can actually be costs is if Amazon is delivering every book they sell via satellite. AWS egress fees aren't even this fucked! Text with a handful of images in it is literally the cheapest thing you can distribute over the Internet. It's the reason why self-hosting a blog or Mastodon instance is even financially viable for most tech-savvy people, and why you have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WeChat, WhatsApp, LINE, Reddit, and Telegram for every YouTube.
comboy 4y ago
Does anybody know why royalty is like this and not the other way around? Their handling and cost seems constant, why charge bigger percentage if the book is more expensive? Only thing that comes to mind is wanting to keep all ebook prices below $10, but that doesn't make much sense. Btw, if author is around here, "About Me" -> "Support An Author" link is dead.
- notatoad 4y ago
  IIRC the royalty rates for books under $2.99 are also severely reduced. It seems like a pretty clear tactic to try to keep ebook prices in the $3-10 range. Not sure why you don’t think that makes sense? If they’ve done the research and figured out that’s how they sell the most books, it makes sense to push prices into that range
- soapdog 4y ago
  They force books in the 3-10 price bracket to artificially keep the eBooks cheap. Authors in the KDP program will lose money if they charge between ~10 and ~20. It doesn't matter if as an author you have a book that should be priced above 10, you're pushed into charging a lower amount. This ends up benefiting low-effort books because the ROI on them ends up higher than more complex projects that would require charging more per unit. Selling books is a tricky business and Amazon is helping itself more than it is helping the ecosystem. If you can choose, go to a different vendor for books, preferably buy direct from the authors. My own personal choice is first attempting to buy direct and my second option is Kobo which has a better royalty breakdown and is curated by real humans, as in as an author you can reach real people to talk at Kobo and help you out.
  - comboy 4y ago
    I'll be honest, kindle + 1-click is just too handy to me. I like my kindle, I've seen some other readers and they don't seem to match it. The differences seem subtle, I don't know where the magic sauce is. I try to make up for it with occasional donations which also seem like a nice feedback loop. It's astounding how well researched and packed with information some books are compared to others which I would also rate as good books.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> That’s also why I’ve focused so hard on disintermediation through my Patronizers, sponsorships, and lately Kickstarter. This is the real answer. The artificial scarcity business model is done. Patronage and crowdfunding are the only real ways for a creator to make money without having to sell copies.
- TAForObvReasons 4y ago
  Artificial scarcity model is definitely not "done", given that the author is still selling copies. The benefits (exposure) on Amazon is not worth the cost for the author.
kmeisthax 4y ago
One thing to note is that if you're not on Amazon, your book will still be on Amazon. Cory Doctorow points out[0] that their copyright detection systems only detect reuploads of on-platform books, and people scamming Audible with duplicates of books are rampant. I suspect this is part of why there isn't a huge contingent of angry authors jumping ship, because they can't reliably deny Amazon their work anyway. You're supposed to be able to just tell platforms "no, take this down". That comes from DMCA 512, that thing that indie creators absolutely hate because its far more useful as a censorship tool than for copyright enforcement[1]. If someone else reuploads your book to Amazon you have to actually find that reupload, buy it to validate that it is your work, take it down (and dox yourself in the process), and then repeat, forever. Outright infringement isn't the only scam either - ghostwriting and reselling lightly-edited GPT-3 copy[2] is also rampant on the platform, and there's even people selling courses on how to resell fake books[3]. This may eventually destroy Amazon's brand reputation, but it takes a long time to fall down the Trust Thermocline[4] when you're a giant like Amazon. The $10 royalty punishment makes absolutely no sense to me and I do not understand what the hell Amazon's motive is there. Except perhaps to bluff-charge indie writers into devaluing their work ahead of time. It reminds me of how Apple pushed for $0.99 songs for so long that the RIAA was willing to go DRM-free just to be able to charge more for popular singles. Except Amazon is also really, really pro-DRM, and so is the rest of the traditional publishing industry, which is running the same grift Amazon is at a different stage of production. [0] https://doctorow.medium.com/why-none-of-my-books-are-available-on-audible-83cb182f2f91 https://doctorow.medium.com/why-none-of-my-books-are-availab... https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audibl... [1] If the particular indie creator in question is making fanart, then the latter feels like the former, even though the law sides against fan artists. [2] Which is just infringement with extra steps, assuming that GPT-3 was trained on your original work and is regurgitating it [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw [4] https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115317862981632 https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115317862981632
- ummonk 4y ago
  Can't the piracy issue be solved by listing your book on Amazon for an exorbitant price?
amelius 4y ago
I guess Amazon is learning from the Apple App Store.
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312 points by zdw 4y ago

