Slashdot Mirror
How Amazon's Ebook Subscriptions Are Changing the Writing Industry
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon is now offering an ebook subscription service — $9.99/month gets you access to 700,000 titles, both self-published and traditionally published. The funds are gathered together, Amazon takes its cut, and the rest is divided up based on how many times a given book was read.
Some authors like it, and some don't, but John Scalzi pointed out that this business model is notable for being different from how the writing industry has worked in the past: "[T]he thing to actively dislike about the Kindle Unlimited 'payment from a pot' plan is the fact that it and any other plan like it absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game. In traditional publishing, your success as an author does not limit my success — the potential pool of money is so large as to be effectively unlimited, and one's payment is independent of any other purchase a consumer might make, or what any other reader might read.
In the traditional publishing model, it's in my interest to encourage readers to read other authors, because people who read more buy more books — the proverbial tide lifts all boats. In the Kindle Unlimited model, the more authors you and everyone else reads, the less I can potentially earn. And ultimately, there's a cap on how much I can earn — a cap imposed by Amazon, or whoever else is in charge of the 'pot.'"
Some authors like it, and some don't, but John Scalzi pointed out that this business model is notable for being different from how the writing industry has worked in the past: "[T]he thing to actively dislike about the Kindle Unlimited 'payment from a pot' plan is the fact that it and any other plan like it absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game. In traditional publishing, your success as an author does not limit my success — the potential pool of money is so large as to be effectively unlimited, and one's payment is independent of any other purchase a consumer might make, or what any other reader might read.
In the traditional publishing model, it's in my interest to encourage readers to read other authors, because people who read more buy more books — the proverbial tide lifts all boats. In the Kindle Unlimited model, the more authors you and everyone else reads, the less I can potentially earn. And ultimately, there's a cap on how much I can earn — a cap imposed by Amazon, or whoever else is in charge of the 'pot.'"
raises all turds, too.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
"Absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game"
Um, no - the more readers, the more money. It's not zero sum at all from the writers' point of view.
Of course, back in the old days, people often curled up in a chair and read eight good books simultaneously; writers didn't compete with each other for readers' time and dollars at all.
In another industry I was closely involved in, this approach significantly increased total revenue. Instead of saying "buy my book for $20", the author can say "get my book and 70,000 others for just $20". Which do you think generates more sales?
In the very successful implementations, the amount paid out was based not just on which content was most viewed, but which generated sales via something like an affiliate code. There may be smaller content which many people will click if it's free, but nobody bought a subscription in order to see that content. Others, such as TAOCP, may have fewer viewers, but those viewers bought the subscription specifically to read TAOCP. TAOCP would be rewarded for bringing buyers.
because a cap is the only way this could absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game. IF there is no cap, encourage people to sign up ...ta-da..more money in the pot. And $120 a year is a lot - what does the average reader spend in a year?
The Kindle does not support LaTeX3+Lua. I refuse to accept that books, real books, can be circulated as a cut-down HTML5 file. Doubly so after reading a large number. Formatting errors, image errors, broken linkage, broken tables, random start page, broken tables of contents, screwball fontage - these convince me that HTML-only writers should not be allowed near a computer until launched by canon from the top of the Matahorn.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It just was so apparent before this.
Amazon is following the pattern of today's crony capitalist: the bigger it gets, the more arrogant it gets. (Likewise Google; Facebook, etc.) And the more money they contribute to their P.A.C. (see https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup.php)
No matter what, in both the "traditional" model and this new pooled one from Amazon, if you want to expand the total take you need to expand the paying audience.
pay hundreds of dollars for books hand written, and extremely rare. Or we should realize the printing press fixed that. And now electronic media has fixed the millions of trees, the millions of litres of fossil fuels used to ship the books around, the heat and light in all the book stores or wal-marts and the energy requirements. Or perhaps that we should understand that there are already public libraries. Technology will make us all obsolete eventually, but dont make me pay 100 dollars a month in books, when i can get hundreds of tv channels and internet for the same price. Thats bananas. Plus emerging markets of literate individuals will be helped and you still get paid even though the cost of printing, distribution, sales, etc is orders of magnitudes less. Stop crying :)
Not in this case! There's only more money if the publisher puts more money in the "pool" - otherwise, the amount of that pool you get is smaller and smaller the more authors are added to it.
