7 ms·

To play the devil's advocate... couldn't Hatchet just pull out of selling ebooks through Amazon and roll their own and/or start an distribution platform for ebo

by yaur 12y ago

To play the devil's advocate... couldn't Hatchet just pull out of selling ebooks through Amazon and roll their own and/or start an distribution platform for ebooks structured like Hulu? If the rest of the big 6 publishers got on board that would be pretty catastrophic for Amazon and they wouldn't be able effectively retaliate without crippling themselves.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> couldn't Hatchet just pull out of selling ebooks through Amazon and roll their own and/or start an distribution platform for ebooks structured like Hulu? Sure, just like, any one of the computer manufacturers that Microsoft was pressuring in the 1990s could have just pulled out of selling computers with Windows and rolled their own OS. > If the rest of the big 6 publishers got on board that would be pretty catastrophic for Amazon OTOH, if the rest of the big 6 didn't, it would be catastrophic for Hachette.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  "Sure, just like, any one of the computer manufacturers that Microsoft was pressuring in the 1990s could have just pulled out of selling computers with Windows and rolled their own OS." Setting up an independent ebook sales portal isn't as hard as writing a new operating system and getting it adopted. Not by many orders of magnitude. You need: 1) A credit card processor. 2) An email server. That's all.
  - kenjackson 12y ago
    To do an OS in the 90s you just need to form Linux. That was it. Adoption is hard for both scenarios.
    - Turing_Machine 12y ago
      No. Getting a user to adopt a new OS requires convincing him to format the drive (or create a partition), download a gig of data, then go through an hour or two of installation and configuration, then go through weeks to months of learning how to use the new OS. Getting a user to set up his Kindle to read books from your indy store requires that he enter the Kindle's email address on your site, and your site's email address on the Kindle.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Setting up an independent ebook sales portal isn't as hard as writing a new operating system I'm sure some PC vendors like HP could probably have figured out how to put together an OS -- because many of them did. effectively marketing a consumer OS in the market Microsfot had dominated, and where all the app development was focussed on windows, OTOH...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - rmc 12y ago
    You also need to be able to out market Amazon, and get the millions of non-technical users to understand what's going on.
ghshephard 12y ago
The (only) issue is the Kindle (which I love, and own four of). Amazon sold e-books at what some called "predatory pricing", using their large profits in other parts of their business, to allow them to sell below cost on their DRM-encumbered reading device. I would guess that close to 90% of e-book reader who purchase books, do so on a Kindle capable device (iPad, iPhone, or E-Ink reader). These people (and I am one of them) - only purchase e-books from Amazon. Because it's DRM encumbered, we need to make sure we purchase content from a supplier who is going to be around 10-20 years from now. Only Amazon (and possibly Apple) has any strong probability of being in that category right now. This gives Amazon an outsized ability to negotiate with vendors - Amazon is close to being a Monopoly for both the ebook purchasers, and Monopsony for the ebook sellers. There was a small chance to correct this back when Apple attempted to negotiate agency and MFN rights for their book selling business, but they did it in heavy handed and clumsy way that appeared to the DOJ to be collusion. Some have argued that what Apple did with the book publishers was not that different than what Apple did with the Music publishers - the key difference, of course, is that there was no "Amazon" to complain about their market position being disrupted by a new business model. I'll still continue to purchase books from Amazon, as distasteful as I find their current negotiating strategy, but I would be (very) happy to see the book publishers decided that DRM encumbered books will ultimately be their downfall because of the negotiating leverage it gives the DRM platform owner. See: http://stratechery.com/2014/publishers-deal-devil/ http://stratechery.com/2014/publishers-deal-devil/ for a nice literary analysis of the situation.
- kemayo 12y ago
  I'm one of these Kindle-owners. I want to correct a misconception: it's not inherently DRM-encumbered. Books you buy from Amazon can have DRM or not, depending on the publisher[1]. Books you buy from other stores will work fine on Kindle so long as said other stores aren't using DRM themselves. Admittedly, if you buy a book in EPUB format from another store you'll have to convert it to one of the formats Kindle supports. Amazon provides a program to do so, and independent stores like Baen[2] tend to give you a choice of formats anyway. (Kindle not supporting EPUB natively seems pretty blatantly designed to avoid competition, since it's the non-Amazon industry standard at this point. No argument there.) [1]: http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/01/amazon-quietly-lets-publishers-remove-drm-from-kindle-ebooks/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/01/amazon-quietly-lets-publish... [2]: http://www.baenebooks.com/ http://www.baenebooks.com/