Are Kindles / Kindle store that much of a moat anymore? Because now everyone has a good smartphone and can read on that using whatever app. For a niche book I seek out I am happy to install a specific non kindle reader.

awestroke 4y ago
You are completely disregarding E-ink screens
knorker 4y ago
To me there are three reasons that reading on a phone is a nonstarter: 1. Screen is too small. And for everything except reading books "a large phone" is a bad. I've tried big phones. I don't like them. Other use cases either are best served with a phone-sized screen or a laptop. 2. E-ink. I could not imagine reading on non-e-ink. I'd rather buy the physical book, then, and that's a big ask. I'd really have to want to read this particular book. 3. No distractions. Notifications. "Just check my email real quick".
kmeisthax 4y ago
The moat isn't the hardware; the moat is the user experience and relationship. If you want to set up your own ebook store it's actually fairly straightforward, at least technically. You just need a normal e-commerce website that sells access to PDF or EPUB files. The problem is that most people who buy ebooks do not want their collection split across multiple platforms. This is because each platform has their own DRM and app you have to read books in. If you get a new phone and need to redownload your collection, would you rather open up 200 websites to download each author's EPUBs or one app that keeps track of everything you bought? Yes, I know you can work around this with cloud storage. But that's extra steps; and extra steps add friction and keep people from buying. Furthermore, this all assumes you're willing to sell your book DRM-free. If you want DRM, or your publisher demands DRM, then you need to ship a mobile app instead of a website with downloads. And that poses a new problem: Apple and Google are not going to distribute your app unless you pay them the same royalties that you'd pay as an indie author on Apple Books or Google Play Books[0]. That's their moat. So if you're trying to create an indie publishing platform, you have to either charge two royalties and screw your authors, or make users jump through hoops to buy books on a website so it appears in an app. DRM is in fact so much of a trap for authors and publishers that some platforms just outright refuse to distribute DRM-free books; Audible is the worst offender in this regard. Locked-down platforms also trap authors; in fact, the justification that Apple uses[1] for locking down the iPhone is that users can't pirate apps if they aren't savvy enough to get developer creds. Oh, and your special locked reader app is never going to work on Kindle e-readers, because they don't support apps period. [0] I have no clue if Google even has a bookstore, I'm just assuming this is what it would be called. [1] To developers, not to the general public, of course

rjzzleep 4y ago

Wow I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was this bad. On a side note one of worst things(but not the only bad thing) about the Kindle Scribe is the fact that you can't easily load ebooks from other vendors on it, making note taking a hassle. I wonder how much of the ebook sales happen through the kindle store in the west. China and other places clearly have their own stores that seem to sell larger volumes. It's somewhat interesting that you cannot really buy ebooks from amazon.co.jp outside the country either.

easytiger 4y ago
Does the scribe not support the @kindle.com send document facility? Not that I trust Amazon to keep that around
causi 4y ago
You can't plug it into your computer and drag files onto it?
- innocenat 4y ago
  You can drag-drop books in Kindle Format as Kindle doesn't support EPUB natively. But notetaking require conversion to KFX, which is not a trivial format to convert to without sending it via Amazon Server. (I actually don't know if side-loaded KFX actually support notetaking on the Scribe)
  - iamtedd 4y ago
    Calibre can handle KFX conversion, though it requires a plugin and Kindle Previewer from Amazon (https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202131170 https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202131170). At least then it doesn't require uploading to Amazon's servers.
    - innocenat 4y ago
      That is what I meant by non trivial.

thedailymail 4y ago

Amazon should introduce a progressive scale similar to the ones widely used in tax bracketing. The higher rates only kick in at price points that ensure the sale of a higher priced e-book will always result in more revenue for the author, even if the general trend is to take a bigger cut of higher priced items. (Not that I am a fan of Amazon's publishing model - it just seems they are tripping over an already solved problem.)

