7 ms·

This 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 Amaz

by JackFr 13y ago

This 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 ago
I 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 ago
    This 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.
    - user24 13y ago
      > We're all better off. No, we're all more comfortable, while the economy is going to shit. > People just need to now get used to the fact that there isn't a job for everyone Please think about what you're saying.
      - spongle 13y ago
        That's always been the case. I did think about what I'm saying. Not everyone has a useful function in society. It's a total fallacy that jobs are available for all and that it's a good metric for the success of a society.
        user24 13y ago
        > Not everyone has a useful function in society. It's a total fallacy that jobs are available for all and that it's a good metric for the success of a society. Ah right, I misunderstood your comment. You're taking the position that it's always been like this and the wall marts and amazons of this world are not part of the reason things are like this, and moreover you're saying that societies can be considered successful even with high or rising unemployment. It seemed to me like you were acknowledging that unemployment was rising and saying that people just had to get used to being jobless. Have I now understood your position correctly?
        spongle 13y ago
        Spot on - yes you have.
        user24 13y ago
        I'm intrigued as to how a society could be considered successful (or sustainable) with rising unemployment. Let's see. My axioms (and bear in mind these are written in half an hour) are: 1) People cannot ever be equal. 2) Things are not of equal value. 3) People need and want things. 4) It is not possible for everyone to have everything they want. 5) People want to own things. 6) It would be simpler if people did not want to own things ;) 7) People are fickle. 8) Given 5 and 7, trade will naturally arise. 9) Barter is impractical at scale 10) Barter is impractical across nonlocal distances. 11) Given 8, 9 and 10, money will naturally arise as a token for items. 12) People do not have a constant natural supply of valuable items. 13) People do have a constant natural supply of time and energy, at least for as long as it matters. 14) To gain money, people can sell their items 15) To gain money, people can sell their time and energy 16) Given 12, 13, and 15, jobs will naturally arise as a way to gain money. At this point I start asking questions that are beyond my knowledge of economics. a) How does money stop having a hard relationship with the items it originally represented (aka the "Why can't I get five pounds of gold for my fiver any more" question)? b) How is the value of money set? c) If money is subject to (a), then doesn't trade in money critically undermine the value of money? But those notwithstanding, how do you rate my reasoning as to why jobs are essential to society? edit: perhaps I've only demonstrated that jobs are one way to gain wealth. That's what I'm asking really. Assuming I've not made some huge error with my axioms, what is your number (17) that allows people to acquire money without selling items or their time and energy?
  - Shivetya 13y ago
    Amazingly, around every Wal-Mart near me there are more small businesses popping up than I want to count. Cars, public transportation, and now the internet, did/do more damage than anything to small businesses and people are not location trapped. Big box stores like Wal-Mart become a destination fostering business development nearby to take advantage of the situation
- mtraven 13y ago
  http://www.web.ca/~tslee/ http://www.web.ca/~tslee/ No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart, by Tom Slee ...shows why individual choice fails to give us what we want, and why we need to rely on collective action rather than individual choice to take us to where we want to be. Don't buy it on Amazon...
  - svantana 13y ago
    Ironically, the author's first two buy-online links are for Amazon. But the book is $33 on there, so most likely there is some windfall.
- EGreg 13y ago
  Yeah except now the average wage in the town drops, because all those businesses closed and people had to either a) move or b) work for the Wal-Mart. "Always lower prices. Always." Yepand lower wages too. The town's inhabitants are also the consumers, so basically the end result is cheaper products AND smaller wages for everyone - and greater income disparity across the country (automation helps boost capital vs labor).
  - dkrich 13y ago
    But lowering wages for a grocery clerk and then lowering prices on groceries transfers the wealth from the less efficient smaller grocer to the people who now shop at Wal-Mart. And because Wal-Mart can put price pressure on manufacturers like P&G like no other company can, it squeezes the wealth out of those companies and transfers it to the people who shop there. This makes the town wealthier, enabling them to save more, buy larger houses, newer cars, better health care. One major cost center becomes less costly and in the process improves the quality of life for a lot of people. I'm certainly not saying there are no losers, but any time incumbents are pushed out there are going to be unfortunate souls who have to adjust.
    - user24 13y ago
      > it squeezes the wealth out of those companies and transfers it to the people who shop there That's very neat. But aren't the people who shop there themselves getting lower wages, so the purchase power remains the same as before? i.e. my grocery shop is 20% cheaper, but my wages are 20% lower.
      - dkrich 13y ago
