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I see the previous submission[1] to Hacker News of Matthew Yglesias's Vox essay, "Amazon is doing the world a favor by crushing book publishers,"[2] didn't get

I see the previous submission[1] to Hacker News of Matthew Yglesias's Vox essay, "Amazon is doing the world a favor by crushing book publishers,"[2] didn't get much discussion here, but I think the essay supplements the arguments in the Economist blog post kindly submitted here very nicely from the author's side. (The Economist post mostly argues from the reader's side.) I still have plenty to read, and I don't find that Hachette or the other people whining about Amazon are doing as much as Amazon is to provide you and me with more to read at a better price than ever before. As Yglesias writes, "When all is said and done, the argument between Amazon and book publishers is over the rather banal question of price. Amazon's view is that since 'printing' an extra copy of an e-book is really cheap, e-books should be really cheap. Publishers' view is that since 'printing' an extra copy of an e-book is really cheap, e-books should offer enormous profit margins to book publishers. If you care about reading or ideas or literature, the choice between these visions is not a difficult one." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8493736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8493736 [2] http://www.vox.com/2014/10/22/7016827/amazon-hachette-monopoly http://www.vox.com/2014/10/22/7016827/amazon-hachette-monopo...

Osmium 12y ago
> is to provide you and me with more to read at a better price than ever before As a reader, do you want to optimise for price or for quality? The argument is that one will ultimately come at the expense of the other, because good books need good editors and good authors need sufficient money to allow them the time to write.
- tokenadult 12y ago
  As a reader, I think Amazon helps me a lot on the quality information about books I might want to read, as it posts reader reviews and includes those beguiling "Readers who bought this also bought" links frequently to guide me to books I haven't heard about before. On the whole, as a reader who has been reading for half a century, I like the ecosystem for readers better since Amazon came along than I liked it before Amazon came along.
- sampo 12y ago
  But even if a publishing company selects an author they think is promising, and gives the author sufficient money and time and good editors, it still doesn't necessarily produce the kind of literature that I want to read.
- nateabele 12y ago
  > [G]ood books need good editors and good authors need sufficient money to allow them the time to write. The unstated assumption seems to be that publishers are either the best or only way to enable this.
- lucozade 12y ago
  As a consumer, I care about price, quality and convenience. But I'm agnostic as to how the editorial and advance are delivered. It's not wholly unreasonable, for example, for some form of crowd funding model to turn up; you publish an outline to a site and folks bid on it. Similarly, an editor matching service doesn't seem that far fetched. Or to put it another way, we have perfectly serviceable replacement models for most of what a mass market publisher now does. That's not to say that publishers can't add value but, as with distribution and delivery, it's not too hard to foresee this turning into a niche product.
  - Osmium 12y ago
    > you publish an outline to a site and folks bid on it I'd be very skeptical about that... > an editor matching service doesn't seem that far fetched This seems a lot more reasonable. I agree with your overall point that publishers are unlikely to be the best way of doing things, and there's no need to preserve the status quo for its own sake. I'm just not sure Amazon is going about it the right way, and I think reducing the perceived value of books is a dangerous game. That all said, I don't want to be too down on Amazon. They've made reading more convenient for many through the Kindle and the Kindle Store, and that alone is worth a hell of a lot...
    - jdmichal 12y ago
      > I'd be very skeptical about that... The gaming industry is in the middle of doing exactly this. What exactly are you skeptical about? Whether an attempt will be made, or whether an attempt will succeed?
      - Osmium 12y ago