Un1corn 4y ago
Maybe they intentionally want to keep books below 10 dollars? Maybe they figured that in the end they have a lot more cheap books than a few that might be more than double because of the non-progressive scale.
- Linosaurus 4y ago
  For sure it’s an intentional strategy to keep books cheap. And indirectly also to prevent any competitors from selling the same books at a higher price.
messe 4y ago
They should just drop the bracketing entirely and give 70% to the authors in all cases, instead of the continued predatory gouging you’re suggesting.
- sneak 4y ago
  It is neither predatory nor gouging, with TFA serving as perfect evidence. No one is compelled to agree to these terms.
  - messe 4y ago
    When you own such a large portion of the ebook sales market, it very much could be considered predatory (bordering on monopolistic). Larger authors are not compelled to agree to these terms sure, but if you’re a smaller publisher or author trying to get your work out there and noticed, it can be hard to gain ground without selling via Amazon.

asicsp 4y ago

I have a more simpler reason for not using Amazon. They don't let you sell ebooks in PDF/EPUB formats. I don't mind Kindle for fictional books (I have KU subscription and even published a short story few years back), but for technical content I prefer PDF/EPUB. Gumroad/Leanpub give better rates too compared to Amazon. With services like Gumroad, it is also easy to build an email list and get in touch with your existing readers to promote new products, inform them of book updates, etc.

iLoveOncall 4y ago
Kindle is switching away from MOBI and to EPUB. You already can't use "Send to Kindle" with MOBI according to the news articles I found.
- asicsp 4y ago
  Good to know. So, if you get a DRM-free book on amazon, you can download it as epub? Also, I wonder if longer code snippets are still wrapped around or are they introducing horizontal scrollbars? (for those who read on Kindle devices, web/mobile app, etc)
  - lxgr 4y ago
    You can download it in Amazon‘s format, which (for DRM-free books) converts well to ePub in Calibe. I think at this point the difference between AZW and ePub is even mostly in the container format.
    - lwkl 4y ago
      Did Amazon change their DRM so it's harder to remove? I didn't have any issues with using calibre to remove the DRM from the e-books I bought on Amazon when I backed them up.
- Finnucane 4y ago
  They take epub files from publishers, but I believe what you buy from them still gets a kindle wrapper.

decide1000 4y ago

I try to buy books from physical book stores. Often it takes a few days before it gets delivered. Michael W Lucas has a great book about OpenBsd Jails, worth the read.

andix 4y ago
Can you buy eBooks there? I don’t like physical books, I never have them with me, the use up space, I can’t find them, they are bad for the environment, …
- lxgr 4y ago
  This is actually something I‘d really like to be able to do: Discover a book in a physical bookstore, then scan a QR code or similar, and the bookstore gets a fair share of the sales price.
pull_my_finger 4y ago
> has a great book about OpenBsd Jails FreeBSD Jails*. OpenBSD does pledge/unveil in lieu of jails AFAIK.

codetrotter 4y ago

I love the books that Michael W Lucas has written. I bought physical copies of several of them (the “FreeBSD Mastery: Jails” book, “FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems”, “FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS” and “FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS”) on FreeBSD Mall. I finished reading the “FreeBSD Mastery: Jails” book, and am currently reading the “FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems” book. I also recently bought the Total Mastery eBook bundle of his from his Tilted Windmill website. It includes eBook versions of the above books that I already have in physical copies, along with a bunch of other eBooks. In the future I might buy physical copies of more of his books. There is something special about physical books that makes them far more comfortable to read for me than to read eBooks even though I have a eBook reader with eInk. The ability to flip through a physical book, and to feel the physical dimensions of the book adds something for me that eBook readers cannot. I also want to investigate whether it is possible to donate books to some libraries. I think as a community we could buy IT books that we particularly like, and donate them to libraries, to make them available to more people. It would be especially nice to help books about FreeBSD and OpenBSD reach more people.

Sakos 4y ago
Do you use FreeBSD regularly? Are these books useful reading for somebody who doesn't use FreeBSD?
- mrweasel 4y ago
  The ZFS books are pretty useful for Linux users as well. The rest I haven't read.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  I’ve been a longtime FreeBSD user. For a while I was even running FreeBSD on my main laptop and my main desktop. These days I run FreeBSD on servers and also on a Raspberry Pi. If you are familiar with other Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, and you would like to use FreeBSD, then I think the FreeBSD Mastery books that I mentioned which I have physical copies of are useful also. If you are not familiar with Unix-like systems at all then the FreeBSD Mastery books are probably not yet so useful for you. The FreeBSD Mastery books are the most useful to someone who is already using FreeBSD in my opinion.

