11 ms·

Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

136 points by kjhughes 12y ago

btrombley 12y ago
The article is short on details, but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. Wal-mart is famous for using its size to lean on suppliers ensuring "everyday low prices." Why is publishing different? I sympathize with authors that are hurt by this battle, but it just shows that Amazon's marketplace is becoming more important to their sales than their publisher is.
- jerf 12y ago
  If Amazon can significantly hurt a publisher in this manner, it is suggestive that they may have a monopoly power that they are abusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law (General note: Please at least somewhat carefully read over that before arguing. First, I'm only saying that it's suggestive, not proof, and secondly, there's a lot of misconceptions about what exactly is forbidden w.r.t. monopolies.)
  - btrombley 12y ago
    I think this is backwards: it was the book publishers (and Apple) that were sued for colluding to raise e-Book prices and had to settle -- which is what anti-trust laws are meant to protect consumers against. Amazon using its size and some questionable tactics just doesn't fall into that category. The book publishers have done a great job painting this as a David vs. Goliath story, but it's really two Goliaths battling over a shift in publishing and distribution.
    - cafard 12y ago
      Amazon doesn't just beat up on the big boys.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      Just because it was illegal for book publishers to collude with Apple to fix prices in the ebook market to their advantage doesn't make it any less illegal than it otherwise would be for Amazon to leverage any monopoly power it may have -- as that is legally defined, which doesn't require a complete absence of competition -- in the online physical book retail market to acheive market power in the ebook market.
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    The thing is, they don't. Amazon is like Walmart or Google. The reason everyone uses them isn't that there are no other options. There are. The reason is that they're better at it. A monopoly is, for example, Comcast, because there is no reasonable alternative provider for the same service. Talking about "hurt a publisher" is broadening the scope too far of what a monopoly is. A large retailer taking your products off of its shelves will hurt you in the sense that you'll make fewer sales, but that doesn't mean they have monopoly power. All it means is they have non-zero negotiating leverage with you. If you don't like it, go sell your books on Barnes and Noble or eBay or direct to customers on your own website. Think for a moment about why we hear all this wailing about Amazon in the book market but not in the market for e.g. AWS, even though Amazon has a large market share there as well. It's because in the book market the publishers are also Amazon's competitors and they're the ones wailing. Because Amazon wants everybody to buy eBooks, the vibrant success of which gives authors significant leverage over publishers once it becomes viable to forgo a print edition entirely unless publishers provide sufficiently attractive terms. That puts the squeeze on print publishers from both ends. Amazon is demanding lower prices from them and authors are given leverage to demand higher royalties. That's the natural state of the market when your product requires you to operate an industrial scale printing facility and have a significant unit reproduction cost for your product and competitors are providing similar customer value by copying bits. The print publishers are screwed and they're trying to figure out how not to be, but they're already dead and they just haven't hit the ground yet.
    - jerf 12y ago
      See, this is why I really strongly suggested that you read the link I provided. Monopolies are not, strictly speaking, about "not having any other options". I phrased my point carefully... the fact that Amazon can incur great pain on someone like this, combined with the fact that they have, strongly suggests something that may be actionable under monopoly law, regardless of what other definitions may or may not also be something you could choose to apply, but I did not. If customers in practice had easy and significant choices, they'd just go elsewhere easily and the publisher would feel no pain.
      - 12y ago
- deleted 12y ago
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- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. No one has said that they are. Likewise, the affected publisher, and the news media, are not obligated to fail to inform the public of Amazon's tactics so that they are aware that Amazon having smaller-than-usual discounts, "not available" notices, and long shipping times may well be a sign not of any issue with the availability of the book, but of Amazon's disputes with the publisher, and that therefore if they are encountered when looking for a particular book, a consumer would be well advised to look at other online retailers, who, while their usual discounts may be lower, may have better discounts for the book at issue or have it available when Amazon says its unavailable, or have it with a more reasonable shipping time when Amazon does not. Amazon is essentially leveraging the trust that consumers have in them as presenting a seemingly comprehensive catalog and best terms in the online book retailing business to selectively pressure publishers, and its completely fair to inform consumers that, in the particular case of these kinds of disputes, that trust may, however well earned it was previously, not be warranted -- and what the particular symptoms are that such a dispute is affecting the book you are looking for.
  - a3n 12y ago