        > Whether an attempt will be made, or whether an attempt will succeed? Neither. More about if it will compromise the artistry if plot is decided by a committee, which is effectively what will happen if the public gets to 'vote' for what they want to be made. Plot-by-comittee works for a lot of television and film so maybe it'll work for books too, but my gut reaction is that you'll get a much better product if the creator can act alone and not have to worry about getting defunded if they kill off a favourite character or some such thing...
- moron4hire 12y ago
  I think, if you stop to look past the extremely popular books and look at what people read in between great works of literature, the sorts of things they read err on the side of quantity, not quality. And I'll even go so far as to grant you a conceit that "popular = good", so you can take the entire Stephenie Meyer collection out of the equation as a mere drop in the bucket. There is a huge market out there. Publishers don't prevent bad books from getting to it. And they don't really pay authors to write books. More often, all different types of authors, good or bad, have to shoulder the risk of their first few manuscripts on themselves and hope a publisher picks them up. If their first published book does well, then the publisher pays to have more books written. It's a system that is useless to the most popular, breakout authors--they have essentially bootstrapped a book-writing company--and disadvantageous to the anyone who doesn't write a superawesomebestseller on their first try--as the publishers often design the contracts to leave no residuals for the writer. Books can be--and often are--just as empty and vapid as reality TV. We just tend to put books and the people involved in their production a pedestal in our culture.
rayiner 12y ago
It's an interesting narrative, but technology renders the cost of reproduction irrelevant. Which is different from saying it's relevant that it's extremely cheap. Look at an area that "cheap" has destroyed: the Internet. The Internet is full of crap. I had to censor the ads on a HuffPo article before printing and sending it to someone the other day. That's journalism circa 2014 where there is no money to pay for class. Is that what we want to have happen to books too? Drive down the prices so the only way to make any money off books is to plaster the end of every chapter with full color ads of Kim Kardashian? Because that's the road Amazon is taking us down, along with all the other companies who make money from distributing rather than creating content.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > Because that's the road Amazon is taking us down, along with all the other companies who make money from distributing rather than creating content. Disagree. Amazon Publishing is notorious for putting more money in the author's hands/pocket than a traditional publishing house. I'll take cheaper books and having to spend a bit more time finding what I'd like versus to the alternative future publishing houses would prefer (continuing to squeeze profits out of fewer readers while keeping more of the profit for themselves instead of the author).
- cynicalkane 12y ago
  I can't find the source right now (Google queries return a bunch of Amazon links and SEO spam) but I seem to recall Amazon seeing e-book sales being significantly higher than expected, just because they're so easy to impulse buy. Personally, I find books so valuable I don't bother to look at the price--enriching hours of my time is worth more than $5, or $25, even if there's a significant chance the book will be a dud. It's really just a convenience thing. E-books are easy to pay for. News websites are not. This also has to do with how we consume news: nobody wants to pay to click on grandma's Buzzfeed links on Facebook. Also remember book authors traditionally make about 10-15% of hardcover sales and about a dollar a paperback. Ebook royalties are reportedly 25-30%, and I bet they will go higher.
- toolz 12y ago
  There doesn't have to be some limitations of choice by default, plenty of services provide paying extra to ignore ads, books would be no different. The model you're describing opens up options and I suspect the majority of people would rather pay less and have ads on their books.
wsxcde 12y ago
> If you care about reading or ideas or literature, the choice between these visions is not a difficult one. Is it really an easy choice though? As a reader, I want access to interesting content and it seems that pushing the price down to the cost of production makes it harder to produce good content. Another way of looking at it is the following. We as a community say that we ought to charge based on value produced and not cost of production. Shouldn't book sellers and author's be able to do the same?
