5 ms·

Great article, and I love getting an update on one of the more influential articles I've read about Amazon that has stuck with me over the years. But I'm left

by edanm 12y ago

Great article, and I love getting an update on one of the more influential articles I've read about Amazon that has stuck with me over the years. But I'm left with a question - is Amazon stupid? They rely on new works coming out just as much as authors and publishers. Why are they acting in a way that will drive off the creation of new content in the long term? It looks like a losing strategy for them.

tormeh 12y ago
Writing is like music: Someone will always do it, even if it doesn't pay. You can take the author's money and he'll still write. Being passionate about your job (which most artists are) in a market with abundant supply (which art has) means you are a career sucker. While art is not fungible in the sense that a free market would drive the margins to zero, a monopolist could still twist artists pretty bad before a significant portion of them stop writing.
- pizza234 12y ago
  Yes and no; exactly like music, and say, cinema, artists will still produce without money, but quantity and quality will become mutually exclusive. In the article Stross says that "after a while, there will be no more Charlie Stross novels because I will be unable to earn a living and will have to go find a paying job".
- WalterBright 12y ago
  My father wrote and had published a couple of books (obscure historical topics). He spent years writing them. He didn't care about making money off of them, he wrote them to establish his professional reputation. He's happy that people read them and cite them.
Turing_Machine 12y ago
"Why are they acting in a way that will drive off the creation of new content in the long term?" Paying authors 70% rather than 15% is going to "drive them off"? Okay.
- Anderkent 12y ago
  Why would amazon pay authors 70% if there's no other publisher around? They do it for now to undermine the traditional publishing model. If that's gone, expect it to go down.
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    "Publisher" and "traditional publisher" are not synonymous. If Amazon started gouging, someone else would spring up to replace them. Unlike the tradpubs, Bezos is thoroughly aware of how fast disintermediation can occur.
Anderkent 12y ago
No, amazon is a 60B company fighting with a 2B company. It's a loss leader - they might earn less than they could this year, but eventually Hatchette will give up and accept amazon's terms (it's not like they really have a choice) or go out of digital distrubition, and any other publishers will see that there's no alternative. At that point amazon is free to dictate terms to any publishers (perhaps with the exception of larger ones that could plausibly bootstrap their own retail channels if forced to) and earn their loss back.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Why can only "larger" publishers retail their own ebooks? Is this the 1980s again? I see new small businesses and even individuals retailing their own works every day, why is it so hard for them?
  - Anderkent 12y ago
    Scale. You won't be able to offer an alternative to the kindle without a huge budget; and without an alternative to the kindle all kindle users will keep either buying from amazon, or downloading books on the web. In either case you're not solving the authors problem, so they still have to deal with amazon.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Yes, they'll download books from the web, from the publisher's site. I don't see the problem.
      - Anderkent 12y ago
        I meant pirate. Why would you bother going online to buy a book if you can do it with one click on amazon, and have it on your device straight away? I mean, sure, if that's an author you already know and there's no other way to get the book, you might do it. But die-hard fans are always going to buy the books anyway, that's not what publishers and authors compete for. Reaching the audience that has not read previous books is the main purpose.

by edanm 12y ago

tormeh 12y ago

Writing is like music: Someone will always do it, even if it doesn't pay. You can take the author's money and he'll still write. Being passionate about your job (which most artists are) in a market with abundant supply (which art has) means you are a career sucker. While art is not fungible in the sense that a free market would drive the margins to zero, a monopolist could still twist artists pretty bad before a significant portion of them stop writing.

pizza234 12y ago
Yes and no; exactly like music, and say, cinema, artists will still produce without money, but quantity and quality will become mutually exclusive. In the article Stross says that "after a while, there will be no more Charlie Stross novels because I will be unable to earn a living and will have to go find a paying job".
WalterBright 12y ago
My father wrote and had published a couple of books (obscure historical topics). He spent years writing them. He didn't care about making money off of them, he wrote them to establish his professional reputation. He's happy that people read them and cite them.

Turing_Machine 12y ago

"Why are they acting in a way that will drive off the creation of new content in the long term?" Paying authors 70% rather than 15% is going to "drive them off"? Okay.

Anderkent 12y ago
Why would amazon pay authors 70% if there's no other publisher around? They do it for now to undermine the traditional publishing model. If that's gone, expect it to go down.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  "Publisher" and "traditional publisher" are not synonymous. If Amazon started gouging, someone else would spring up to replace them. Unlike the tradpubs, Bezos is thoroughly aware of how fast disintermediation can occur.

Anderkent 12y ago

No, amazon is a 60B company fighting with a 2B company. It's a loss leader - they might earn less than they could this year, but eventually Hatchette will give up and accept amazon's terms (it's not like they really have a choice) or go out of digital distrubition, and any other publishers will see that there's no alternative. At that point amazon is free to dictate terms to any publishers (perhaps with the exception of larger ones that could plausibly bootstrap their own retail channels if forced to) and earn their loss back.

icebraining 12y ago
Why can only "larger" publishers retail their own ebooks? Is this the 1980s again? I see new small businesses and even individuals retailing their own works every day, why is it so hard for them?
- Anderkent 12y ago
  Scale. You won't be able to offer an alternative to the kindle without a huge budget; and without an alternative to the kindle all kindle users will keep either buying from amazon, or downloading books on the web. In either case you're not solving the authors problem, so they still have to deal with amazon.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Yes, they'll download books from the web, from the publisher's site. I don't see the problem.
    - Anderkent 12y ago
      I meant pirate. Why would you bother going online to buy a book if you can do it with one click on amazon, and have it on your device straight away? I mean, sure, if that's an author you already know and there's no other way to get the book, you might do it. But die-hard fans are always going to buy the books anyway, that's not what publishers and authors compete for. Reaching the audience that has not read previous books is the main purpose.