    Amazon lying to customers - there's a winning strategy.
  - HNaTTY 12y ago
    I like your writing style.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  I think this reveals Amazon's key weakness -- they don't make any money. Amazon's big cachet was always "Earth's biggest selection". If they are going to behave like cable companies and refuse to sell books from major customers, they are really failing their customers. If I want to buy a book, I shouldn't need to know or care about who publishes it, and whether or not they are in a pissing match with Amazon. The first time I run into that situation will be the last time I use Amazon.
  - bd_at_rivenhill 12y ago
    They make plenty of money, but that is then invested back into expanding the business, so it's more accurate to say that they don't make much profit at this time.
    - kenrikm 12y ago
      If that were true they would not be slowly making the service worse to try to eek out some money. "Add On Items" Removing items from being next day eligible with Prime etc.. As someone who orders from Amazon all the time (daily) I have seen a drastic downgrade in the service from what it used to be. Feels more like Walmart then Amazon these days.
      - smackfu 12y ago
        Well, Prime itself probably loses money. It's a pretty classic loss-leader.
    - mcguire 12y ago
      I haven't looked at Amazon's numbers, so I don't know the actual values involved, but "profit" includes money that is then "invested back into expanding the business".
seacious 12y ago
What practice of Hachette is amazon objecting to? The article doesn't specify the cause of the conflict.
- jasode 12y ago
  In the 10th paragraph: "Amazon, which is under immense pressure from Wall Street to improve its profit margins, is trying to get better terms on e-books out of Hachette," Amazon also previously used this playbook with MacMillan Publishing.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > What practice of Hachette is amazon objecting to? Amazon isn't publicly objecting to any Hachette practice. Per the earlier article on the dispute linked from the source article, [1] Amazon is seeking more favorable contract terms with Hachette (and neither side seems to be disclosing what particular terms are at issue), and is working to discourage sales of their books -- and promote alternatives to people specifically seaching for Hachette books -- to force Hachette to agree to Amazon's preferred terms. [1] The earlier article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/technology/writers-feel-an-amazon-hachette-spat.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/technology/writers-feel-an...
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    Yes, of course the publishers wouldn't want authors to see the details of their Amazon deals.
- smackfu 12y ago
  Probably e-book pricing. Hachette doesn't really have any reason to come out publicly and says they are trying to keep e-book prices high, since while that is good for authors and Hachette, it's bad for the consumer pocketbook.
  - tsunamifury 12y ago
    Can we stop with the mindless idea that the point of capitalism is only to drive down the price for consumers. The point is to provide an equilibrium between suppliers and customers. The difference between 12.99 and 9.99 doesn't hurt consumers and provides significant difference in paying authors. Amazon is unfairly trying to kill the suppliers for short term gains at the expense of the industry.
mmed 12y ago
That's a vulgar way of demonstrating Amazon's muscle power.
smackfu 12y ago
The main reason this is getting publicity is that the authors are getting punished but they have no power. Otherwise it's just a standard retailer/supplier conflict. Also, note that Hachette is one of the publishers involved in the e-book suit who settled, so not exactly a great history with Amazon.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  Another major reason is suggested in the earlier article -- Amazon's market power in the book retailing business (particularly if online book retailing is regarded as a distinct market) is so great that a lot of commenters have raised antitrust concerns about that power being applied as leverage for better terms in the e-book market (developing market power isn't illegal by itself, but applying it to use dominance in one market to acheive dominance in another can be an antitrust violation.)
  - dublinben 12y ago
    The publishers are completely free to sell DRM-free ebooks directly to consumers that can be enjoyed on their Kindle or whatever. They insist on relying on greedy middlemen like Apple and are shocked when Amazon doesn't fall in line. I have no sympathy for complaining publishers that refuse to actually circumvent these "bully" distributors.
    - makomk 12y ago
      They're also completely free to sell DRM-free paperbacks, and all of them do, but that's never helped them much when Amazon lists their paperbacks as "out of stock" as leverage tactics over physical book pricing because most people assume that if Amazon don't have it, it's out of print and there's no point looking elsewhere.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  "The main reason this is getting publicity is that the authors are getting punished but they have no power." Sure they do. They can put the book on Amazon themselves and make 70% of retail rather than 15% of retail.
chimeracoder 12y ago