- rwmj 12y ago
  This "sweat of the brow" argument doesn't cut it. Books have long been unprofitable for the majority of writers. At the same time, it's now easier to publish than ever -- look, I'm doing it right now! The question here is should publishers be allowed to control and make large profits (the authors weren't in any case), and I think the answer is clearly no.
  - alttab 12y ago
    This. In addition, if we charged to the "value" of a book, then only shitty magazines will be available to the masses. Doesn't seem like a great formula for spreading said "great content".
- Shivetya 12y ago
  Who is to say the cost of production isn't artificially high because of all those legacy costs? If the prices fall then the barrier for entry should be lower as well. Currently many of these publishers decide whom we get to read. Still you can follow conversations on this very site which rail against the costs charged for music and movies and yet they have high costs of production as well. Another article I read today talks about how traffic on the internet has been shaped by the users to where very few sites, just a few dozen, are responsible for half of the traffic. I am in the camp of, the legacy systems are doing their damnedest to stay relevant in a world where they are not, it is as if the milk man refused to stop delivering milk and wanted to and succeeded in stopping stores from selling it.
- icebraining 12y ago
marincounty 12y ago
If I had a book I would never consent to digitize it--ever. I know it will probally be scanned and uploaded, but until that time I would hold out. As to what books sell on Amazon and elsewhere; I am always shocked by what people will read. A wealthy person who has some notoriety (even for having just a big butt) can hire a ghost writer and with the right exposure(like being pimped on Imus, or the like) can sell a huge amount of books? I feel for the writter who is truly gifted, but isn't famous. I've noticed a huge void for good authors in the Technical fields. By good authors I mean good writers. Most of the computer books I have tried to read of the years are literally like reading a phone book. I don't expect Nabrokov, but if you can't write well--don't try to fake it. People will buy your book even if you have to use numbers, or steps like directions in consumer products. Keep the words down. Write like you are trying to convey information to an eighth grader. I have wondered why editors let these phone books fly off the presses with just a pretty cover. I have a feeling they don't have a clue to what you are writing about--ROR, Apache, Git, all programming languages, ip addresses, etc.? I'm a horrid writer so when I need to convey information I just use numbers to convey important information. If I have a paragraph of information I try to funnel the paragraph from the first sentance. I only mention this because I do buy technical books. Actually, that's all I will pay for.
easytiger 12y ago
> at a better price than ever before I do not believe that to be true, not even remotely.
jonnathanson 12y ago
I've thoroughly enjoyed Yglesias's writings on this topic, though I wonder why we have to make a binary choice. We're supposed to be in favor of Amazon, or in favor of Hachette/publishers. No grey areas. Pick a side. How about neither? Or either/or, in different measures? Both sides have some good points and some questionable points. Both sides have clear agendas that are, more often than not, unexpressed in their public talking points. I'm not trying to draw a false equivalence between the two. On the balance, I'm more inclined to support Amazon's arguments -- if largely because the publishers have been grabbing margin from their writers, and because their business practices haven't evolved with the times. That said, I don't savor the prospect of Amazon's total, end-to-end dominance of the book market. I'd like there to be Amazon and publishers in this world. Both sides can fulfill a vital function in bringing great books to the market, and making them available at reasonable prices. I'd just like the publishers of the future, whoever they might be, to modernize and adapt. I'd also like companies that have the ability to compete with Amazon as a bookseller (Apple, Google, etc.) to take another look at the book market. It's not the sexiest market in the world, from a total-revenue standpoint. But it's a decent-sized market, and it's a "gateway" market into other forms of media and entertainment. (I realize Apple has to tread carefully re: the book market these days).

