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Amazon UK to stop selling Bloomsbury's books
- thecleaner 2y agoWho cares ? I go to Waterstones anyways.
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y agoI think it is about the time the world realizes that Amazon sucks for a while now.
- barbazoo 2y agoPeople are told to and need to consume and they are told that convenience is the most important thing. We deserve everything and Amazon gives it to us, in less than 24h. Consumerism is a problem. Both because how it impacts our environment but also because our economies seem to be dependent on it. And capitalism is what makes Amazon such a powerful behemoth crushing everything in its path.
- mathw 2y agoI'm very interested in what Bloomsbury might have to say about this, because the quotes from Amazon sound like "they refused to accept our dictates on wholesale prices".
- michaelt 2y ago> "Our expired terms with Bloomsbury were far out of sync with other publishers who sell books through our store. Unlike other UK publishers, with whom we’ve successfully negotiated in recent years, Bloomsbury has refused to recognize our continued investments in bringing books in all formats to readers." Anyone know what this marketing-speak translates into? Right now a book like [1] [2] is £8.99 paperback, £7.99 ebook from the publishers, £2.29 ebook from Kindle. Bloomsbury seem to already be giving Amazon an enormous discount on the ebook; you'd think Amazon would be happy to renew on such generous terms. [1] https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/mime-order-9781526675989/ https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/mime-order-9781526675989/ [2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mime-Order-Bone-Season-Book-ebook/dp/B0CNW2WXV7 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mime-Order-Bone-Season-Book-ebook/d...
- tpetry 2y agoMost probably Amazon wanted to push ebook prices further down - or a time-limited deal for Bloomsbury about less ebook fees expired.
- fiveslashtwo 2y ago"Successfully renegotiated" from Amazon's point of view likely means Amazon taking a larger % of revenue from sales
- kjs3 2y agoAnalogous, having been on the wrong end of the same negotiation with Wallmart, our pre-meeting preparation consisted almost entirely of "how much of a haircut can they impose on us before we just close shop?". I can't imagine it's different at Amazon.
- jacobpretorius 2y agoIt's more about what % of the price cut goes directly to Amazon in fees rather than the actual cost discount to end users.
- openplatypus 2y ago> Bloomsbury has refused to recognize our continued investments They didn’t want to get F-ed any more. Amazon is very one sided business. They there to enrich themselves at the cost of publisher and reader, consumer and producer.
- lores 2y agoAmazon has publishers over a barrel - it makes up a large proportion of book sales, but it's so aggressive in negotiations that publishers hardly make any profit at all. They hate Amazon like a shopkeeper hates the local racketeers extracting protection money. I guess Bloomsbury finally snapped, and I wouldn't be surprised if other publishers follow suit now that the dam has broken.
- netdevphoenix 2y ago
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoAmazon is simply using its control over a distribution channel to bully partner companies. They’re the new Walmart.
- yourmatenate 2y agoLooks like they already resolved it - https://www.thebookseller.com/news/bloomsbury-reaches-new-long-term-trading-agreement-with-amazon-after-threat https://www.thebookseller.com/news/bloomsbury-reaches-new-lo...
- frereubu 2y agohttps://archive.is/lylvl https://archive.is/lylvl
- fmajid 2y agoIf Bloomsbury caved to Amazon, that is not a good outcome. Just one of the many reasons why I refuse to buy books on Amazon.
- daveoc64 2y agoIndeed, the original article on thebookseller.com seemed to go up AFTER the deal was reached.
- robinsonb5 2y agoI have a running joke with some friends that they don't say "Amazon" out loud in my presence. A few months back they started to understand why, when they attempted to navigate the dark-pattern event horizon that is the Amazon Music cancellation process. (I don't hold out much hope for them developing more ethical shopping habits, though - they've since started buying from Temu!)
- christkv 2y agoAt this point I would consider that to be like 80% of Amazon without the markup on the crap.
- surfingdino 2y agoI still don't know why book publishers do not create a global platform for ebook distribution. It's not expensive and they'd get to keep all of the profits.
- amelius 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32690410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32690410
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoLulu seems to still be around. I think it gets used for self-publishing. https://www.lulu.com/ https://www.lulu.com/
- grey-area 2y agoI agree they should, but the key part of the platform is the reader hardware. They'd need decent and cheap ereader hardware tied to the store, otherwise who would want to buy books there? See the Apple books store for an example of how little people care about ebooks if they have to read them on a phone or tablet. Barnes & Noble are doing better than them which is surprising given Apple's clout and their attempts to strangle alternative stores like Kindle with rules on in-app stores. The market share is something like Amazon (Kindle Reader) - 80% Barnes & Noble (Nook Reader) - 10% Apple ebooks (no reader) - 5% Other - 5%
- goosedragons 2y agoIn the US. Other markets aren't quite as skewed. Canada has Kobo/Amazon in very similar marketshare for example which is why Canadian Kindle prices are waaaay under what the exchange rate would suggest unlike pretty much every other electronics. Apple is just a horrible place to buy books too. They only work on Apple devices. There is no Apple Books for PC or Android.
- marsavar 2y agoAs someone who worked for the world's largest trade book publisher a decade ago, let me tell you that dealing with Amazon is the worst. They squeeze publishers' profit margins to the absolute minimum, and they aggressively force them to accept terrible deals because they have the upper hand. Amazon has been horrible for the book industry. Please buy your books elsewhere!
- calimoro78 2y agoBook industry or just the publishers? Show me a single author who loves publishers
- frereubu 2y agoIt does rather feel like the shoe is on the other foot now. Go back a few decades and publishers were the ones rinsing bookshops for all they were worth. Two wrongs don't make a right of course...
- globular-toast 2y agoThe real lesson is if you let a person or organisation get into a position where they can squeeze, they will squeeze. They won't even be doing it because they are "evil" because the hedonic treadmill makes everyone feel entitled to more. The problem is systemic. We know our failures but don't do anything about it.
- andybak 2y agoThis could be summarised as "companies leverage their power" which is unsurprising. If you were to list occasions where entities acted intentionally against their best interests then that would be more noteworthy!
- carlosjobim 2y agoThere's nuance to this. A company can achieve power by giving customers a better experience and in that way insert itself between customer and the industry. Thus wielding power in the interest of the customer. A company can also achieve power by giving producers a better experience and insert themselves between producer and industry.
- internet_points 2y agoBloomsbury is one of the few "big publishers" that let you legally buy English-language DRM-free e-books, I whole-heartedly recommend buying from them instead of contributing to lord bezo's dystopian future. There's another list at https://libreture.com/bookshops/ https://libreture.com/bookshops/ but it's a bit of a bother to look into all of them; if there's an English-language fiction book I want I tend to just check Bloomsbury (or a quick web search) and if it's not there I give up on finding a legal e-book. There's a niche here for a search engine for bookshops offering DRM-free e-books (ping marginalia_nu ). It's not that hard to set up a shop offering a DRM-free e-book, but it is hard marketing it and making it easy for people to find that book.
- rightbyte 2y ago>I whole-heartedly recommend buying from them instead of contributing to lord bezo's dystopian future. The tech enthusiast. What would be the opposite? Tech critic? Tech sucks. Honestly. We would be better off without any internet and the industry abusing it.