3 ms·
AFAIK Amazon doesn't have an MFN clause. (Does Apple still w.r.t. books? I thought that's past tense.) If I am willing to sell for under $10 Amazon offers a 70
by podperson 15y ago
AFAIK Amazon doesn't have an MFN clause. (Does Apple still w.r.t. books? I thought that's past tense.)
If I am willing to sell for under $10 Amazon offers a 70% royalty (less various charges -- effectively 60%) in some regions, 35% in others, and if the price is over $10 then it's 35% (with no deductions).
Oh my original post is confused -- books over __$10__ are limited to a 35% royalty (which is a huge poverty trap)
In all cases I'm talking percentage of my set selling price. (Perhaps Amazon wants to discount my books and still have enough margin to pay my royalty -- that's a lot of wiggle room -- they can sell my $20 book for $10 and make just as much money off it as if I'd set the cover price at $10.
From Apple, Barnes & Noble, etc. it's 70% minus some admin charge -- effectively 65% or so -- across the board.
Note that Apple does cap prices for "textbooks" created with iBookauthor at $14.99.
I guess in the end this doesn't matter much since we can always split books into parts, but the fact is that Amazon's business model currently involves:
* paying less to writers than anyone else
* evading state sales taxes by fair means and foul
* being the only vendor of ebook readers that can't read DRM-free ePubs out-of-the-box