Osmium 12y ago

> is to provide you and me with more to read at a better price than ever before As a reader, do you want to optimise for price or for quality? The argument is that one will ultimately come at the expense of the other, because good books need good editors and good authors need sufficient money to allow them the time to write.

tokenadult 12y ago
As a reader, I think Amazon helps me a lot on the quality information about books I might want to read, as it posts reader reviews and includes those beguiling "Readers who bought this also bought" links frequently to guide me to books I haven't heard about before. On the whole, as a reader who has been reading for half a century, I like the ecosystem for readers better since Amazon came along than I liked it before Amazon came along.
sampo 12y ago
But even if a publishing company selects an author they think is promising, and gives the author sufficient money and time and good editors, it still doesn't necessarily produce the kind of literature that I want to read.
nateabele 12y ago
> [G]ood books need good editors and good authors need sufficient money to allow them the time to write. The unstated assumption seems to be that publishers are either the best or only way to enable this.
lucozade 12y ago
As a consumer, I care about price, quality and convenience. But I'm agnostic as to how the editorial and advance are delivered. It's not wholly unreasonable, for example, for some form of crowd funding model to turn up; you publish an outline to a site and folks bid on it. Similarly, an editor matching service doesn't seem that far fetched. Or to put it another way, we have perfectly serviceable replacement models for most of what a mass market publisher now does. That's not to say that publishers can't add value but, as with distribution and delivery, it's not too hard to foresee this turning into a niche product.
- Osmium 12y ago
  > you publish an outline to a site and folks bid on it I'd be very skeptical about that... > an editor matching service doesn't seem that far fetched This seems a lot more reasonable. I agree with your overall point that publishers are unlikely to be the best way of doing things, and there's no need to preserve the status quo for its own sake. I'm just not sure Amazon is going about it the right way, and I think reducing the perceived value of books is a dangerous game. That all said, I don't want to be too down on Amazon. They've made reading more convenient for many through the Kindle and the Kindle Store, and that alone is worth a hell of a lot...
  - jdmichal 12y ago
    > I'd be very skeptical about that... The gaming industry is in the middle of doing exactly this. What exactly are you skeptical about? Whether an attempt will be made, or whether an attempt will succeed?
    - Osmium 12y ago
      > Whether an attempt will be made, or whether an attempt will succeed? Neither. More about if it will compromise the artistry if plot is decided by a committee, which is effectively what will happen if the public gets to 'vote' for what they want to be made. Plot-by-comittee works for a lot of television and film so maybe it'll work for books too, but my gut reaction is that you'll get a much better product if the creator can act alone and not have to worry about getting defunded if they kill off a favourite character or some such thing...
moron4hire 12y ago
I think, if you stop to look past the extremely popular books and look at what people read in between great works of literature, the sorts of things they read err on the side of quantity, not quality. And I'll even go so far as to grant you a conceit that "popular = good", so you can take the entire Stephenie Meyer collection out of the equation as a mere drop in the bucket. There is a huge market out there. Publishers don't prevent bad books from getting to it. And they don't really pay authors to write books. More often, all different types of authors, good or bad, have to shoulder the risk of their first few manuscripts on themselves and hope a publisher picks them up. If their first published book does well, then the publisher pays to have more books written. It's a system that is useless to the most popular, breakout authors--they have essentially bootstrapped a book-writing company--and disadvantageous to the anyone who doesn't write a superawesomebestseller on their first try--as the publishers often design the contracts to leave no residuals for the writer. Books can be--and often are--just as empty and vapid as reality TV. We just tend to put books and the people involved in their production a pedestal in our culture.

rayiner 12y ago

It's an interesting narrative, but technology renders the cost of reproduction irrelevant. Which is different from saying it's relevant that it's extremely cheap. Look at an area that "cheap" has destroyed: the Internet. The Internet is full of crap. I had to censor the ads on a HuffPo article before printing and sending it to someone the other day. That's journalism circa 2014 where there is no money to pay for class. Is that what we want to have happen to books too? Drive down the prices so the only way to make any money off books is to plaster the end of every chapter with full color ads of Kim Kardashian? Because that's the road Amazon is taking us down, along with all the other companies who make money from distributing rather than creating content.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
> Because that's the road Amazon is taking us down, along with all the other companies who make money from distributing rather than creating content. Disagree. Amazon Publishing is notorious for putting more money in the author's hands/pocket than a traditional publishing house. I'll take cheaper books and having to spend a bit more time finding what I'd like versus to the alternative future publishing houses would prefer (continuing to squeeze profits out of fewer readers while keeping more of the profit for themselves instead of the author).
cynicalkane 12y ago
I can't find the source right now (Google queries return a bunch of Amazon links and SEO spam) but I seem to recall Amazon seeing e-book sales being significantly higher than expected, just because they're so easy to impulse buy. Personally, I find books so valuable I don't bother to look at the price--enriching hours of my time is worth more than $5, or $25, even if there's a significant chance the book will be a dud. It's really just a convenience thing. E-books are easy to pay for. News websites are not. This also has to do with how we consume news: nobody wants to pay to click on grandma's Buzzfeed links on Facebook. Also remember book authors traditionally make about 10-15% of hardcover sales and about a dollar a paperback. Ebook royalties are reportedly 25-30%, and I bet they will go higher.
toolz 12y ago
There doesn't have to be some limitations of choice by default, plenty of services provide paying extra to ignore ads, books would be no different. The model you're describing opens up options and I suspect the majority of people would rather pay less and have ads on their books.

