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Once the publishing companies are gone it is millions of authors selling to Amazon, classic monopsony. The competitive solution is millions of authors selling d
by justincormack 12y ago
Once the publishing companies are gone it is millions of authors selling to Amazon, classic monopsony. The competitive solution is millions of authors selling direct to billions of consumers without a powerful intermediary.
Whether the current situation with extra ineffectual intermediaries is much better I am not sure, probably not.
- ajross 12y agoRight, but that's sort of a semantic answer: I know (well, OK, I looked up) what monosony means. I just don't see the argument, specific to publishing, that it's such a terrible thing. Having a single buyer of a commodity good is bad, but books aren't commodities. Basically right now book authors, to first approximation, get paid basically nothing. But a few are huge successes with the ability essentially to set their own price. Amazon can't squeeze Joe-nature-book-writer any more than his publisher does already. But could even Amazon squeeze J. K. Rowling? I doubt it. I just don't see the path to this argument. Needs numbers or something.
- justincormack 12y agoOK say compare with the market for wine which sells at a similar price but has a much less centralized selling system but similarish diversity of product. With competition there is little space for 30% margins but there is still room for retail to take some margin. It is not a hugely profitable business but there are good niches.