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Please, don't buy my book on Amazon
- Shivetya 13y agobuy my book, oh you haven't heard of it, let me put Amazon in the url and then make up some wonderfully confused reason why buying it there was wrong, but you still must buy it. really? this comes off more like, here's my book, you haven't heard of it, but if I say something bad about Amazon I have an excuse to tell you of it. If small publishers don't want to sell their books through Amazon then stay out of the channels where Amazon buys books. How is that not possible?
- webjprgm 13y agoHe said the distributor that ships books to local bookstores would also have to ship them to Amazon. So he can't both stay out of Amazon's channel and be in the local bookseller's channel. Presumably he wants his book in local bookstores.
- capisce 13y agoI tried to buy it but it didn't look like you could preorder an e-book
- wmeredith 13y agoWhy is the author's book listed on Amazon if they do not wish it?
- nonchalance 13y agoI think the answer is: > You can’t yet order Vernon Downs directly from your local bookstore because the distributor that fills those orders would also have to fill orders to Amazon. I'm guessing that there are no medium or large distributors that avoid amazon
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- rtb 13y agoExactly. I don't understand this article. The author doesn't really explain what Amazon is doing wrong other than an oblique mention of "Amazon’s discounting policies". How can Amazon sell a book against the publisher's wishes? If true, that's the real story here. Maybe the intended audience is already familiar with that part.
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- kiisupai 13y agoOn a related subject, Quartz just ran an article on how membership at the American Booksellers Association has "gone up every year for the past four years, from 1,401 in 2009 to 1,567 in 2012". http://qz.com/127861/its-time-to-kill-the-idea-that-amazon-is-killing-independent-bookstores/ http://qz.com/127861/its-time-to-kill-the-idea-that-amazon-i... Amazon seems to be killing its medium-sized competitors more than its smaller ones. But the article does not touch on the subject of publishers.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoPlenty of small bookstores use amazon, by putting their inventory online as "used books". I'd be curious how much revenue from amazon actually supports small bookstores these days.
- drharris 13y agoMight as well tell me not to buy your book at all, then.
- oh_sigh 13y agoI'd like to see a reference for this statement: "For many small publishers like Roundabout, Amazon accounts for a large portion of sales, but the publisher realizes very little of the purchase price owing to Amazon’s discounting policies." I was under the impression that amazon could discount a book as much as they wanted, but this did not affect the fixed dollar amount that the publisher received per sale.
- retube 13y agoYeah right. Presumably the publisher can sell the book to Amazon for whatever it wants. I guess tho that Amazon say - "we wont stock your book unless you let us have it for some price OR some specified (low) commission."
- viraptor 13y ago> but the publisher realizes very little of the purchase price owing to Amazon’s discounting policies. And yet, I can't find any way to download his book as an ebook right now. I would love to buy from authors directly... but help me help you. You can also save lots on the production and distribution costs.
- scrabble 13y agoThe authors concerns seemed more around making sure his publisher was paid than it was making sure he was paid. Otherwise, I agree. It would be great if more publishers offered up eBooks directly from them. Even at a highly discounted price, they'd make more per sale than through other channels. (But if it was their only distribution channel, likely less overall.)
- eddieroger 13y agoI actually think his main point was to save a bookseller, and not the publisher or himself - except, he owns the bookstore in this case, so it comes full circle, supporting his position to buy a physical book from not-Amazon.
- JackFr 13y agoThis argument makes no sense. Small presses fail because they generate the bulk of their sales from Amazon, but the margins are too thin when they sell on Amazon. Presumably if they don't sell on Amazon the margins would be healthier, but sales would drop precipitously. So if you can't make money with Amazon and you can't make money without Amazon it seems to me Amazon isn't the problem. It's true Amazon took the fat margins, but it gave them to consumers. I suppose this guy is just asking nicely to get them back to support his sclerotic business model. But in the long run it's unlikely that people are going to pay more for a worse product. (On the other hand maybe he could sell the book at the locally-grown organic farm stand.)