Look at Us! we have more for the same amount of money/time. instead of 70 stores at your mall, there's 700,000 at Amazon. soon to be 7,000,000,000...well, you get the idea.
You are still free to start your own online retailer
And free to get crushed by Amazon. There's no competing against a behemoth.
You're like the idiots who say "hurr durr either do better or shut your mouth", as if one needs to master everything to be allowed the privilege of speaking their mind. The criticism here isn't even stupid, it's completely valid to think of the consequences a different business model could have on writing.
How is Kindle Unlimited any different from Spotify or any of the other online streaming music services in terms of how royalties are paid?
Given a choice, I would prefer to read the best stuff. This encourages writers to provide the most entertainment for their readers, rather than just encouraging their readers to buy popular stuff because they recommend it.
Netflix :: Movie Theaters as Subscription Books :: Individual Book Sales
I suspect unlimited will function like a current libraries, much like Netflix is an alternative to blockbuster not the theatre or purchases. Similarly Unlimited probably won't have the latest and greatest, rather slightly older books and series before a new one is released. (Series often sell for $1.99 or even free to promote the newer books)
On the other hand, this is a very good example on how specific business practices can hurt quite different areas of endeavour. Bezos started off early and Amazon became an effective monopoly. When a large enough group feels (and proves!) a single provider is hurting them, the State should intervene regulating monopolies; I'm sure that were Amazon to be audited, many strange issues would arise as a result of the strict application of the described scheme.
After all, some market regulation is better for everybody, even if you are free-marketist.
"make writing and publishing a zero-sum game. ... the potential pool of money is so large as to be effectively unlimited"
Scalzi is out of touch with reality.
It hasn't become a zero-sum game anymore than it was before and there is not an effectively unlimited pot of money. People never had an infinite amount of time to read and they don't had an infinite amount of money to spend on books.
Authors will not longer be paid based on content. Write a bad book, but find a way to get people to download your book, and you make money, even if most readers stop at page 10. We will see more and more bad books because money can be made with them, those bad books will take profit away from authors who make great books.
Personally $10 is too much since I would not even finish 2 books in that time. that is why I never bothered spending $80+ on a ereader. My cousin on the other hand would read 40 books in that time. There is now less of a reason to switch to e-books if book quality goes down.
Authors have long suffered the publishers pay them a misery compared to what they earn. I have published very little, and via my university (which means, very little distribution but relatively very good terms). I get 10% of the sales. In the "real world", maybe a third of that is normal.
Now, Amazon is continuing to pay the authors the same 3%. But not only no exchange of tangible goods happens, now we the readers also pay Amazon for the book-of-all-books (that is, the Kindle). Yes, some people will use the Kindle store to read on the computer, tablet or whatnot, but it's definitively a lesser experience.
So anyway, Amazon is still paying something to the publishers (except, of course, for Amazon Direct published works). But given the goods themselves "cost" no money, they are getting *way* more than by selling books — Of course, the authors would prefer their income to increase proportionally as well.
Not shrink proportionally.
In the traditional publishing model, it's in my interest to encourage readers to read other authors, because people who read more buy more books â" the proverbial tide lifts all boats. In the Kindle Unlimited model, the more authors you and everyone else reads, the less I can potentially earn
Under the traditional model, how are those readers reading other books? Library? Purchase?
If it's the library - the reader isn't paying for the other book, but probably not the author's book either. These readers don't matter.
If it's purchased ... well, that's $5~10 that's not spent on the author's own books.
Even without KU, there's less "potential earnings" when recommending other authors. So KU does not make the book market more or less zero-sum.
This is more then just wrong, it's stupid.
Amazon works in a cut-throat market and it took them over a decade before they made a profit. They don't have exclusivity, if they don't have the lowest price and shipping then they lose the sale. Amazon.com has contributed to general improvements of availability, price, shipping costs and time and ability to find and quality compare on the internet.
Keep on hating products and services you don't have to use. But you probably do use them, and if you are a hypocrite.
But we live in an age of hypocrites and haters and self-entitled child-people, so its all good!
Keep on hating things, dude!
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
> Write a bad book, but find a way to get people to download your book, and you make money, even if most readers stop at page 10.
That WAS a problem in the successful businesses I worked with using this model. Not necessarily an unsolvable problem, but a problem. A trivial partial solution is to require reader ratings of at least X to get a share, or a rating of at least Y to get a higher share.
Something about buying books and covers come to mind.
