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Authors' Amazon Awareness
Geoffrey.landis writes "Many book lovers were surprised this week when Amazon.com removed books from the publisher Macmillan from the shelves (later restored), including such popular imprints as St. Martin's, Henry Holt, and the science fiction publisher Tor. But readers shouldn't have been surprised, according to the Author's Guild. The Author's Guild lists a history of earlier instances where Amazon stopped listing a publisher's books in order to pressure them to accept terms, dating back to early in 2008, when Amazon removed the 'buy' buttons for works from the British publisher Bloomsbury, representing such authors as William Boyd, Khaled Hosseini, and J.K. Rowling. In response, the Author's Guild has set up a service called Who Moved My Buy Button to alert authors when their books are removed from Amazon's lists."
Amazon's actions have generated ill-will on the parts of many authors, who — being authors — are only too happy to explain their viewpoints at length. Two such examples are Tobias Buckell's breakdown of why Amazon isn't the righteous defender of low-prices they claim to be and Charlie Stross's round-up of the situation.
Amazon is one party in a two party negotiation. If they don't like the terms of the negotiation, they don't have to accept them. Are they supposed to sell books no matter what the terms are? This is a lot of hot air about nothing. It's simple, really. If authors don't like their publisher, if publishers don't like Amazon - they can go elsewhere.
This is another reason I loathe DRM. Amazon is apparently the sole distributor of the authorized electronic version of these books. They apparently have unquestionable control over whether or not they'll even be available for purchase, and they can revoke ownership of the books remotely without people even noticing (viz the 1984 kerfuffle).
When I buy something, I want to own it. I don't want to license it at the whim of a service that dictates what I can do with it. That's just ridiculous.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
And to think that I helped Mary Ann North become rich paying $.75 per paperback. Of all the parties beating their breasts in outrage over this issue the only ones I have any sympathy for are the authors and the readers.
I checked the prices of ebooks, and as far as I am concerned, I am finding those prices outrageous.
I do respect the right of authors to make some money, but when an ebook is twice as expensive as a cheap paperback version, there's something highly wrong.
All of that makes me think they actually are trying to kill the ebook market, where "they" means publishers. Amazon of course is not clean either, and they obviously have been taking advantage of their public policy to look like saviors, that they are not.
tldr: ebooks are way too expensive. Anything above 3-4$ for an old book or 4-8$ for a novelty is just plain insane. It's not like they require a lot of infrastructure. Oh and of course the author should still get most of the money in that grand scheme. But I doubt it's the case.
Actually the whole premise of the article is a fraud anyways, since amazon already caved to McMillan, which will now set the price of e-books on amazon.com, and already sharply raised amazon's previous pricing. So tell me, who is dictating terms here?
Do some research. There are authors out there that made way less than 30% of sales, while the publisher took a big chunk. I was just reading a published author that has had over eight books published. On some of them, he got .50 cents per book. On others, he got a flat rate and no royalty fees at all.
If an author dumped their publisher, went with Amazon, and happened to sell a lot of books, 30% wouldn't be a bad deal, in my opinion.
See the above statement. Who do you think are stirring the pot here? Authors or Publishers?
Yes, there is very much an RIAA type of situation here, where the publisher often does promotion and advertising, but a big name could write a book and go straight to Amazon with it.
Now they could get their own servers, marketing team, etc, and go it on their own. How much time and money do you think all of that will cost?
Amazon isn't spotless in the situation, DRM and all, but a lot of publishers treat their authors like the RIAA treats its artists.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Great idea: go to a BOOKSTORE and buy a copy. Even better? Get one at a locally owned shop. Book-buying is better in person: browsing shelves, reading through a few pages, checking out your favorite section, then finding that rare gem that you'd have never seen on Amazon anyway.
Why? I value my time and I like to spend it doing other things. Amazon makes it incredibly easy for me to purchase the books I want, new or used. In fact, I have a few books that I could not have found if not for amazon.com.
I see amazon, like any other store, as my agent who aggregates the buying power of consumers to negotiate a price from manufacturers/publishers. I applaud whatever they do to get prices down for me. Authors' rights? That's for them to defend, not me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Almost all monopolies are the result of government intervention. The anti-trust laws were written to break up monopolies that had been created by government intervention in the market. Some of the classic examples of "essential" monopoly were created by the government. When electricity and telephone service first came on the scene most cities had many competitors selling either. The government stepped in and decided to make both of these regulated monopolies.
[Citation Needed] because I don't think you have any clue what you're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Bell#Formation_under_Bell_patent
The telephone (and telegraph) markets were consolidated by Bell Telephone/AT&T.
Following a government antitrust suit in 1913, AT&T agreed to the Kingsbury Commitment in which AT&T would sell their $30 million in Western Union stock, allow competitors to interconnect with their system, and not acquire other independent companies
AT&T did everything but that last bit. They kept buying up telephone/telegraph companies until the government came back again in 1934 and set AT&T up as a regulated monopoly.
I'm not sure why the "all monopolies are the result of government intervention" meme lives on.
During the hey-day of laissez faire economics, "classic" monopolies sprouted up left and right.
The government didn't create railroad and boat shipping monopolies.
The government didn't create the oil production/refining/distribution monopoly .
The government didn't create the monopoly in the telecom market.
I realize that facts are inconvenient to your ideology, but they won't go away.
In case that was all too long:
AT&T built up a monopoly in spite of the government's attempt to prevent it and before the government officially sanctioned them as one.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Stross writes:
I'm so confused. Here I am with a paperback that says $7.99 on its back. An ebook costs a fraction of that to manufacture and the paperback's price also includes all the amortized costs (like paying the author!) in its price, so how the fuck is $9.99 "cheap"?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"Why have publishers?"
Because the authors want them. They provide useful services.
You might want to read some of the links in the article. They contain information about where all the money goes and why authors use publishers.