4 ms·
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
by 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 agoWhy 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 agoScale. 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 agoYes, they'll download books from the web, from the publisher's site. I don't see the problem.
- Anderkent 12y agoI 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.