Authors can always generate revenue if they can find a way for people to buy the books (irrespective of content and quality).
I don't see why authors should feel threatened by Amazon's subscription model for books? In the case of books and other publications, our government has been funding repositories for the physical printed works so anyone can read as many of them as they like at NO additional cost -- and this has been the case for many, many years.
As a general rule, I think people who actually buy their own copies of books only do so with a very select group of them they consider so good, they might want to read them over and over, or hang onto them to share with friends or family. These are the titles people will be likely to purchase the e-book versions of, if they're fond of reading via a Kindle, iPad or other electronic device - vs. counting on some $9.95/month recurring subscription to retain access to them. (With these subscription models, you have no control over what titles get removed from the collection over time and substituted with others.)
In that sense, nothing much changes here except lesser known authors stand an improved chance of getting read, if they're lumped into a "read all you like for a flat monthly fee" package.
No, there isn't a need for regulation. We have more than enough laws already. If they're somehow a monopoly, as you suggest, there are laws already on the books to address that. But what's worse, your comment implies that Amazon is up to no good simply because they're a market leader. I buy ebooks there because they have the best selection. I'll bet that's why most of their customers are there. It sounds like you want nothing more than to punish success. Do you work for the IRS? You don't audit to fish for probable cause.
You would make a great Walmart employee.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
When a half dozen corporations produce and sell everything, capitalism will bleed the lower classes dry.... until the revolution.
Get up!
Partly true, perhaps, but not entirely. Good authors write books that result in people spending more money on books. In the 'traditional' model, there are two ways to grow:
1. Get existing customers to buy more books
2. Get new customers to start buying more books
This 'new' model removes growth source #1 because revenue doesn't increase if a customer reads more books - they've already paid their dues.
On the other hand, it has the potential to increase growth of #2, because in the 'new' model you can't lend a book to a friend after you've finished reading it. They have to subscribe themselves and pay in their dues.
According the the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/technology/amazon-offers-all-you-can-eat-books-authors-turn-up-noses.html), authors who make their works available via Kindle Unlimited are experiencing income drops some in excess of 75%. So unless Amazon changes the model, authors' income is threatened and KU is doomed to fail. The exodus has already started and Amazon really has nothing more to entice authors to allow their works to be distributed through it.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
What revolution? You cowards have given away your guns for iPhones and are content paying $5 for a 50 cent cup of coffee. There will be no revolution, sheep don't revolt.
Anyone know if there's anything worth reading? If it's like Netflix (i.e.: 95% crap), I wouldn't be too impressed.
Amazon has too much control in the market. If they receive a SINGLE complaint they will pull your book until you re-write it to THEIR specifications. So much for artistic expression.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/12/22/1317208/amazon-suppresses-book-with-too-many-hyphens
If 1/50 people write one book in their life, and 1/50 of them are good, and all of them get published because there is zero barrier to entry, we would have so many more books that were good than we do now.
People have more free time and better access to distribution than before. You're not entitled to your streetlamp lighting job, you know.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Authors will not longer be paid based on content. Write a bad book, but find a way to get people to download your book, and you make money, even if most readers stop at page 10. We will see more and more bad books because money can be made with them, those bad books will take profit away from authors who make great books.
Personally $10 is too much since I would not even finish 2 books in that time. that is why I never bothered spending $80+ on a ereader. My cousin on the other hand would read 40 books in that time. There is now less of a reason to switch to e-books if book quality goes down.
And with hardcover meat-world books? People buy those and don't read them.
Hell, reviewers don't seem to read them.
How many reviews of Lena Dunham's book Not That Kind of Girl mentioned the fact Dunham bragged about sexually assaulting her little sister?
Ms. Dunham’s smart, funny new book, “Not That Kind of Girl,” is a kind of memoir disguised as an advice book, or a how-to-book (as in how to navigate the perilous waters of girlhood) in the guise of a series of personal essays.
THIS is a how-to book:
One day, as I sat in our driveway in Long Island playing with blocks and buckets, my curiosity got the best of me. Grace was sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I leaned down between her legs and carefully spread open her vagina.
Yeah, that reviewer READ that book, THEN called it a "how-to" manual.
Damn, imagine if Dunham were a UVa frat boy or Duke lacrosse player...
Scalzi is also contracted with an old style publisher, so he has a vested interest in railing against anything that doesn't have to go through the winnowing process and can compete with him directly.