wsxcde 12y ago

> If you care about reading or ideas or literature, the choice between these visions is not a difficult one. Is it really an easy choice though? As a reader, I want access to interesting content and it seems that pushing the price down to the cost of production makes it harder to produce good content. Another way of looking at it is the following. We as a community say that we ought to charge based on value produced and not cost of production. Shouldn't book sellers and author's be able to do the same?

rwmj 12y ago
This "sweat of the brow" argument doesn't cut it. Books have long been unprofitable for the majority of writers. At the same time, it's now easier to publish than ever -- look, I'm doing it right now! The question here is should publishers be allowed to control and make large profits (the authors weren't in any case), and I think the answer is clearly no.
- alttab 12y ago
  This. In addition, if we charged to the "value" of a book, then only shitty magazines will be available to the masses. Doesn't seem like a great formula for spreading said "great content".
Shivetya 12y ago
Who is to say the cost of production isn't artificially high because of all those legacy costs? If the prices fall then the barrier for entry should be lower as well. Currently many of these publishers decide whom we get to read. Still you can follow conversations on this very site which rail against the costs charged for music and movies and yet they have high costs of production as well. Another article I read today talks about how traffic on the internet has been shaped by the users to where very few sites, just a few dozen, are responsible for half of the traffic. I am in the camp of, the legacy systems are doing their damnedest to stay relevant in a world where they are not, it is as if the milk man refused to stop delivering milk and wanted to and succeeded in stopping stores from selling it.
icebraining 12y ago

marincounty 12y ago

If I had a book I would never consent to digitize it--ever. I know it will probally be scanned and uploaded, but until that time I would hold out. As to what books sell on Amazon and elsewhere; I am always shocked by what people will read. A wealthy person who has some notoriety (even for having just a big butt) can hire a ghost writer and with the right exposure(like being pimped on Imus, or the like) can sell a huge amount of books? I feel for the writter who is truly gifted, but isn't famous. I've noticed a huge void for good authors in the Technical fields. By good authors I mean good writers. Most of the computer books I have tried to read of the years are literally like reading a phone book. I don't expect Nabrokov, but if you can't write well--don't try to fake it. People will buy your book even if you have to use numbers, or steps like directions in consumer products. Keep the words down. Write like you are trying to convey information to an eighth grader. I have wondered why editors let these phone books fly off the presses with just a pretty cover. I have a feeling they don't have a clue to what you are writing about--ROR, Apache, Git, all programming languages, ip addresses, etc.? I'm a horrid writer so when I need to convey information I just use numbers to convey important information. If I have a paragraph of information I try to funnel the paragraph from the first sentance. I only mention this because I do buy technical books. Actually, that's all I will pay for.

easytiger 12y ago

> at a better price than ever before I do not believe that to be true, not even remotely.

jonnathanson 12y ago

I've thoroughly enjoyed Yglesias's writings on this topic, though I wonder why we have to make a binary choice. We're supposed to be in favor of Amazon, or in favor of Hachette/publishers. No grey areas. Pick a side. How about neither? Or either/or, in different measures? Both sides have some good points and some questionable points. Both sides have clear agendas that are, more often than not, unexpressed in their public talking points. I'm not trying to draw a false equivalence between the two. On the balance, I'm more inclined to support Amazon's arguments -- if largely because the publishers have been grabbing margin from their writers, and because their business practices haven't evolved with the times. That said, I don't savor the prospect of Amazon's total, end-to-end dominance of the book market. I'd like there to be Amazon and publishers in this world. Both sides can fulfill a vital function in bringing great books to the market, and making them available at reasonable prices. I'd just like the publishers of the future, whoever they might be, to modernize and adapt. I'd also like companies that have the ability to compete with Amazon as a bookseller (Apple, Google, etc.) to take another look at the book market. It's not the sexiest market in the world, from a total-revenue standpoint. But it's a decent-sized market, and it's a "gateway" market into other forms of media and entertainment. (I realize Apple has to tread carefully re: the book market these days).