        No. Wal-Mart has distribution that makes the operations of most grocers look archaic. More man hours are devoted to managing their operations than putting a rover on fucking Mars. This makes them extraordinarily efficient. Things that don't sell are pushed out for things that do, giving people exactly what they want, when they want it. They also know that they only need to have, on average, four checkouts open from the hours of 8-6, Monday through Friday, so there is no inefficiency when it comes to staffing, either. Meanwhile at Mom and Pop's Five and Dime, inventory is brought in once a week on a truck, and if they got rid of cereal X and moved the milk over two aisles how much would their sales increase? Who the hell knows? They are just doing what has worked for the past 40 years. But it's okay, because shoppers in the area like them and because there isn't any meaningful competition, they can just use cost-based pricing to guarantee a satisfactory margin and keep themselves in business. Unfortunately in this scenario, local town inhabitants are paying for this inefficiency. When Wal-Mart moves in and gives the consumers more choice at lower prices, Wal-Mart robs Mom and Pop of their margin, keeps a little of it, and gives the rest to the consumers. Your wages aren't 20% lower just because Wal-Mart ironed out a huge producer surplus. You are wealthier because you can go to the mall and buy a quality shirt for $30 that was made for about two bucks whereas before you would have had to make your own shirt which might take you most of a day. This is how economic progression works. Better business practices make society wealthier through efficiency.
dsr_ 13y ago
Amazon isn't the whole problem, it's just that Amazon was the winner. It used to be that most towns had a bookstore, and larger towns or cities had several. Eventually they were displaced by chains: Waldenbooks and B. Dalton, Borders and Barnes & Noble. First the chains chased out the independent bookstores by being able to cut costs and order more efficiently; then the chains ate each other at the same time that Amazon was cutting costs even further. Now there's one limping chain, B&N, and some specialized chains -- mostly religious, secondhand or otherwise discount -- and Amazon. Efficiency is best served by a single distribution system with maximum economies of scale. That isn't actually a desirable outcome for customers or producers, though.
- Spooky23 13y ago
  I think the key thing is that efficiency isn't the same as a free market, but people tend to equate the two things. It's a rectangle/square problem: free markets drive efficiency, but efficiency doesn't drive free markets. When an efficient competitor "wins" and drives the competition out of business, everyone loses, as that competitor eventually turns into an entrenched toll-taker. As a consumer, you want your vendors fighting each other all of the time. The situation in books, where Amazon tolerates the existence of B&N, and doesn't give a hoot about Jesus books isn't good for anyone.
  - JackFr 13y ago
    I don't think its fair to say that "it isn't good for anyone." I remember buying books before Borders, the big Barnes & Nobles and Amazon. It sucked. The selection was poor, it was impossible to order, because it was very hard to know what was available. I even used order books by mail order. (In particular Dover published a catalog which had a lot of their math and science reprints. You'd fill in an order form and send it with a check through the mail; 4-6 weeks later your books would arrive.) The current situation for the consumer is much better.
    - ceedan 13y ago
      Agreed, book publishers need to work on their marketing and sales. If they were able to target their audience more directly and efficiently, they wouldn't need to rely on Amazon. No Starch Press (nostarchpress.com) did a fine job selling "Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good!" (and their other programming titles) without Amazon.com
forwardbiased 13y ago
It doesn't have to make sense. It's social media driven viral marketing.
robmclarty 13y ago
I agree. I'm not a published writer, but it seems to me that the expense of selling books printed on trees might be the problem? In my naive way of thinking about it, I feel like the author should just cut out the middle-man (publisher) altogether, put together an ebook (with some kind of free tool like latex, or html, or what-have-you) and then press the "publish" button which either places it on stores like Amazon, or simply sells directly off the author's own site. This is almost zero production cost and all margin. I'm an avid reader, and have all the walls of my apartment plastered with shelves of dead tree shavings, but I've noticed lately (like maybe within the last 3-5 years since the kindle and tablets have come out) that I don't buy physical books anymore; the reading experience on an electronic devices is sufficient, and the lower price of an ebook is attractive. With the amount of books I buy, I'm ok with trading a little bit of nostalgia and ephemeral tactility for "2 books for the price of 1". Putting words into my head is the main thing, and authors can put words into people's heads (and make a profit) on their own now: 1. write a book, 2. convert to ebook format and make available online, 3. sprinkle with marketing voodoo (which I think any book author could do: blog, tweet, email, link to book, etc.)
- the_watcher 13y ago
  This seems to be the real forward. The old distribution model for books has changed forever. While it makes it much harder for traditional independent publishers to print physical books, the barrier to entry as a publisher has been reduced so much that it really represents a step change in the industry. Anyone can publish an ebook, or release Kindle singles as a marketing strategy (or to create new forms of books closer to the old serials that Dickens and the like wrote). Guy Kawasaki, Tim Ferris, Tucker Max, Ryan Holiday (just the people I know off the top of my head) have written extensively about how they have self-published their way to best seller lists. Asking people to pay you to keep your outdated business model working doesn't strike me as the best plan.
yesplorer 13y ago
it is the way you've explained it that presents his effort as making no sense. Yes, if they don't sell on Amazon they will loose huge amount of sales because the Amazon exposure will be lost. But in this case he's trying to avoid selling on Amazon while simultaneously making effort that he maintains the exposure by using other avenues (like how he got it on top of HN frontpage). That is not the same as someone who decides he wouldn't sell on Amazon and miraculously expects to get some exposure somehow.
- EGreg 13y ago
  If his publisher didn't want to sell on Amazon, can't they just take it off?
codex 13y ago
Small presses would make money if Amazon didn't exist. So really, this is a plea to put Amazon out of business, or at least get them to use their almost-monopoly power over book prices to give a little more margin back to the small guys.