Not everyone is automatically a customer for life. Likely, their average retention will be around 18 months. Buying more books (the old model) may be analogous to remaining a customer longer.
Either way, getting more money from the happy customer. It's just measured in time vs count of books.
The cap on the pot is not imposed by the one controlling the pot, the cap on the pot is a function of the number of subscribers. It is still in your interest to promote the books of others because more quality and varied content means more subscribers and therefore a larger potential pot.
It does change the industry. It is no longer a function of publishers to pick the winners but a function of readers. Everyone can publish. I don't know if Amazon considers reader ratings in their pot distribution but they should.
Or just maybe, what is currently in the short term best interest of the consumers, is not at all in the best interest of independent writers. And just maybe, when Amazon has put all of the other options out of business by pandering to the masses at the expense of the producers, Amazon, just might turn on the consumers and start to gouge them, once they have no where else to turn?
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
I find their selection is marginally different from Google Books or B&N. However, I also find that inevitably, Amazon has the lower price, for me, than those other two, so that is where I generally buy, especially if it is from an author, or on a subject, I'm not familiar with. Even though I know that Amazon is pandering to me to try to lock me in by habit at the expense of the authors.
For the authors that I know I like, I try to go out of my way to purchase as close to directly through them, or from their recommended source as I can.
I know that buying from Amazon is not in my long term best interest, but for a product I don't know that I will value, even as high as Amazon does, or for a product that I don't know gets any more money to the actual author, rather than just higher profits for the middle men, I'll put my near term interst over speculating that something else is a better long term strategy.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
So authors of popular books get way more money than they otherwise would have.
Authors of unpopular books get way less money than they otherwise would have.
I can see why there would be disagreement as to whether this is a good plan or not.
Personally, I find subscription-based services cost me more money. I don't normally spend ten bucks a month on books. So, it is better for me to pay the lump-sum on the few books I know I want to read. I would rather accept the risk that I might buy a bad book now and then than the risk that I spend a lot more per year on books than I normally would, with no value add to me.
Wal Mart was already a thing when Amazon was starting.
No chance against the behemoth ! ?
Scalzi sounds like a moron who should stay away from game theory - selling books has always been a zero sum game. He just doesn't understand that for the old method the sum was the sum of all money that all readers spent on all books. It was a unknowable total to be sure, but it was still a finite sum.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
As long as Amazon is getting the best price for the customer, no one will ask the State to regulate anything. Typically, the State regulate when the customers are complaining about abuse from the monopoly, as long as a monopoly doesn't abuse from its position no one complains. So, a monopoly should take care of the largest group in order to avoid the intervention of the State.
However, abusing from its position on the authors may also harm the customers at the end, since the authors will have no more interest in writing given the are abused and the customers will then have not longer have new books to discover.
A monopoly can be a good thing, but it is rarely a good thing since the equilibrium is hard to reach.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Writing has changed a lot over the years.
When Homer (or at least whoever copied him down) and Plato and Vergil and Cicero wrote, an author published (divulgavit = made common or public; publicavit = threw open to the public, also used of public confiscation of private property and of prostitution; in lucem edidit = gave into the light of life) by making a work available for anyone to hear, listen to, or copy. It wasn't paid through sales, but rather supported for by patronage (the rich supported the arts) or own's own income from other sources. It wasn't about profit, and making copies (and making copies available) was a virtuous endeavor also supported by the rich. Manuscript subscriptions (like "Emendavi ego Dracontius") tell scholars who in late antiquity edited copies and recopied them for the benefit of others. This virtue continued to be practiced by monks through the middle ages, who copied older works and wrote new ones and disseminated both across Europe through networks of borrowing and lending that were the key to sustaining and maintaining written culture: we would have no literature from antiquity or the middle ages without the Church's non-profit model of supporting literature through copying and patronage. While books became precious commodities as writing materials grew scarce (while papyrus, bast, and other writing materials were used even for wrapping fish in antiquity, it took a flock of sheep to make a physical book in the middle ages) the "intellectual property" was not regarded as such, but rather as the common inheritance of humanity (the patrimonium humanitatis). Carmina (songs and poetry) and prose alike were no one person's intellectual property: the author could be praised by name, or he could hide under a monk's anonymity, but it wasn't even conceivable that he could restrict the further publication of his works. The Church could try to burn heretical material, just as Roman emperors had tried, but copies often survived somewhere and were recopied; but restricting intellectual property wasn't even a consideration.