- dkrich 13y agoI think it makes sense, but is simply unrealistic. Like when community members protest the opening of a Wal-Mart, pleading with people to support small businesses that provide fewer choices for more money. Then the Wal-Mart opens and everyone is actually happier. Well at least they must be, because they start shopping at Wal-Mart all the time.
- user24 13y ago> Then the Wal-Mart opens and everyone is actually happier. Yes, they shop at Wal-Mart, and it's much more convenient for them. Then a couple of years later they wonder where all the local businesses went, why all the towns look the same, why there are fewer jobs. It's naive to think that stopping the odd Wal-Mart or Amazon here and there will help, but it's also naive to think that just because a company is popular that it is doing good on a grander scale.
- spongle 13y agoThis happened in suburban London. The supermarket was king. Then along came delivered groceries and everyone does that and just uses new "local supermarkets" to pick up a few impulse purchases and medicines. As a result, every row of shops is saturated with takeaways. There are very few traditional local businesses left. However, everyone is happier as they are not slaves to the requirement to drag stuff around themselves and can concentrate on more interesting things. No tears have been shed. We're all better off. People just need to now get used to the fact that there isn't a job for everyone as we've reached a pretty good efficiency ceiling.
- joelgrus 13y ago"Amazon's discounting policies" are the same as every other bookstore, they pay the publisher ~45% of the cover price for each book. Generally speaking, the publisher gets the same $$ whether you buy the book from Amazon or from Quirky-Bookstore-Full-of-Cats or from wherever. If you buy directly from the publisher, then the publisher does get 100% of the price. And if they donate 50% of that to your local bookstore, they're still making more money than if you'd bought the book from that local bookstore. None of this has anything to do with Amazon. I get that Amazon is bad for small independent bookstores (and for large chain bookstores too!), and I notice that the author just happens to own a small independent bookstore, so take his other complaints with a large grain of salt.
- xauronx 13y ago"and I notice that the author just happens to own a small independent bookstore" This should probably be the top comment.
- josefresco 13y agoFrom the post: "co-owner of Newtonville Books, an independent bookstore in Boston"
- austinstorm 13y agoYeah, this is really confusing. Small bookstores would typically get this book through a distributor like Ingram, which might take a similar or higher percentage than Amazon. This is just a misguided publicity stunt based on misinformation.
- davexunit 13y agoDon't buy any books from Amazon. http://www.stallman.org/amazon.html http://www.stallman.org/amazon.html
- kamjam 13y agoSome of the least convincing arguments I've read for not buying from Amazon, most of those could apply to any large corporate. End of the day, mass consumers look at the bottom line, in this case cheap prices and good service.
- mcv 13y ago> For many small publishers like Roundabout, Amazon accounts for a large portion of sales, but the publisher realizes very little of the purchase price owing to Amazon’s discounting policies. This I don't understand. How is it possible that Amazon's discounts reduce the publisher's margin? Doesn't the publisher simply sell it to Amazon for what the publisher thinks is a fair wholesale price? Amazon can screw small bookstores by reducing their own margins to almost nothing, but surely they can't reduce the publisher's margins? If Amazon wants to pay less for the book, then surely the publisher can simply not sell through Amazon? So what use is it to tell people not to buy from Amazon? Maybe I just don't get how the book industry works.
- blumkvist 13y agosaw this brought up by another member. Can anyone clarify please?
- seszett 13y agoI want to talk about something that has nothing to do with books or Amazon but CSS, and this website is a good example. CSS transitions are a great feature, however, using them to make hyperlinks fade slowly over 500ms on hover is a really bad idea. It is both distracting and not helpful, as a casual pass over a link with the mouse won't actually reveal it. So please, please, by all means use CSS transitions for nice graphic effects, or to make the colour transition smoother over 50, or 100ms, but too much is not better. I have the feeling CSS transitions are quickly becoming a kind of modern standard of amateur design, discreet and appealing yet annoying and distracting, like coloured scrollbars and animated mouse cursors once were.
