4 ms·

Amazon Pulls Thousands of E-Books in Dispute

22 points by Cadsby 15y ago

salman89 15y ago
Any chance these publishers can band together union style for better leverage? I'd guess that the sheer number of publishers would make this not possible.
- jrockway 15y ago
  IPG is about to learn that one can publish an ebook without a distribution middleman taking most of the money. (Think about the authors here. Amazon takes 30% of the money that goes to the distributor. The distributor takes 30% or more of that money. The publisher takes 30% or more of that money. And finally, a few cents are left over for the guy who wrote the book. How sorry I feel for IPG...)
  - bwarp 15y ago
    Sounds like the recording industry as well! Actually all middle-men!
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  This would probably be illegal under anti-collusion statutes. Similarly, Apple, Dell and Lenovo can't legally form an agreement between themselves to double the price of all computers.
Ryanmf 15y ago
“This should be a matter of concern and a cautionary tale for the smaller presses whose licenses will come up for renewal,” said Andy Ross, an agent and a former bookseller. “They are being offered a Hobson’s choice of accepting Amazon’s terms, which are unsustainable, or losing the ability to sell Kindle editions of their books, the format that constitutes about 60 percent of all e-books.” followed by Mr. Suchomel said the publishers were solidly behind I.P.G. “They were almost unanimously positive, saying, ‘Don’t change your terms,’ ” he said. First, if the publishers don't care, or if they would simply prefer not to concede to Amazon, is this news? Second, maybe I'm too young and too inclined to believe that technology may cure all ills, or this is just my ignorance of the actual requirements of the bookselling industry showing, but to me that "unsustainable" line reeks of "we're not willing to optimize our processes, customers be damned." If I'm not mistaken Amazon has singlehandedly propped up this industry in the last decade, so unsustainable for whom? If the answer to that question is three tiers of middlemen who are unwilling to take a hit on their profit margins due to some combination of habit, entitlement, and spite, why should authors or readers give a shit?
trotsky 15y ago
Pretty poor reporting from the NYT. Amazon isn't "under pressure" from wall street to up their margins, they actually enjoy quite a premium valuation. And Amazon doesn't use cheap ebooks to drive sales of their kindles, it's the exact opposite - cheap kindles to drive sales of the ebooks. With the story so oddly slanted it makes me wonder who bought this placement.
- Turing_Machine 15y ago
  Also: "But in what might have been a sly message from Amazon, there was a button to click to tell the publisher you would like to read the book on Kindle." That button is on every title that's not available on Kindle, for whatever reason, and has been for ages. As you say, pretty poor reporting.
- nhebb 15y ago
  > And Amazon doesn't use cheap ebooks to drive sales of their kindles, it's the exact opposite - cheap kindles to drive sales of the ebooks. It's a combination of the two. For tech subjects at least, the Kindle pays for itself within 3 or 4 ebook purchases, but of course the math works out that way because the Kindle itself is cheap. I finally bought a Kindle (just got it yesterday), and you know what drove me - a dead trees lover - to buy one? The publishing lead times. In the HN thread re Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example, I asked when the print edition would be available, and Michael Hartl said it would take about six months. A six month lead time after the ebook is released! That's a long time in the evolving world of Ruby.
- saucetenuto 15y ago
  > With the story so oddly slanted it makes me wonder who bought this placement. I had the same thought, and guessed I.P.G (or their allies in the publishing industry). This is not a great feat of analysis, though: there are two parties in the dispute, and _Amazon_ certainly didn't buy this coverage. One hopes not, anyway, for their sake.
shareme 15y ago
This reminds me of another industry under the same pressure credit card industry via new disruptive payment systems.
feralchimp 15y ago
Amazon follows a long line of huge-volume retailers into "not afraid to be the asshole" territory. Unless it's the case that it actually costs Amazon money to offer books at the prices that IPG wants, this is a pure power/spite/warning play. And I very much doubt that it costs them money.
a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
Well, good. If this catches on, it might increase the likelihood that I'll be able to buy ebooks from other than Amazon. I'd like to have that option into the future.
- incongruity 15y ago
  Ditto that – but I feel like the only way that'll really happen is if some publisher is gutsy enough to put out a format with little to no DRM – maybe a print restricted PDF or something similar. Only something that is able to be read on any platform, in any of hundreds of apps will it be viable competition at this point. It would genuinely be refreshing to see some sort of innovation come out of the old-media content creation industries for once.
  - a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
    "if some publisher is gutsy enough to put out a format with little to no DRM – maybe a print restricted PDF or something similar." Pakt http://www.packtpub.com/ http://www.packtpub.com/ and O'Reilly http://oreilly.com/ http://oreilly.com/ do exactly that. Pakt's pdfs have your name and address printed on each page.
    - incongruity 15y ago
      Excellent point – I should probably have said mainstream fiction or general/non niche publishing house or something similar. Tech, while not a small market is specialized enough to not threaten entrenched publishers – unless O'Reilly wants to branch out into fiction, etc. Also, the simple idea of putting your name and address on each page is pretty good low-tech copy deterrence, IMHO. I didn't know about that – thanks for the insight. Though
      - a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
        Yeah, I think embarrassment is about the right level for DRM.
tsotha 15y ago
On the one hand I'm not thrilled about Amazon having so much power. But on the other, I'm tired of being raped by the publishers when I buy ebooks. Those things should cost less than physical books, dammit.