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molticrystal 4y ago

I don't know if it works for every book or even for this one, but perhaps where applicable trying to split the book into 2 or more parts, each priced moderately below the $9.99 limit. It would be interesting to find out if the lower price of part one increases sales enough to compensate for the lesser amount of sales of the latter parts, and if in the end the income is higher, lower, or about the same.

mcherm 4y ago
What's clever about that, is that it also avoids Amazon's "best price here" policy since the two half-books would be Amazon exclusives.
- tete 4y ago
  Until it catches on and Amazon changes their practices.

medo-bear 4y ago

good for him. it never ceases to amaze me how much privacy and freedom people are willing to forgo for sake of convenience

mgaunard 4y ago

What kind of world do you live in where you can get lunch for two for 10 dollars. It's more like 40 dollars, and that's assuming it's a very cheap place.

toby- 4y ago
The kind of life that, in 2012, most 'real people' genuinely lived. (A world quite divorced from the average HN user.)
capableweb 4y ago
> What kind of world do you live in where you can get lunch for two for 10 dollars. Many places in the world would allow you to have lunch for two for ~10 USD. > It's more like 40 dollars, and that's assuming it's a very cheap place. You have to realize that's not representative of every place in the world or even every place within the US, right? Prices around the world are vastly different.
- tdeck 4y ago
  I think food is really expensive in Seattle (where I live) but $40 USD for lunch seems very steep to me. Unless you're ordering room service or eating at a pretty upscale place lunch shouod be less than $25. Perhaps in Hong Kong dollars you'd spend $40 for lunch. I know some places use a dollar with much less purchasing power.
  - tetraca 4y ago
    $40 for two sounds like he's eating lunch at a sit down restaurant.
andix 4y ago
All over south-eastern Europe for example (maybe not Greece). Probably the Baltics too. Any many more places.
- anthk 4y ago

charlieyu1 4y ago

I should make a ebook. I'm currently getting 5% from my publisher.

tete 4y ago

I think Amazon should be avoided, especially for books. I've heard about more than one author being told "Either exclusively (or by far the cheapest) on Amazon or no Amazon at all". That's a really shitty attitude and should be punished by customers. But then there is also a bazillion other reason to avoid Amazon like the plague. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amazon

yakubin 4y ago
That may be an option in the US, but in Europe Amazon is often the only option to get a technical paper book published in the US.
- openplatypus 4y ago
  Go direct to Manning or PragProg. Go directly to Apress. Fallback on ebooks.com. I am in Europe. Not using Amazon.
  - input_sh 4y ago
    For years I thought I wasn't using Amazon, finding this website called The Book Depository that offers free shipping to where I'm from (while Amazon charges ~$60). One day I randomly looked up who owns it. Amazon subsidiary since 2011. Amazon is mentioned zero times on the homepage, zero times on the about page, zero times in Terms & Conditions, and once in a random help article. So I've discovered I didn't go years without Amazon as I thought I did.
- nils-m-holm 4y ago
  I am in Europe and publish my books with Lulu Press. Works smoothly and royalties are fair. Not affiliated, just a happy customer. Some of my books are also available as ebooks, but I specifically avoid Amazon, because I dislike their DRM and their "cheap book" policy. $10 for a textbook? Come on.
  - yakubin 4y ago

ilamont 4y ago

It's rare to get the 70% royalty, even if a Kindle book is priced under $9.99. TFA's linked Amazon resource page notes "UK Delivery Costs" are £0.10/MB (it's $0.15/MB in the U.S.), so if a Kindle book has 5 MB of images - not unreasonable for a nonfiction or technical book - that's $0.75 deducted from the royalty, regardless of whether book is priced $2.99 or $9.99. The idea that Amazon is still charging a "delivery cost" for data as if it's a 2007-era Kindle running on a built in 3G connection is ludicrous. Almost all Kindles use Wi-Fi now. There is no real cost to delivering the ebook data; Amazon never retired the "delivery fee" because it's pure profit on the backs of authors and publishers. Speaking of publishers: If an author is working through a publisher, the royalty cut will be eroded further. Is your publisher using a distributor for the physical copies, to get into bookstores? Distributors typically take a cut of ebook sales as well, even though they add no value for ebook delivery or placement on Amazon. Finally, when Apple was lauded for cutting the rate charged to indie developers for app store sales from 30% to 15% in 2020, indie publishers asked for a similar break from Apple for titles sold in Apple Books (formerly iBooks): "While applauding Apple’s decision to grant a bigger share of its revenue to independent software developers, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), representing more than 3,600 independent publishing companies nationwide, calls on the company to extend the same benefits to authors, publishers, and other small businesses using Apple Books for Authors and other ebook publishing programs." Apple did nothing. The company still takes 30% for any book sold on its platform. Source: https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/541675/IBPA-Calls-on-Apple-to-Reduce-Its-Commission-from-30-to-15-on-Apple-Books-for-Authors-Platform.htm https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/541675/IBPA-Calls-on-Apple-...