- wil421 13y agoAmateur dev/designer here. Agreed that CSS transitions are neat and easy to use but you are right about the hyperlinks being a bad place to use them. If the link in the page wasn't the URL and instead just a word in the paragraphs I wouldn't have noticed it either. When I use transitions for links or to open sub menus I usually pick a color that really stands out so they can understand they should click there. Usually 100ms will do fine, I think the transitions have their place but some people including my Manager do not like them for links or menus.
- teh_klev 13y agoI wish folks would just make links look like links - blue underlined text that turns purple if visited, just like the good old days - instead of making me scan through the text with my mouse just in case I miss something.
- yoshokatana 13y agoCSS transitions need to be a lot more subtle than they usually are. I've seen a few good examples (Medium comes to mind), but most sites that use them implement them very garishly. For links, I've found that a 150ms intro animation and a 250ms outro (with the proper easing) is the maximum duration that looks good.
- wildermuthn 13y agoIf enough people bought the book (i.e., were interested in reading the book), money wouldn't be a problem.
- cyberpanther 13y agoOffer a DRM free ebook for download if you want to sell it yourself. Then let your readers know, Google Play Books lets you upload e-books to any device you have. Amazon Kindle has many restrictions when uploading books. This is how I always buy my books if I can because it gives me more freedom and I'm not locked into any eco-system.
- jstalin 13y agoI buy almost all my books used on Amazon now, supporting local booksellers and getting them for much cheaper than retail price. Sorry, but this plea to not use Amazon is falling on deaf ears. I'm sorry that your business model doesn't work. Amazon's does.
- yesplorer 13y agoAmazon's business model doesn't really work either. They just have enough runway to make sure that everyone gets out of the market then theirs will start making sense.
- the_watcher 13y agoAmazon's business model could start working essentially overnight if they moved out of land grab mode into monetization mode. Increase the price of Kindle books by 10% across the board, increase the Prime subscription rate (or tier out Prime levels), and increase their fees for fulfillment and transaction processing. You are correct that their runway lets them operate in perpetual land grab (as well as allowed them to get to the point that they could increase all these prices and not lose all their customers), but that doesn't mean if Wall Street started seriously complaining they wouldn't be able to massively increase profits.
- triplesec 13y agoThis post is lacking any supporting data regarding how amazon, other online stores, retail chains, and independent booksellers' agreements are different, and why amazon is particulary bad. As such, it's not really all that compelling as a rhetoric.
- kostyk 13y agoI am not sure if everybody aware, but Amazon is actually losing money and bleeding cash. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1712392-how-ugly-will-amazon-coms-earnings-be http://seekingalpha.com/article/1712392-how-ugly-will-amazon...
- astrodust 13y agoIt's not like anyone's expecting Amazon to make mountains of cash. It's not bleeding, either, it's re-investing, just like it always has. Since the very beginning. Stop screaming about the sky falling. It's just rain.
- saosebastiao 13y agoNot realizing profits and bleeding cash are two completely separate concepts.
- dabernathy89 13y agoThere is a relevant piece over at Techcrunch this morning; it argues that it was Borders/B&N that hurt indie bookstores, not Amazon: "Indie Bookstores Aren’t Dead Yet" http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/indie-bookstores-arent-dead-yet/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/indie-bookstores-arent-dead...
- TBInman 13y agoInteresting. The end of the NetBook Agreement in the UK (1995) which opened up the era of chain book stores and the discount supermarket book has definitely had a massive, often overlooked impact. The book industry don't like or get Amazon and that's why they grumble about it so much. But there are so many other reasons as to why it's changing so rapidly.
- tlrobinson 13y agoI stopped reading at "As a bookstore owner"
- spongle 13y agoSo I should keep funding my local bookshop which I have to walk to, has no titles other than the paperback chart full of trash like fifty shades, takes weeks to get an order in (which I have to go and collect) and costs more? I should also keep funding my publisher which does it's best to top slice cash, screws libraries with license agreements for texts, force DRM where possible? I think people resent amazon in this market because it's stamped on their little castles they all built. That's business, regardless of what you sell or create.