> “I have supported Amazon for as long as Amazon has existed. I’ve been published for 20 years now and you have sold so many of my books,” she wrote in a Facebook posting she also sent to the retailer. Why does she not blame her publisher for setting the price of her books to be too high[0]? This seems to be a regular merchant/vendor price dispute - nothing new about it. The publisher is just a middleman here[1] - if she were trying to sell directly to Amazon at the same price, Amazon's reaction (presumably) would be to refuse to sell the book based on the prices she set. At that point, she'd have two options: (1) Lower the price of the book, or (2) Accept that the book won't be available on Amazon. > “Your actions to raise the prices of our books, place banners touting books that ‘are similar but lower in price’ and saying that our books will ship in 3-5 weeks when they are in stock is not only a disgusting negotiation practice, but it has made me tell my readers to shop elsewhere — and they are and will,” she wrote. This is a minor point, but for what it's worth, it appears that Amazon is saying that the books are "unavailable", not "out of stock", from the screenshot. Amazon does sometimes say that items are "out of stock" instead of "unavailable", so it's not that they're trying to imply any reason for the lack of availability - they're just saying that they are not available and not specifying the reason. [0] This is mostly rhetorical - I can understand why she may not want to lower her price - but that's the way supply and demand works in a supply chain (ie, when you're not selling direct-to-consumer). [1] As is Amazon, for that matter! She always has the option of selling the e-books herself, if she decides that that's a worthwhile endeavor.
- dap 12y ago
  > Why does she not blame her publisher for setting the price of her books to be too high[0]? This seems to be a regular merchant/vendor price dispute - nothing new about it. Because Amazon's the one making it hard for her readers to get their hands on her books. We don't know it has anything to do with the prices they want for her books.
revelation 12y ago
These articles can really go either way, but NYT seems to continuously go the publisher side. Theres not a single Amazon statement in this article. Remember that the majority of publishers just recently colluded with Apple to essentially fuck over Amazon. Why would we afford them the presumption of goodwill here?
- tzs 12y ago
  > Theres not a single Amazon statement in this article From the article: "An Amazon spokesman declined to comment"
  - jack-r-abbit 12y ago
    And... A Hachette spokeswoman did not return a message for comment. A Bonnier spokesman could not be reached. Looks like no one wanted to talk to these reporters/bloggers. :)
    - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
      Of course not. This is everyday contract crap and adding journalists hungry for ad impressions and encouraging hysterics would only hurt the process. I'm sure there's just some boring negotiation going on and this "story" will be forgotten. What exactly is the huge controversy here? That Amazon temporarily has a Rowling book that can't be pre-ordered right now? Oh ok. I don't know the NYTimes's plan to succeed in the digital age, but acting like a 24/7 TV news outlet probably isn't that way to go. I also worry that newspaper publishers see themselves as the publishing industry does and have a bias against digital distribution and will do anything to damage it. This piece feels anti-Amazon in an unfair way. The publishers aren't these poor underdogs, they're all well-heeled corporations with lawyers and experts. Let them hash it out.
- sxcurry 12y ago
  I agree. I think part of it is that the NYT reporters see their own industry slipping away, and really identify with others who are struggling to maintain ink on paper publishing. BTW, the recent internal NYT report stated that the future for the "paper" is a thriving digital publishing environment, with a secondary emphasis on the traditional newspaper.
paulgb 12y ago
> The paperback edition of Brad Stone’s “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” — a book Amazon disliked so much it denounced it — is suddenly listed as “unavailable.” I like a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy but couldn't the book just be... unavailable? If they wanted to impede its distribution why are they still selling the Kindle, Hardcover, and Audio versions?
- cube13 12y ago
  That's true. However, making a JK Rowling book completely unavailable? That's incredibly suspicious. It's pretty much a guaranteed bestseller.
  - smackfu 12y ago
    That book is still a preorder, so a lot easier for Amazon to play games with. If they aren't selling it on release date, that's a much bigger deal.
    - cube13 12y ago
      Both books are, actually. The paperback edition for Brad Stone's book is going to be released in October.
- 001sky 12y ago
  "For several months, Amazon has been quietly discouraging the sales of Hachette’s physical books by several techniques — cutting the customer’s discount so the book approaches list price; taking weeks to ship the book; suggesting prospective customers buy other books instead; and increasing the discount for the Kindle version." There is no physical shortage.
  - chris_mahan 12y ago
    Wait, you're telling me that the book is available elsewhere (like the barnes & noble website), but not amazon? What's stopping average joe to go to a different seller and buy it there? If Amazon doesn't want to sell something, even a book, that is entirely their right.
IBM 12y ago
Looks like the publishing industry needs to consolidate further.
mpweiher 12y ago
Boy, aren't we all glad the DOJ protected poor little Amazon from the evil and all-powerful Apple e-book conspiracy and monopoly.
- terminus 12y ago
  Two wrongs don't make a right. I'll reserve judgement on whether Amazon's conduct is legal or not. But, Apple's collusion was decidedly illegal. In any case if the DoJ feels that Amazon is misusing monopoly power, then the solution is to prosecute both and not, it'll all cancel out in the long run.
- smackfu 12y ago
