5 ms·

The publishers and record labels are doing the same thing they were before - curation and editing. The book printers & CD burners are out of the mix, but they w

The publishers and record labels are doing the same thing they were before - curation and editing. The book printers & CD burners are out of the mix, but they were never that expensive anyway. There are still fixed costs associated with a book (editor) or an album (studio time), not to mention the marketing costs. Are they worth 35% of the profit? I don't think so. But probably more than 0%. I personally think it should be 70% author, 20% publisher, 10% Amazon.

JohnTHaller 12y ago
The publisher can always sell directly as an unencrypted EPUB and MOBI (works on Kindle) to the consumer and set their own pricing and percentages.
- notatoad 12y ago
  they can, and many try, but for the most part people don't buy books outside of their chosen e-reader platform (ibooks, kindle store, kobo). Amazon has significant value to add that they've built up over time and that publishers can't easily get: recommendations, integration with e-reader devices, a huge amount of traffic, and a huge number of people with one-click purchasing already set up.
- lesterbuck 12y ago
  Not exactly. Turns out you can sell via Amazon, or you can sell directly, but if you use the undocumented Amazon-only tool to construct your .mobi, you can't sell that directly. And Amazon is now blocking the output of many/all other ebook construction software so you can't use Send to Kindle or email. USB is the only option to load a book. http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/04/02/why-does-amazon-hate-ebook-authors/ http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/04/02/why-does-amazon-hate-eboo...
  - jamesbritt 12y ago
    You can use numerous other tools to create the mobi and sell that eleswhere while you also sell the kindle mobi on Amazon. I've yet to run into a problem sending all sorts of files, ebook or otherwise (aside from epub), to my Kindle. That article seems to overstate issues with generating files readable on Kindle.
  - mintplant2 12y ago
    Just yesterday I used http://epub2mobi.com/ http://epub2mobi.com/ to convert a public domain ePub file to MOBI, then sent that to my Kindle's email address. It was delivered wirelessly to my Kindle. Are you sure this hasn't changed? Or is epub2mobi doing something to circumvent this?
  - krschultz 12y ago
    I buy my OReilly books direct and send them to my Kindle all the time. They even work in the Kindle cloud reader on my desktop.
  - mcguire 12y ago
    On the other hand, I've had absolutely no problems pointing a tablet's browser at a .mobi's URL and downloading it directly to ebook reading software. (Do modern Kindle readers not include browsers? I've never looked on mine.)
- tjl 12y ago
  Do you know which publisher sells for all your favourite authors? I certainly know for some of them, but not others. What about when you just hear about a book from someone? This is why people go to bookstores. I'd be a lot happier if everyone went to no-DRM or at least interchangeable DRM so you could move to a different e-reader. Amazon and iBooks are the odd ones out. iBooks doesn't have a big marketshare, but Amazon definitely does.
  - mcguire 12y ago
    There's this thing, on the internet. It's specifically designed for locating the publisher of a given author. We call it a "search engine". :-) I personally go to bookstores to find books and authors that I've never heard of before---something that is actually quite hard to do online.
coryl 12y ago
10% is far too little. Amazon is R&D'ing and manufacturing tablet/e-reader devices, handling payment/currency, and all the dirty work necessary to get the device in the hands of the customer in the first place.
- Anechoic 12y ago
  Amazon is R&D'ing and manufacturing tablet/e-reader devices Which shouldn't that be built into the price of those devices?
  - walterbell 12y ago
    If it was, there would be a healthy e-reader market with competing devices and choices for consumers, which would deprive Amazon of business leverage over content distribution. Barnes & Noble had a brief moment of glory when their first Nook color tablet was cheaper, better and unlocked. Devs were selling rooted Android SD cards on eBay. If BN had opened up the hardware, they had a chance of gaining the scale needed to compete with Kindle. Instead, BN went the other way, locked down Nooks, created their own App Store with poor selection and the rest is history. Apple has managed to charge premium prices for devices (enabling a market for many cheaper competitors) AND keep leverage on app/content distribution. Digital publishing needs to separate distribution from payment. Convert "pirates" into "free logistics services" and focus on customers connecting more closely with authors. Why can't authors accept elastic (value-based, pay-what-you-want) bitcoin payments?
    - tjl 12y ago
      A big problem with the competing device market is that books aren't portable between Amazon and alternatives (but they are between the alternatives). So, if you've bought a number of e-books on Amazon, switching becomes much more difficult.
      - walterbell 12y ago
        Some people use Calibre.
robbiemitchell 12y ago
It seems Amazon is effectively the entire market: customers, distribution, payment. If Amazon were worth only 10%, it would be irrelevant and publishers would go elsewhere. If the combined value to an author of a publisher and Amazon were only 30%, they wouldn't rely on either so heavily. But here we are.
- rtpg 12y ago
  I think this is one of those points where a lot of people on HN will think in terms of COGS, but because Amazon is effectively offering your products at such a large market, the 70% of revenue you'll get through amazon is worth a lot more than the 100% you'd get without going through them (and by definition, more than the 30% they're getting).