Then, in the late middle ages, came Cathedral schools and the first universities, and students began paying to copy books themselves for classes. When the printing press and paper came to Europe, the idea of the privilegium, or exclusive right to furnish copies, was already in place, and books could be issued under copyright. Some authors began to profit from their books, but more often publishing houses did. Songs were still common material, and people sang what they learned without fear of legal retribution. Many authors disapproved of the copyright of privilegium: Erasmus, in a 1586 letter to Jacopo Sadoleto, complains of the copyright (backed by threat of excommunication) given to the Francesco Giulio Calvo: "But since Calvo's publishing house cannot supply copies to all parts of the world, it would be a serious blow to scholarship, in my opinion, if a book of such importance could be obtained only from a single Roman publisher." Books were sometimes copied without privilegium or even against the privilegium of another publishing house, and some authors clung to the tradition of making their work truly public.
Then came the twentieth century and the "Culture Industry" (a term coined by Western Marxists like the Frankfurt School, who despised mass or "low" culture). What had been "culture" and "literature" for ornamenting the soul and improving the mind became "content" to generate revenue streams, mass-produced by division of labor instead of genius and careful cultivation. Although electronic distribution through computers designed to reproduce and spread information meant that books and songs and new forms of art like movies could be distributed for free -- no flocks of sheep required -- nevertheless, pirating an .mp3 of Britney Spears or a copy of that new North Korea movie or some godawful e-book will get you a stiffer sentence than if you shoplifted a copy from the store. The irony is that much of what is now peddled by
I get most of my coffee for free at work. That is, I am being paid while I drink it for free.
That said, it's 33-1/3 revolutions per minute. Stand on one foot and spin.
You, really overdo, the commas.
This is just iTunes, but for books. The book industry was just a little slower to go digital. They will go, kicking and screaming, but they will go. And the result will be a win for consumers, and even a win for authors (maybe except for the few who are household names).
It may soon be "boo hoo" for the readers as well. If Amazon won't pay enough, expect new books to be cheaper, matching how much readers pay per book. Nobody is going to spend years writing books if it only brings then $3.99 per reader or less.
Where, exactly, is Amazon's Unlimited plan effectively much different from a Library? Oh other than the fact authors will be getting continuous revenue, rather than only being paid for a few copies to fill the library's shelves.
Yet somehow writers managed to profit and thrive, even as libraries allowed anyone who wished to walk in and read all their works for free.
Rather than turn publishing into a zero-sum game and Scalzi believes, it appears to me that Amazon has turned the idea of a library into a new revenue stream for authors. You'd think authors would be happy for that opportunity to earn a little more income.
Sure, some authors will learn how to write books that game the system over time, but so what? This is not the only revenue stream available to authors, just one of many. Some people will pay for Unlimited, some will still buy individual books, some will wait for the movie, some will pirate the book AND the movie, some will pick it up at the library.
And nobody is going to build big budget video games if everything in mobile app stores costs a dollar. Except Chris Roberts somehow managed to score $60M dollars for a game without shipping anything.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
I agree. Not only is it easier than ever to publish, Kindle Unlimited is just one more option. So if you are a noticeable author, you can still publish on hardcover/paperback/Kindle and escape the fixed-pie game of Kindle Unlimited.
I don't know how many people buy one book every month, but Kindle Unlimited is probably more revenue from an average person. If anything it sounds dangerous for readers, more than authors, as it could be like paying for the gym you don't end up visiting often...
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
Monopoly on what?
Ebooks? Books? Written content? Information? Entertainment? Leisure provider?
Anything can be defined as a monopoly if it is scoped narrowly enough. Apple has a monopoly on iphones. Yet it is under great competitive pressure from substitutes.
Amazon is in the same boat (plenty of competitive pressure) and consumers don't seem to be fleeing away from the supposed monopolistic abuse (higher prices and limiting supplies, according to textbooks).
If you are interested in the history of antitrust, see Dominick Armentano for a critical review of efficacy of government improving on market competition.
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
You must have great difficulty walking with knees that reflexively jerk when anyone mentions regulation.
Ha! Regulation, regulation, regulation!
See? You're no fun, you fell right over.
99% of free/cheap mobile games are super simple to play and have no depth compared to their console competitors. As a book world analogy, that would be like comparing short stories to novels.
Amazon is yet again screwing authors, just like paper book publishers in the past, by offering them something like $1.33 per book read. If this model continues, your books will be crappy and culture-less or the authors will have to starve (again).