  OK, so in this case, Amazon wants better terms than Hachette will give, so Amazon plays hardball. In the e-book conspiracy, all the publishers wanted better terms than Amazon would give, and they didn't want to give Amazon the chance to play hardball, so they banded together and forced Amazon's hand. Not really sure how the second is better. It's certainly way more illegal.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    Assuming the first player has monopoly power (which its tactics wouldn't have any effect if it didn't) both are equally illegal.
    - smackfu 12y ago
      You don't need a monopoly to have enough power to push around your suppliers.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        You have to have monopoly power to do so by the tactics at issue (limiting consumer availability and manipulating retail prices) since in a market with effective competition that does more to direct sales of the product to competing retailers than to hurt the total volume sold by the publisher.
incision 12y ago
Honest questions here... What is supposed to happen here? This article and each of the others linked don't offer much beyond jabs at Amazon. As far as I can tell, publishers are unhappy with Amazon - period. Two years ago the hot news was about Amazon pricing books too low [1]. Now at least part of the complaint is that Amazon isn't discounting enough and allowing prices to approach list price - which I assume is set by the publisher. Isn't that a publisher problem? Also, this all reminds me of what we used to hear in the music industry - creators hurting because the label (publisher) they're contracted with is feuding and refusing to eat whatever compromise rather than pass it on directly or indirectly. Would it be a terrible thing if Amazon pressured books into changing the same way iTunes changed music? 1: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/11/tech/web/apple-lawsuit-cheaper-ebooks/ http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/11/tech/web/apple-lawsuit-cheaper...
- pelario 12y ago
  The analogy with the music industry is not good: The core point of the article is to claim that Amazon is abusing his dominant position; which is a real problem, and in some countries illegal, regardless of the nature of the company.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Now at least part of the complaint is that Amazon isn't discounting enough and allowing prices to approach list price No, the claim is that they are doing that selectively, along with other things like directing people searching for a book to other publishers books, and extending the shipping time for the targeted publisher's physical books -- as means of discouraging purchases of the targeted publisher's physical books to create leverage on contract terms related to e-books.
  - incision 12y ago
    Right. Is there something specifically wrong with that sort of leveraging? Businesses in the online and physical world negotiate all sorts of things selectively for their own benefit. Amazon doesn't give every publisher the same deal just like I'm sure publishers don't give every author the same deal. There are multiple ways to get books published and multiple ways to sell them. Amazon is big, and as one of the linked NYT articles says 'controls about a third of the book business', but that is a far cry from the modern-classic example monopoly of Microsoft on the desktop (90% share) in the 90s or perhaps Comcast (Sole option) in some places today. Amazon and Hachette are doing what big businesses do and authors, who have a direct relationship with Hachette, not Amazon are apparently suffereing. I'm not seeing how Amazon becomes the villain here.
umsm 12y ago
Does this article still make sense if you click on this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Store-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0316219266 http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Store-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0... And notice that the book IS AVAILABLE?
- leoc 12y ago
  Was that the case when the article was written though?
davidw 12y ago
http://www.powells.com/ http://www.powells.com/ - this is a great place to get books, although the best thing of all is to go there in person and wander around. I generally like Amazon, by and large, and I love my Kindle, but wandering around looking at that many books in person is great too.
bhewes 12y ago
I have started two publishing companies over the last two years. What I can say on the economics of print is that the margins are not good compared to ebooks. What this article misses is the fight is not really between publishers and Amazon, but between printers and Amazon. Printers and their distribution system are getting squeezed.
chris_mahan 12y ago
Why don't the publishers make it easy to buy books from them, instead of all this rigamarole about rights and regions? I want to go to your website, pay with a credit card, and you ship it to me, anywhere in the world, and fast. No, instead, I go to a local bookstore, they don't have it. I go to Amazon, they have it. I order it, two days later it's at my door, for 30% off the price on the back of the book. So everybody does the same as me, and now Amazon is the 800-lbs gorilla in the room, throwing its weight around, and you're complaining? You had the opportunity, 10 years ago, to kill Amazon, and you didn't, because you wanted to keep charging us more for less service. Tough.
- jrockway 12y ago
  This is a great way of putting it. Their business doesn't need a middleman. They added a middleman. Now they don't like the middleman. The tears, they just aren't coming.
- dap 12y ago
  ... and since many people did the same thing, and many of the local bookstores have closed (particularly those with large selections), Amazon effectively has considerable influence over what kinds of things most of us read. Tough indeed. For us.