JohnTHaller 12y ago

The publisher can always sell directly as an unencrypted EPUB and MOBI (works on Kindle) to the consumer and set their own pricing and percentages.

notatoad 12y ago
they can, and many try, but for the most part people don't buy books outside of their chosen e-reader platform (ibooks, kindle store, kobo). Amazon has significant value to add that they've built up over time and that publishers can't easily get: recommendations, integration with e-reader devices, a huge amount of traffic, and a huge number of people with one-click purchasing already set up.
lesterbuck 12y ago
Not exactly. Turns out you can sell via Amazon, or you can sell directly, but if you use the undocumented Amazon-only tool to construct your .mobi, you can't sell that directly. And Amazon is now blocking the output of many/all other ebook construction software so you can't use Send to Kindle or email. USB is the only option to load a book. http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/04/02/why-does-amazon-hate-ebook-authors/ http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/04/02/why-does-amazon-hate-eboo...
- jamesbritt 12y ago
  You can use numerous other tools to create the mobi and sell that eleswhere while you also sell the kindle mobi on Amazon. I've yet to run into a problem sending all sorts of files, ebook or otherwise (aside from epub), to my Kindle. That article seems to overstate issues with generating files readable on Kindle.
- mintplant2 12y ago
  Just yesterday I used http://epub2mobi.com/ http://epub2mobi.com/ to convert a public domain ePub file to MOBI, then sent that to my Kindle's email address. It was delivered wirelessly to my Kindle. Are you sure this hasn't changed? Or is epub2mobi doing something to circumvent this?
- krschultz 12y ago
  I buy my OReilly books direct and send them to my Kindle all the time. They even work in the Kindle cloud reader on my desktop.
- mcguire 12y ago
  On the other hand, I've had absolutely no problems pointing a tablet's browser at a .mobi's URL and downloading it directly to ebook reading software. (Do modern Kindle readers not include browsers? I've never looked on mine.)
tjl 12y ago
Do you know which publisher sells for all your favourite authors? I certainly know for some of them, but not others. What about when you just hear about a book from someone? This is why people go to bookstores. I'd be a lot happier if everyone went to no-DRM or at least interchangeable DRM so you could move to a different e-reader. Amazon and iBooks are the odd ones out. iBooks doesn't have a big marketshare, but Amazon definitely does.
- mcguire 12y ago
  There's this thing, on the internet. It's specifically designed for locating the publisher of a given author. We call it a "search engine". :-) I personally go to bookstores to find books and authors that I've never heard of before---something that is actually quite hard to do online.

coryl 12y ago

10% is far too little. Amazon is R&D'ing and manufacturing tablet/e-reader devices, handling payment/currency, and all the dirty work necessary to get the device in the hands of the customer in the first place.

Anechoic 12y ago
Amazon is R&D'ing and manufacturing tablet/e-reader devices Which shouldn't that be built into the price of those devices?
- walterbell 12y ago
  If it was, there would be a healthy e-reader market with competing devices and choices for consumers, which would deprive Amazon of business leverage over content distribution. Barnes & Noble had a brief moment of glory when their first Nook color tablet was cheaper, better and unlocked. Devs were selling rooted Android SD cards on eBay. If BN had opened up the hardware, they had a chance of gaining the scale needed to compete with Kindle. Instead, BN went the other way, locked down Nooks, created their own App Store with poor selection and the rest is history. Apple has managed to charge premium prices for devices (enabling a market for many cheaper competitors) AND keep leverage on app/content distribution. Digital publishing needs to separate distribution from payment. Convert "pirates" into "free logistics services" and focus on customers connecting more closely with authors. Why can't authors accept elastic (value-based, pay-what-you-want) bitcoin payments?
  - tjl 12y ago
    A big problem with the competing device market is that books aren't portable between Amazon and alternatives (but they are between the alternatives). So, if you've bought a number of e-books on Amazon, switching becomes much more difficult.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      Some people use Calibre.

robbiemitchell 12y ago

It seems Amazon is effectively the entire market: customers, distribution, payment. If Amazon were worth only 10%, it would be irrelevant and publishers would go elsewhere. If the combined value to an author of a publisher and Amazon were only 30%, they wouldn't rely on either so heavily. But here we are.

rtpg 12y ago
I think this is one of those points where a lot of people on HN will think in terms of COGS, but because Amazon is effectively offering your products at such a large market, the 70% of revenue you'll get through amazon is worth a lot more than the 100% you'd get without going through them (and by definition, more than the 30% they're getting).