by JackFr 13y ago

dkrich 13y ago

I 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 ago
  This 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.
  - user24 13y ago
    > We're all better off. No, we're all more comfortable, while the economy is going to shit. > People just need to now get used to the fact that there isn't a job for everyone Please think about what you're saying.
    - spongle 13y ago
      That's always been the case. I did think about what I'm saying. Not everyone has a useful function in society. It's a total fallacy that jobs are available for all and that it's a good metric for the success of a society.
      - user24 13y ago
        > Not everyone has a useful function in society. It's a total fallacy that jobs are available for all and that it's a good metric for the success of a society. Ah right, I misunderstood your comment. You're taking the position that it's always been like this and the wall marts and amazons of this world are not part of the reason things are like this, and moreover you're saying that societies can be considered successful even with high or rising unemployment. It seemed to me like you were acknowledging that unemployment was rising and saying that people just had to get used to being jobless. Have I now understood your position correctly?
        spongle 13y ago
        Spot on - yes you have.
        user24 13y ago
        I'm intrigued as to how a society could be considered successful (or sustainable) with rising unemployment. Let's see. My axioms (and bear in mind these are written in half an hour) are: 1) People cannot ever be equal. 2) Things are not of equal value. 3) People need and want things. 4) It is not possible for everyone to have everything they want. 5) People want to own things. 6) It would be simpler if people did not want to own things ;) 7) People are fickle. 8) Given 5 and 7, trade will naturally arise. 9) Barter is impractical at scale 10) Barter is impractical across nonlocal distances. 11) Given 8, 9 and 10, money will naturally arise as a token for items. 12) People do not have a constant natural supply of valuable items. 13) People do have a constant natural supply of time and energy, at least for as long as it matters. 14) To gain money, people can sell their items 15) To gain money, people can sell their time and energy 16) Given 12, 13, and 15, jobs will naturally arise as a way to gain money. At this point I start asking questions that are beyond my knowledge of economics. a) How does money stop having a hard relationship with the items it originally represented (aka the "Why can't I get five pounds of gold for my fiver any more" question)? b) How is the value of money set? c) If money is subject to (a), then doesn't trade in money critically undermine the value of money? But those notwithstanding, how do you rate my reasoning as to why jobs are essential to society? edit: perhaps I've only demonstrated that jobs are one way to gain wealth. That's what I'm asking really. Assuming I've not made some huge error with my axioms, what is your number (17) that allows people to acquire money without selling items or their time and energy?
- Shivetya 13y ago
  Amazingly, around every Wal-Mart near me there are more small businesses popping up than I want to count. Cars, public transportation, and now the internet, did/do more damage than anything to small businesses and people are not location trapped. Big box stores like Wal-Mart become a destination fostering business development nearby to take advantage of the situation
mtraven 13y ago
http://www.web.ca/~tslee/ http://www.web.ca/~tslee/ No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart, by Tom Slee ...shows why individual choice fails to give us what we want, and why we need to rely on collective action rather than individual choice to take us to where we want to be. Don't buy it on Amazon...
- svantana 13y ago
  Ironically, the author's first two buy-online links are for Amazon. But the book is $33 on there, so most likely there is some windfall.