136 points by kjhughes 12y ago

The article is short on details, but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. Wal-mart is famous for using its size to lean on suppliers ensuring "everyday low prices." Why is publishing different? I sympathize with authors that are hurt by this battle, but it just shows that Amazon's marketplace is becoming more important to their sales than their publisher is.

jerf 12y ago
If Amazon can significantly hurt a publisher in this manner, it is suggestive that they may have a monopoly power that they are abusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law (General note: Please at least somewhat carefully read over that before arguing. First, I'm only saying that it's suggestive, not proof, and secondly, there's a lot of misconceptions about what exactly is forbidden w.r.t. monopolies.)
- btrombley 12y ago
  I think this is backwards: it was the book publishers (and Apple) that were sued for colluding to raise e-Book prices and had to settle -- which is what anti-trust laws are meant to protect consumers against. Amazon using its size and some questionable tactics just doesn't fall into that category. The book publishers have done a great job painting this as a David vs. Goliath story, but it's really two Goliaths battling over a shift in publishing and distribution.
  - cafard 12y ago
    Amazon doesn't just beat up on the big boys.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    Just because it was illegal for book publishers to collude with Apple to fix prices in the ebook market to their advantage doesn't make it any less illegal than it otherwise would be for Amazon to leverage any monopoly power it may have -- as that is legally defined, which doesn't require a complete absence of competition -- in the online physical book retail market to acheive market power in the ebook market.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  The thing is, they don't. Amazon is like Walmart or Google. The reason everyone uses them isn't that there are no other options. There are. The reason is that they're better at it. A monopoly is, for example, Comcast, because there is no reasonable alternative provider for the same service. Talking about "hurt a publisher" is broadening the scope too far of what a monopoly is. A large retailer taking your products off of its shelves will hurt you in the sense that you'll make fewer sales, but that doesn't mean they have monopoly power. All it means is they have non-zero negotiating leverage with you. If you don't like it, go sell your books on Barnes and Noble or eBay or direct to customers on your own website. Think for a moment about why we hear all this wailing about Amazon in the book market but not in the market for e.g. AWS, even though Amazon has a large market share there as well. It's because in the book market the publishers are also Amazon's competitors and they're the ones wailing. Because Amazon wants everybody to buy eBooks, the vibrant success of which gives authors significant leverage over publishers once it becomes viable to forgo a print edition entirely unless publishers provide sufficiently attractive terms. That puts the squeeze on print publishers from both ends. Amazon is demanding lower prices from them and authors are given leverage to demand higher royalties. That's the natural state of the market when your product requires you to operate an industrial scale printing facility and have a significant unit reproduction cost for your product and competitors are providing similar customer value by copying bits. The print publishers are screwed and they're trying to figure out how not to be, but they're already dead and they just haven't hit the ground yet.
  - jerf 12y ago
    See, this is why I really strongly suggested that you read the link I provided. Monopolies are not, strictly speaking, about "not having any other options". I phrased my point carefully... the fact that Amazon can incur great pain on someone like this, combined with the fact that they have, strongly suggests something that may be actionable under monopoly law, regardless of what other definitions may or may not also be something you could choose to apply, but I did not. If customers in practice had easy and significant choices, they'd just go elsewhere easily and the publisher would feel no pain.
    - 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
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dragonwriter 12y ago
> but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. No one has said that they are. Likewise, the affected publisher, and the news media, are not obligated to fail to inform the public of Amazon's tactics so that they are aware that Amazon having smaller-than-usual discounts, "not available" notices, and long shipping times may well be a sign not of any issue with the availability of the book, but of Amazon's disputes with the publisher, and that therefore if they are encountered when looking for a particular book, a consumer would be well advised to look at other online retailers, who, while their usual discounts may be lower, may have better discounts for the book at issue or have it available when Amazon says its unavailable, or have it with a more reasonable shipping time when Amazon does not. Amazon is essentially leveraging the trust that consumers have in them as presenting a seemingly comprehensive catalog and best terms in the online book retailing business to selectively pressure publishers, and its completely fair to inform consumers that, in the particular case of these kinds of disputes, that trust may, however well earned it was previously, not be warranted -- and what the particular symptoms are that such a dispute is affecting the book you are looking for.
- a3n 12y ago
  Amazon lying to customers - there's a winning strategy.
- HNaTTY 12y ago
  I like your writing style.
Spooky23 12y ago
I think this reveals Amazon's key weakness -- they don't make any money. Amazon's big cachet was always "Earth's biggest selection". If they are going to behave like cable companies and refuse to sell books from major customers, they are really failing their customers. If I want to buy a book, I shouldn't need to know or care about who publishes it, and whether or not they are in a pissing match with Amazon. The first time I run into that situation will be the last time I use Amazon.
- bd_at_rivenhill 12y ago
  They make plenty of money, but that is then invested back into expanding the business, so it's more accurate to say that they don't make much profit at this time.
  - kenrikm 12y ago
    If that were true they would not be slowly making the service worse to try to eek out some money. "Add On Items" Removing items from being next day eligible with Prime etc.. As someone who orders from Amazon all the time (daily) I have seen a drastic downgrade in the service from what it used to be. Feels more like Walmart then Amazon these days.
    - smackfu 12y ago
      Well, Prime itself probably loses money. It's a pretty classic loss-leader.
  - mcguire 12y ago
    I haven't looked at Amazon's numbers, so I don't know the actual values involved, but "profit" includes money that is then "invested back into expanding the business".