22 points by Cadsby 15y ago

Any chance these publishers can band together union style for better leverage? I'd guess that the sheer number of publishers would make this not possible.

jrockway 15y ago
IPG is about to learn that one can publish an ebook without a distribution middleman taking most of the money. (Think about the authors here. Amazon takes 30% of the money that goes to the distributor. The distributor takes 30% or more of that money. The publisher takes 30% or more of that money. And finally, a few cents are left over for the guy who wrote the book. How sorry I feel for IPG...)
- bwarp 15y ago
  Sounds like the recording industry as well! Actually all middle-men!
yummyfajitas 15y ago
This would probably be illegal under anti-collusion statutes. Similarly, Apple, Dell and Lenovo can't legally form an agreement between themselves to double the price of all computers.

Ryanmf 15y ago

“This should be a matter of concern and a cautionary tale for the smaller presses whose licenses will come up for renewal,” said Andy Ross, an agent and a former bookseller. “They are being offered a Hobson’s choice of accepting Amazon’s terms, which are unsustainable, or losing the ability to sell Kindle editions of their books, the format that constitutes about 60 percent of all e-books.” followed by Mr. Suchomel said the publishers were solidly behind I.P.G. “They were almost unanimously positive, saying, ‘Don’t change your terms,’ ” he said. First, if the publishers don't care, or if they would simply prefer not to concede to Amazon, is this news? Second, maybe I'm too young and too inclined to believe that technology may cure all ills, or this is just my ignorance of the actual requirements of the bookselling industry showing, but to me that "unsustainable" line reeks of "we're not willing to optimize our processes, customers be damned." If I'm not mistaken Amazon has singlehandedly propped up this industry in the last decade, so unsustainable for whom? If the answer to that question is three tiers of middlemen who are unwilling to take a hit on their profit margins due to some combination of habit, entitlement, and spite, why should authors or readers give a shit?

trotsky 15y ago

Pretty poor reporting from the NYT. Amazon isn't "under pressure" from wall street to up their margins, they actually enjoy quite a premium valuation. And Amazon doesn't use cheap ebooks to drive sales of their kindles, it's the exact opposite - cheap kindles to drive sales of the ebooks. With the story so oddly slanted it makes me wonder who bought this placement.

Turing_Machine 15y ago
Also: "But in what might have been a sly message from Amazon, there was a button to click to tell the publisher you would like to read the book on Kindle." That button is on every title that's not available on Kindle, for whatever reason, and has been for ages. As you say, pretty poor reporting.
nhebb 15y ago
> And Amazon doesn't use cheap ebooks to drive sales of their kindles, it's the exact opposite - cheap kindles to drive sales of the ebooks. It's a combination of the two. For tech subjects at least, the Kindle pays for itself within 3 or 4 ebook purchases, but of course the math works out that way because the Kindle itself is cheap. I finally bought a Kindle (just got it yesterday), and you know what drove me - a dead trees lover - to buy one? The publishing lead times. In the HN thread re Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example, I asked when the print edition would be available, and Michael Hartl said it would take about six months. A six month lead time after the ebook is released! That's a long time in the evolving world of Ruby.
saucetenuto 15y ago
> With the story so oddly slanted it makes me wonder who bought this placement. I had the same thought, and guessed I.P.G (or their allies in the publishing industry). This is not a great feat of analysis, though: there are two parties in the dispute, and _Amazon_ certainly didn't buy this coverage. One hopes not, anyway, for their sake.

shareme 15y ago

This reminds me of another industry under the same pressure credit card industry via new disruptive payment systems.

feralchimp 15y ago

Amazon follows a long line of huge-volume retailers into "not afraid to be the asshole" territory. Unless it's the case that it actually costs Amazon money to offer books at the prices that IPG wants, this is a pure power/spite/warning play. And I very much doubt that it costs them money.

a_a_r_o_n 15y ago

Well, good. If this catches on, it might increase the likelihood that I'll be able to buy ebooks from other than Amazon. I'd like to have that option into the future.

incongruity 15y ago
Ditto that – but I feel like the only way that'll really happen is if some publisher is gutsy enough to put out a format with little to no DRM – maybe a print restricted PDF or something similar. Only something that is able to be read on any platform, in any of hundreds of apps will it be viable competition at this point. It would genuinely be refreshing to see some sort of innovation come out of the old-media content creation industries for once.
- a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
  "if some publisher is gutsy enough to put out a format with little to no DRM – maybe a print restricted PDF or something similar." Pakt http://www.packtpub.com/ http://www.packtpub.com/ and O'Reilly http://oreilly.com/ http://oreilly.com/ do exactly that. Pakt's pdfs have your name and address printed on each page.
  - incongruity 15y ago
    Excellent point – I should probably have said mainstream fiction or general/non niche publishing house or something similar. Tech, while not a small market is specialized enough to not threaten entrenched publishers – unless O'Reilly wants to branch out into fiction, etc. Also, the simple idea of putting your name and address on each page is pretty good low-tech copy deterrence, IMHO. I didn't know about that – thanks for the insight. Though
    - a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
      Yeah, I think embarrassment is about the right level for DRM.

tsotha 15y ago

On the one hand I'm not thrilled about Amazon having so much power. But on the other, I'm tired of being raped by the publishers when I buy ebooks. Those things should cost less than physical books, dammit.