EGreg 13y ago
Yeah except now the average wage in the town drops, because all those businesses closed and people had to either a) move or b) work for the Wal-Mart. "Always lower prices. Always." Yepand lower wages too. The town's inhabitants are also the consumers, so basically the end result is cheaper products AND smaller wages for everyone - and greater income disparity across the country (automation helps boost capital vs labor).
- dkrich 13y ago
  But lowering wages for a grocery clerk and then lowering prices on groceries transfers the wealth from the less efficient smaller grocer to the people who now shop at Wal-Mart. And because Wal-Mart can put price pressure on manufacturers like P&G like no other company can, it squeezes the wealth out of those companies and transfers it to the people who shop there. This makes the town wealthier, enabling them to save more, buy larger houses, newer cars, better health care. One major cost center becomes less costly and in the process improves the quality of life for a lot of people. I'm certainly not saying there are no losers, but any time incumbents are pushed out there are going to be unfortunate souls who have to adjust.
  - user24 13y ago
    > it squeezes the wealth out of those companies and transfers it to the people who shop there That's very neat. But aren't the people who shop there themselves getting lower wages, so the purchase power remains the same as before? i.e. my grocery shop is 20% cheaper, but my wages are 20% lower.
    - dkrich 13y ago
      No. Wal-Mart has distribution that makes the operations of most grocers look archaic. More man hours are devoted to managing their operations than putting a rover on fucking Mars. This makes them extraordinarily efficient. Things that don't sell are pushed out for things that do, giving people exactly what they want, when they want it. They also know that they only need to have, on average, four checkouts open from the hours of 8-6, Monday through Friday, so there is no inefficiency when it comes to staffing, either. Meanwhile at Mom and Pop's Five and Dime, inventory is brought in once a week on a truck, and if they got rid of cereal X and moved the milk over two aisles how much would their sales increase? Who the hell knows? They are just doing what has worked for the past 40 years. But it's okay, because shoppers in the area like them and because there isn't any meaningful competition, they can just use cost-based pricing to guarantee a satisfactory margin and keep themselves in business. Unfortunately in this scenario, local town inhabitants are paying for this inefficiency. When Wal-Mart moves in and gives the consumers more choice at lower prices, Wal-Mart robs Mom and Pop of their margin, keeps a little of it, and gives the rest to the consumers. Your wages aren't 20% lower just because Wal-Mart ironed out a huge producer surplus. You are wealthier because you can go to the mall and buy a quality shirt for $30 that was made for about two bucks whereas before you would have had to make your own shirt which might take you most of a day. This is how economic progression works. Better business practices make society wealthier through efficiency.

dsr_ 13y ago

Amazon isn't the whole problem, it's just that Amazon was the winner. It used to be that most towns had a bookstore, and larger towns or cities had several. Eventually they were displaced by chains: Waldenbooks and B. Dalton, Borders and Barnes & Noble. First the chains chased out the independent bookstores by being able to cut costs and order more efficiently; then the chains ate each other at the same time that Amazon was cutting costs even further. Now there's one limping chain, B&N, and some specialized chains -- mostly religious, secondhand or otherwise discount -- and Amazon. Efficiency is best served by a single distribution system with maximum economies of scale. That isn't actually a desirable outcome for customers or producers, though.