seacious 12y ago

What practice of Hachette is amazon objecting to? The article doesn't specify the cause of the conflict.

jasode 12y ago
In the 10th paragraph: "Amazon, which is under immense pressure from Wall Street to improve its profit margins, is trying to get better terms on e-books out of Hachette," Amazon also previously used this playbook with MacMillan Publishing.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> What practice of Hachette is amazon objecting to? Amazon isn't publicly objecting to any Hachette practice. Per the earlier article on the dispute linked from the source article, [1] Amazon is seeking more favorable contract terms with Hachette (and neither side seems to be disclosing what particular terms are at issue), and is working to discourage sales of their books -- and promote alternatives to people specifically seaching for Hachette books -- to force Hachette to agree to Amazon's preferred terms. [1] The earlier article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/technology/writers-feel-an-amazon-hachette-spat.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/technology/writers-feel-an...
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  Yes, of course the publishers wouldn't want authors to see the details of their Amazon deals.
smackfu 12y ago
Probably e-book pricing. Hachette doesn't really have any reason to come out publicly and says they are trying to keep e-book prices high, since while that is good for authors and Hachette, it's bad for the consumer pocketbook.
- tsunamifury 12y ago
  Can we stop with the mindless idea that the point of capitalism is only to drive down the price for consumers. The point is to provide an equilibrium between suppliers and customers. The difference between 12.99 and 9.99 doesn't hurt consumers and provides significant difference in paying authors. Amazon is unfairly trying to kill the suppliers for short term gains at the expense of the industry.

mmed 12y ago

That's a vulgar way of demonstrating Amazon's muscle power.

smackfu 12y ago

The main reason this is getting publicity is that the authors are getting punished but they have no power. Otherwise it's just a standard retailer/supplier conflict. Also, note that Hachette is one of the publishers involved in the e-book suit who settled, so not exactly a great history with Amazon.

dragonwriter 12y ago
Another major reason is suggested in the earlier article -- Amazon's market power in the book retailing business (particularly if online book retailing is regarded as a distinct market) is so great that a lot of commenters have raised antitrust concerns about that power being applied as leverage for better terms in the e-book market (developing market power isn't illegal by itself, but applying it to use dominance in one market to acheive dominance in another can be an antitrust violation.)
- dublinben 12y ago
  The publishers are completely free to sell DRM-free ebooks directly to consumers that can be enjoyed on their Kindle or whatever. They insist on relying on greedy middlemen like Apple and are shocked when Amazon doesn't fall in line. I have no sympathy for complaining publishers that refuse to actually circumvent these "bully" distributors.
  - makomk 12y ago
    They're also completely free to sell DRM-free paperbacks, and all of them do, but that's never helped them much when Amazon lists their paperbacks as "out of stock" as leverage tactics over physical book pricing because most people assume that if Amazon don't have it, it's out of print and there's no point looking elsewhere.
Turing_Machine 12y ago
"The main reason this is getting publicity is that the authors are getting punished but they have no power." Sure they do. They can put the book on Amazon themselves and make 70% of retail rather than 15% of retail.