by yaur 12y ago

dragonwriter 12y ago

> couldn't Hatchet just pull out of selling ebooks through Amazon and roll their own and/or start an distribution platform for ebooks structured like Hulu? Sure, just like, any one of the computer manufacturers that Microsoft was pressuring in the 1990s could have just pulled out of selling computers with Windows and rolled their own OS. > If the rest of the big 6 publishers got on board that would be pretty catastrophic for Amazon OTOH, if the rest of the big 6 didn't, it would be catastrophic for Hachette.

Turing_Machine 12y ago
"Sure, just like, any one of the computer manufacturers that Microsoft was pressuring in the 1990s could have just pulled out of selling computers with Windows and rolled their own OS." Setting up an independent ebook sales portal isn't as hard as writing a new operating system and getting it adopted. Not by many orders of magnitude. You need: 1) A credit card processor. 2) An email server. That's all.
- kenjackson 12y ago
  To do an OS in the 90s you just need to form Linux. That was it. Adoption is hard for both scenarios.
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    No. Getting a user to adopt a new OS requires convincing him to format the drive (or create a partition), download a gig of data, then go through an hour or two of installation and configuration, then go through weeks to months of learning how to use the new OS. Getting a user to set up his Kindle to read books from your indy store requires that he enter the Kindle's email address on your site, and your site's email address on the Kindle.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Setting up an independent ebook sales portal isn't as hard as writing a new operating system I'm sure some PC vendors like HP could probably have figured out how to put together an OS -- because many of them did. effectively marketing a consumer OS in the market Microsfot had dominated, and where all the app development was focussed on windows, OTOH...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- rmc 12y ago
  You also need to be able to out market Amazon, and get the millions of non-technical users to understand what's going on.

ghshephard 12y ago

The (only) issue is the Kindle (which I love, and own four of). Amazon sold e-books at what some called "predatory pricing", using their large profits in other parts of their business, to allow them to sell below cost on their DRM-encumbered reading device. I would guess that close to 90% of e-book reader who purchase books, do so on a Kindle capable device (iPad, iPhone, or E-Ink reader). These people (and I am one of them) - only purchase e-books from Amazon. Because it's DRM encumbered, we need to make sure we purchase content from a supplier who is going to be around 10-20 years from now. Only Amazon (and possibly Apple) has any strong probability of being in that category right now. This gives Amazon an outsized ability to negotiate with vendors - Amazon is close to being a Monopoly for both the ebook purchasers, and Monopsony for the ebook sellers. There was a small chance to correct this back when Apple attempted to negotiate agency and MFN rights for their book selling business, but they did it in heavy handed and clumsy way that appeared to the DOJ to be collusion. Some have argued that what Apple did with the book publishers was not that different than what Apple did with the Music publishers - the key difference, of course, is that there was no "Amazon" to complain about their market position being disrupted by a new business model. I'll still continue to purchase books from Amazon, as distasteful as I find their current negotiating strategy, but I would be (very) happy to see the book publishers decided that DRM encumbered books will ultimately be their downfall because of the negotiating leverage it gives the DRM platform owner. See: http://stratechery.com/2014/publishers-deal-devil/ http://stratechery.com/2014/publishers-deal-devil/ for a nice literary analysis of the situation.

kemayo 12y ago
I'm one of these Kindle-owners. I want to correct a misconception: it's not inherently DRM-encumbered. Books you buy from Amazon can have DRM or not, depending on the publisher[1]. Books you buy from other stores will work fine on Kindle so long as said other stores aren't using DRM themselves. Admittedly, if you buy a book in EPUB format from another store you'll have to convert it to one of the formats Kindle supports. Amazon provides a program to do so, and independent stores like Baen[2] tend to give you a choice of formats anyway. (Kindle not supporting EPUB natively seems pretty blatantly designed to avoid competition, since it's the non-Amazon industry standard at this point. No argument there.) [1]: http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/01/amazon-quietly-lets-publishers-remove-drm-from-kindle-ebooks/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/01/amazon-quietly-lets-publish... [2]: http://www.baenebooks.com/ http://www.baenebooks.com/