- jhspaybar 13y agoWhy I Buy All My Books On Amazon * They have it, always(and the newest printing of it) * They usually have it digital, I start reading it within 60 seconds * If it's not digital it is often available used($200 textbooks for $5? Yes, please, my "local" bookstore can keep their copies at $150 used). * Prime shipping * Oh, I also need new batteries, and a box of diapers? Might as well throw those in to the order and get back to things I would rather be doing than driving through town wasting my time.
- makomk 13y ago"They have it, always(and the newest printing of it)" The trouble is, Amazon knows that consumers think this way - so whenever they want to extort publishers into giving them a bigger discount they just make all that publishers' books unavailable on Amazon, knowing that everyone will just assume the books are out of print and not bother looking elsewhere.
- ISL 13y agoIf there's another Amazon-efficient middleman that offers superior rates to publishers/manufacturers at equal price/service to consumers, Amazon is as dead as Books-A-Million. Amazon's retail key is its unmatched distribution network. If someone can duplicate it, they'll eventually have half of the market.
- the_watcher 13y agoLuckily for Amazon, matching their distribution and logistics power is a billion dollar investment that will take someone like Bezos (willing to spend whatever it takes to hit his goal).
- ivv 13y agoCould that be a business model for the US Postal Service?
- Tichy 13y agoSo they can't stop Amazon from selling the book? If they really want to make a good cut, they should sell the ebook on their own web site.
- R_Edward 13y agoDone. I will not buy your book on Amazon. Glad to help.
- cjoh 13y agoLeft out of this argument is that The New York Times bestseller list has a bias towards physical retailers and against Amazon. Methinks this is a smart strategy towards getting on the bestseller list (which means enhanced speaker fees), disguised as a strategy towards justice in retail.
- fusiongyro 13y agoThe plea to support my struggling local bookstore would be more efficacious if I had one. As it happens my only real options are to order through Amazon or take a 75 mile drive to pay more for the book in person at Barnes and Noble.
- Uchikoma 13y agoExcept I'll pay another 63% for p&p.
- ig1 13y agoThe reason that small hard/paperback publishers are dying isn't Amazon. The reason is that physical book sales are dying, ebooks have overtaken both hardbacks and paperbacks in both total sales and revenues. Next year they'll probably be the majority of the market, within a decade physical books will be quaint. Starting a physical book publisher in this day and age is like trying to start a radio rental business in the 80s. Your business is going to be screwed by market trends whatever you do.
- laughfactory 13y agoYeah, I'm a Kindle convert and don't read books on paper much these days... And Amazon makes it ultra efficient for me to purchase, download, and read books that way. Sorry small independent booksellers, but your time has come: you're selling vinyl LPs in the age of iTunes.
- TBInman 13y agoYes, and it's undeniably nice to be able to buy books and CDs at what are effectively wholesale prices. I'm less convinced that kindle and e-ink e-readers in general are the future. Trends suggest that more and more people are reading on tablet, as opposed to specialist reading devices, the usage of which has plateaued. And I would definitely worry about what will happen to books should the day come when they are primarily read on a platform on which they must compete with other, noisier content (I'm looking at you, Angry Birds).
- EGreg 13y agoIt sounds like instead of the author making this plea, the publisher should just withhold the books from Amazon. After all, isn't copyright still in effect in this country?
- methodin 13y agoSo why don't presses offer a widget for people to buy directly from the author's site, such as this?
- clarky07 13y agoI recently self-published a book and I have a different gripe with Amazon. I didn't realize (I'm sure most wouldn't know) that Amazon is basically forcing people to price ebooks at 9.99. At prices < $10, Amazon gives 70%. At prices > $10, Amazon gives 35%. I had planned to initially offer my book at $9.99, and then raise the price to $14.99. Unfortunately, I'd basically have to stop offering Amazon as a vendor, or at the very least stop advertising it as one on my site. I may or may not do that at some point, but it's frustrating to say the least that I don't have control of the pricing of my product. I'm not willing to charge my customers more and receive less. Shameless plug for my book - http://buildanappbusiness.com/ http://buildanappbusiness.com/
- svantana 13y agoHow is this argument any different from "please don't buy my books at a used book shop"? Apart from the fact that everyone loves used book shops, so that would look bad...