chimeracoder 12y ago

> “I have supported Amazon for as long as Amazon has existed. I’ve been published for 20 years now and you have sold so many of my books,” she wrote in a Facebook posting she also sent to the retailer. Why does she not blame her publisher for setting the price of her books to be too high[0]? This seems to be a regular merchant/vendor price dispute - nothing new about it. The publisher is just a middleman here[1] - if she were trying to sell directly to Amazon at the same price, Amazon's reaction (presumably) would be to refuse to sell the book based on the prices she set. At that point, she'd have two options: (1) Lower the price of the book, or (2) Accept that the book won't be available on Amazon. > “Your actions to raise the prices of our books, place banners touting books that ‘are similar but lower in price’ and saying that our books will ship in 3-5 weeks when they are in stock is not only a disgusting negotiation practice, but it has made me tell my readers to shop elsewhere — and they are and will,” she wrote. This is a minor point, but for what it's worth, it appears that Amazon is saying that the books are "unavailable", not "out of stock", from the screenshot. Amazon does sometimes say that items are "out of stock" instead of "unavailable", so it's not that they're trying to imply any reason for the lack of availability - they're just saying that they are not available and not specifying the reason. [0] This is mostly rhetorical - I can understand why she may not want to lower her price - but that's the way supply and demand works in a supply chain (ie, when you're not selling direct-to-consumer). [1] As is Amazon, for that matter! She always has the option of selling the e-books herself, if she decides that that's a worthwhile endeavor.

dap 12y ago
> Why does she not blame her publisher for setting the price of her books to be too high[0]? This seems to be a regular merchant/vendor price dispute - nothing new about it. Because Amazon's the one making it hard for her readers to get their hands on her books. We don't know it has anything to do with the prices they want for her books.

revelation 12y ago

These articles can really go either way, but NYT seems to continuously go the publisher side. Theres not a single Amazon statement in this article. Remember that the majority of publishers just recently colluded with Apple to essentially fuck over Amazon. Why would we afford them the presumption of goodwill here?

tzs 12y ago
> Theres not a single Amazon statement in this article From the article: "An Amazon spokesman declined to comment"
- jack-r-abbit 12y ago
  And... A Hachette spokeswoman did not return a message for comment. A Bonnier spokesman could not be reached. Looks like no one wanted to talk to these reporters/bloggers. :)
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    Of course not. This is everyday contract crap and adding journalists hungry for ad impressions and encouraging hysterics would only hurt the process. I'm sure there's just some boring negotiation going on and this "story" will be forgotten. What exactly is the huge controversy here? That Amazon temporarily has a Rowling book that can't be pre-ordered right now? Oh ok. I don't know the NYTimes's plan to succeed in the digital age, but acting like a 24/7 TV news outlet probably isn't that way to go. I also worry that newspaper publishers see themselves as the publishing industry does and have a bias against digital distribution and will do anything to damage it. This piece feels anti-Amazon in an unfair way. The publishers aren't these poor underdogs, they're all well-heeled corporations with lawyers and experts. Let them hash it out.
sxcurry 12y ago
I agree. I think part of it is that the NYT reporters see their own industry slipping away, and really identify with others who are struggling to maintain ink on paper publishing. BTW, the recent internal NYT report stated that the future for the "paper" is a thriving digital publishing environment, with a secondary emphasis on the traditional newspaper.

paulgb 12y ago

> The paperback edition of Brad Stone’s “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” — a book Amazon disliked so much it denounced it — is suddenly listed as “unavailable.” I like a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy but couldn't the book just be... unavailable? If they wanted to impede its distribution why are they still selling the Kindle, Hardcover, and Audio versions?

cube13 12y ago
That's true. However, making a JK Rowling book completely unavailable? That's incredibly suspicious. It's pretty much a guaranteed bestseller.
- smackfu 12y ago
  That book is still a preorder, so a lot easier for Amazon to play games with. If they aren't selling it on release date, that's a much bigger deal.
  - cube13 12y ago
    Both books are, actually. The paperback edition for Brad Stone's book is going to be released in October.
001sky 12y ago
"For several months, Amazon has been quietly discouraging the sales of Hachette’s physical books by several techniques — cutting the customer’s discount so the book approaches list price; taking weeks to ship the book; suggesting prospective customers buy other books instead; and increasing the discount for the Kindle version." There is no physical shortage.
- chris_mahan 12y ago
  Wait, you're telling me that the book is available elsewhere (like the barnes & noble website), but not amazon? What's stopping average joe to go to a different seller and buy it there? If Amazon doesn't want to sell something, even a book, that is entirely their right.