kmeisthax 4y ago
Wow, that is absolutely fucked. The only way that those delivery costs can actually be costs is if Amazon is delivering every book they sell via satellite. AWS egress fees aren't even this fucked! Text with a handful of images in it is literally the cheapest thing you can distribute over the Internet. It's the reason why self-hosting a blog or Mastodon instance is even financially viable for most tech-savvy people, and why you have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WeChat, WhatsApp, LINE, Reddit, and Telegram for every YouTube.

comboy 4y ago

Does anybody know why royalty is like this and not the other way around? Their handling and cost seems constant, why charge bigger percentage if the book is more expensive? Only thing that comes to mind is wanting to keep all ebook prices below $10, but that doesn't make much sense. Btw, if author is around here, "About Me" -> "Support An Author" link is dead.

notatoad 4y ago
IIRC the royalty rates for books under $2.99 are also severely reduced. It seems like a pretty clear tactic to try to keep ebook prices in the $3-10 range. Not sure why you don’t think that makes sense? If they’ve done the research and figured out that’s how they sell the most books, it makes sense to push prices into that range
soapdog 4y ago
They force books in the 3-10 price bracket to artificially keep the eBooks cheap. Authors in the KDP program will lose money if they charge between ~10 and ~20. It doesn't matter if as an author you have a book that should be priced above 10, you're pushed into charging a lower amount. This ends up benefiting low-effort books because the ROI on them ends up higher than more complex projects that would require charging more per unit. Selling books is a tricky business and Amazon is helping itself more than it is helping the ecosystem. If you can choose, go to a different vendor for books, preferably buy direct from the authors. My own personal choice is first attempting to buy direct and my second option is Kobo which has a better royalty breakdown and is curated by real humans, as in as an author you can reach real people to talk at Kobo and help you out.
- comboy 4y ago
  I'll be honest, kindle + 1-click is just too handy to me. I like my kindle, I've seen some other readers and they don't seem to match it. The differences seem subtle, I don't know where the magic sauce is. I try to make up for it with occasional donations which also seem like a nice feedback loop. It's astounding how well researched and packed with information some books are compared to others which I would also rate as good books.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

> That’s also why I’ve focused so hard on disintermediation through my Patronizers, sponsorships, and lately Kickstarter. This is the real answer. The artificial scarcity business model is done. Patronage and crowdfunding are the only real ways for a creator to make money without having to sell copies.

TAForObvReasons 4y ago
Artificial scarcity model is definitely not "done", given that the author is still selling copies. The benefits (exposure) on Amazon is not worth the cost for the author.

kmeisthax 4y ago

One thing to note is that if you're not on Amazon, your book will still be on Amazon. Cory Doctorow points out[0] that their copyright detection systems only detect reuploads of on-platform books, and people scamming Audible with duplicates of books are rampant. I suspect this is part of why there isn't a huge contingent of angry authors jumping ship, because they can't reliably deny Amazon their work anyway. You're supposed to be able to just tell platforms "no, take this down". That comes from DMCA 512, that thing that indie creators absolutely hate because its far more useful as a censorship tool than for copyright enforcement[1]. If someone else reuploads your book to Amazon you have to actually find that reupload, buy it to validate that it is your work, take it down (and dox yourself in the process), and then repeat, forever. Outright infringement isn't the only scam either - ghostwriting and reselling lightly-edited GPT-3 copy[2] is also rampant on the platform, and there's even people selling courses on how to resell fake books[3]. This may eventually destroy Amazon's brand reputation, but it takes a long time to fall down the Trust Thermocline[4] when you're a giant like Amazon. The $10 royalty punishment makes absolutely no sense to me and I do not understand what the hell Amazon's motive is there. Except perhaps to bluff-charge indie writers into devaluing their work ahead of time. It reminds me of how Apple pushed for $0.99 songs for so long that the RIAA was willing to go DRM-free just to be able to charge more for popular singles. Except Amazon is also really, really pro-DRM, and so is the rest of the traditional publishing industry, which is running the same grift Amazon is at a different stage of production. [0] https://doctorow.medium.com/why-none-of-my-books-are-available-on-audible-83cb182f2f91 https://doctorow.medium.com/why-none-of-my-books-are-availab... https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audibl... [1] If the particular indie creator in question is making fanart, then the latter feels like the former, even though the law sides against fan artists. [2] Which is just infringement with extra steps, assuming that GPT-3 was trained on your original work and is regurgitating it [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw [4] https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115317862981632 https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115317862981632

ummonk 4y ago
Can't the piracy issue be solved by listing your book on Amazon for an exorbitant price?

amelius 4y ago

I guess Amazon is learning from the Apple App Store.

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