Spooky23 13y ago
I think the key thing is that efficiency isn't the same as a free market, but people tend to equate the two things. It's a rectangle/square problem: free markets drive efficiency, but efficiency doesn't drive free markets. When an efficient competitor "wins" and drives the competition out of business, everyone loses, as that competitor eventually turns into an entrenched toll-taker. As a consumer, you want your vendors fighting each other all of the time. The situation in books, where Amazon tolerates the existence of B&N, and doesn't give a hoot about Jesus books isn't good for anyone.
- JackFr 13y ago
  I don't think its fair to say that "it isn't good for anyone." I remember buying books before Borders, the big Barnes & Nobles and Amazon. It sucked. The selection was poor, it was impossible to order, because it was very hard to know what was available. I even used order books by mail order. (In particular Dover published a catalog which had a lot of their math and science reprints. You'd fill in an order form and send it with a check through the mail; 4-6 weeks later your books would arrive.) The current situation for the consumer is much better.
  - ceedan 13y ago
    Agreed, book publishers need to work on their marketing and sales. If they were able to target their audience more directly and efficiently, they wouldn't need to rely on Amazon. No Starch Press (nostarchpress.com) did a fine job selling "Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good!" (and their other programming titles) without Amazon.com

forwardbiased 13y ago

It doesn't have to make sense. It's social media driven viral marketing.

robmclarty 13y ago

I agree. I'm not a published writer, but it seems to me that the expense of selling books printed on trees might be the problem? In my naive way of thinking about it, I feel like the author should just cut out the middle-man (publisher) altogether, put together an ebook (with some kind of free tool like latex, or html, or what-have-you) and then press the "publish" button which either places it on stores like Amazon, or simply sells directly off the author's own site. This is almost zero production cost and all margin. I'm an avid reader, and have all the walls of my apartment plastered with shelves of dead tree shavings, but I've noticed lately (like maybe within the last 3-5 years since the kindle and tablets have come out) that I don't buy physical books anymore; the reading experience on an electronic devices is sufficient, and the lower price of an ebook is attractive. With the amount of books I buy, I'm ok with trading a little bit of nostalgia and ephemeral tactility for "2 books for the price of 1". Putting words into my head is the main thing, and authors can put words into people's heads (and make a profit) on their own now: 1. write a book, 2. convert to ebook format and make available online, 3. sprinkle with marketing voodoo (which I think any book author could do: blog, tweet, email, link to book, etc.)

the_watcher 13y ago
This seems to be the real forward. The old distribution model for books has changed forever. While it makes it much harder for traditional independent publishers to print physical books, the barrier to entry as a publisher has been reduced so much that it really represents a step change in the industry. Anyone can publish an ebook, or release Kindle singles as a marketing strategy (or to create new forms of books closer to the old serials that Dickens and the like wrote). Guy Kawasaki, Tim Ferris, Tucker Max, Ryan Holiday (just the people I know off the top of my head) have written extensively about how they have self-published their way to best seller lists. Asking people to pay you to keep your outdated business model working doesn't strike me as the best plan.

yesplorer 13y ago

it is the way you've explained it that presents his effort as making no sense. Yes, if they don't sell on Amazon they will loose huge amount of sales because the Amazon exposure will be lost. But in this case he's trying to avoid selling on Amazon while simultaneously making effort that he maintains the exposure by using other avenues (like how he got it on top of HN frontpage). That is not the same as someone who decides he wouldn't sell on Amazon and miraculously expects to get some exposure somehow.

EGreg 13y ago
If his publisher didn't want to sell on Amazon, can't they just take it off?

codex 13y ago

Small presses would make money if Amazon didn't exist. So really, this is a plea to put Amazon out of business, or at least get them to use their almost-monopoly power over book prices to give a little more margin back to the small guys.