IBM 12y ago

Looks like the publishing industry needs to consolidate further.

mpweiher 12y ago

Boy, aren't we all glad the DOJ protected poor little Amazon from the evil and all-powerful Apple e-book conspiracy and monopoly.

terminus 12y ago
Two wrongs don't make a right. I'll reserve judgement on whether Amazon's conduct is legal or not. But, Apple's collusion was decidedly illegal. In any case if the DoJ feels that Amazon is misusing monopoly power, then the solution is to prosecute both and not, it'll all cancel out in the long run.
smackfu 12y ago
OK, so in this case, Amazon wants better terms than Hachette will give, so Amazon plays hardball. In the e-book conspiracy, all the publishers wanted better terms than Amazon would give, and they didn't want to give Amazon the chance to play hardball, so they banded together and forced Amazon's hand. Not really sure how the second is better. It's certainly way more illegal.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  Assuming the first player has monopoly power (which its tactics wouldn't have any effect if it didn't) both are equally illegal.
  - smackfu 12y ago
    You don't need a monopoly to have enough power to push around your suppliers.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      You have to have monopoly power to do so by the tactics at issue (limiting consumer availability and manipulating retail prices) since in a market with effective competition that does more to direct sales of the product to competing retailers than to hurt the total volume sold by the publisher.

incision 12y ago

Honest questions here... What is supposed to happen here? This article and each of the others linked don't offer much beyond jabs at Amazon. As far as I can tell, publishers are unhappy with Amazon - period. Two years ago the hot news was about Amazon pricing books too low [1]. Now at least part of the complaint is that Amazon isn't discounting enough and allowing prices to approach list price - which I assume is set by the publisher. Isn't that a publisher problem? Also, this all reminds me of what we used to hear in the music industry - creators hurting because the label (publisher) they're contracted with is feuding and refusing to eat whatever compromise rather than pass it on directly or indirectly. Would it be a terrible thing if Amazon pressured books into changing the same way iTunes changed music? 1: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/11/tech/web/apple-lawsuit-cheaper-ebooks/ http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/11/tech/web/apple-lawsuit-cheaper...

pelario 12y ago
The analogy with the music industry is not good: The core point of the article is to claim that Amazon is abusing his dominant position; which is a real problem, and in some countries illegal, regardless of the nature of the company.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Now at least part of the complaint is that Amazon isn't discounting enough and allowing prices to approach list price No, the claim is that they are doing that selectively, along with other things like directing people searching for a book to other publishers books, and extending the shipping time for the targeted publisher's physical books -- as means of discouraging purchases of the targeted publisher's physical books to create leverage on contract terms related to e-books.
- incision 12y ago
  Right. Is there something specifically wrong with that sort of leveraging? Businesses in the online and physical world negotiate all sorts of things selectively for their own benefit. Amazon doesn't give every publisher the same deal just like I'm sure publishers don't give every author the same deal. There are multiple ways to get books published and multiple ways to sell them. Amazon is big, and as one of the linked NYT articles says 'controls about a third of the book business', but that is a far cry from the modern-classic example monopoly of Microsoft on the desktop (90% share) in the 90s or perhaps Comcast (Sole option) in some places today. Amazon and Hachette are doing what big businesses do and authors, who have a direct relationship with Hachette, not Amazon are apparently suffereing. I'm not seeing how Amazon becomes the villain here.

umsm 12y ago

Does this article still make sense if you click on this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Store-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0316219266 http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Store-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0... And notice that the book IS AVAILABLE?

leoc 12y ago
Was that the case when the article was written though?

davidw 12y ago

http://www.powells.com/ http://www.powells.com/ - this is a great place to get books, although the best thing of all is to go there in person and wander around. I generally like Amazon, by and large, and I love my Kindle, but wandering around looking at that many books in person is great too.

bhewes 12y ago

I have started two publishing companies over the last two years. What I can say on the economics of print is that the margins are not good compared to ebooks. What this article misses is the fight is not really between publishers and Amazon, but between printers and Amazon. Printers and their distribution system are getting squeezed.

chris_mahan 12y ago

Why don't the publishers make it easy to buy books from them, instead of all this rigamarole about rights and regions? I want to go to your website, pay with a credit card, and you ship it to me, anywhere in the world, and fast. No, instead, I go to a local bookstore, they don't have it. I go to Amazon, they have it. I order it, two days later it's at my door, for 30% off the price on the back of the book. So everybody does the same as me, and now Amazon is the 800-lbs gorilla in the room, throwing its weight around, and you're complaining? You had the opportunity, 10 years ago, to kill Amazon, and you didn't, because you wanted to keep charging us more for less service. Tough.

jrockway 12y ago
This is a great way of putting it. Their business doesn't need a middleman. They added a middleman. Now they don't like the middleman. The tears, they just aren't coming.
dap 12y ago
... and since many people did the same thing, and many of the local bookstores have closed (particularly those with large selections), Amazon effectively has considerable influence over what kinds of things most of us read. Tough indeed. For us.