These authors are better of selling/hosting the books themselves. But marketing will be a lot tougher with that route.
I love Slashdot and Slashdotters. But in this case I'm kind of taken back by the responses.
Being married to an Author and knowing many, many authors, I can point out a few things:
Most authors, beyond the "super big names" struggle to make even a moderate living off of their books. When these folks try out a new system like the Amazon plan, and they find the are making less, we're not talking about folks who used to make 3 million, now only making 2.5 million. We're talking about someone who might be making for example 30k per yea,r making so much less that they are forced to cease writing as a vocation.. It's directly impactful, and the impact is not tied to quality of the book. Rather, the impact is books with catchy titles and sales pitches getting more downloads and making more money, regardless of quality. "hey, it's free, I'll click that since there's no downside to me for doing so." This leads to other books making less of the allotted bucket of funds. When spending money on books, folks tend to check reviews, read the sample download or use various criteria to filter down their selection to what they enjoy reading. So better books get rewarded. With the new plan, shotgun approaches become the norm.
Lets try it another way. Say tomorrow, there was one major store through which the majority of all software (personal, business, etc.) and all IT services (Ops, support, admin, etc, each treated as a service ticket item) were offered and the owners of that store decided "Forget what people pay today for software and services, we'll sell them anything and everything for $10 a month and just divvy up profits as we see fit, And we'll do it without reporting to anyone how the process works or what actual counts occurred, we'll just send them a check."
How would you feel about that when it was your app that you worked for a year and you usually make about $50k per year. But now when another app AngryBirds sells 30 million copies, your get a check for $5 for the month for your app despite people still downloading downloading it because statistically it's insignificant?
Or how about your IT job that you now get paid 1$ per service ticket because a billion other service tickets get processed as well? Did you enjoy working all day for $20?
While it's easy to assume that anything cheaper is better, remember to take into account that the cheaper may be coming at the actual workers pocket. I'd expected to see Slashdotters more upset at the middleman holding the actual workers over a barrel.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
And free to get crushed by Amazon. There's no competing against a behemoth.
Smashwords seem to be doing just fine (see my link). An artist's biggest problem is obscurity not piracy. Amazon is not helping in this regard, and in fact their insistence on distributing only paid-for books and not free ones means that they (Amazon) are actually a poor platform for new authors.
I want people to read my book and remember my name. On Amazon I get maybe 30 downloads when the book goes for free for five days out of every 90. On Smashwords I get many more downloads (200+) in the same time period. Smashwords is helping me be an author, Amazon wants to help me be a business. I want to be an author.
If enough people decide that I'm a good author then I might decide to be a business, but for now I'm content with just being an author, and Smashwords furthers my goal more than Amazon does.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
From the NY Times article:
Yeah, I'm sure all three of those "rabid romance readers" are going to be more than offset by the 250,000 purchasing a 3-4 romance novels a year.
The net present value of $10/month in perpetuity is infinity.
Your premise is that Amazon is the only seller of books? B&N is still around, last I checked. Heck, public libraries still exist, and you don't even have to pay to access the books there. This anti-capitalist meme is getting really tiresome. People shop Amazon because it's convenient and generally affordable. Want to compete? Provide something better.
Free market!
Competition!
Merit!
Now go get yourself some rationed government health care.
I hear you. I was a long time customer of B&N, but the Kindle is killer. It may lead to lock in, but for now, there are plenty of competitors. iTunes hasn't monopolized music, and I think that's more likely than Amazon cornering the book trade.
I do bristle at the thought of people calling for regulation or audits simply because a company has a successful product or service. It's absurd.
You conveniently choose to ignore the fact the author receives money per partial read download. I.e. it's still a sales. But hey, don't let the elementary accounting details get in the way of your FUD.
I'm sorry, but I don't see a problem here... Amazon has made participation in KU completely optional. If Amazon, say, made KU mandatory in order to have your book available on Kindle at all, there might be something to complain about.
But since there IS no such requirement, if you, Author or Publisher, feel you'll make less money via KU vs. only offering stand-alone copies, then don't participate.
The movie industry hardly seems to be dying despite the fact most movies aren't available on NetFlix streaming.
But they don't want to compete. At least not on price. They want people to be forced to use their more expensive alternative.
Despite being an author, Scalzi doesn't realize what business he is in. He is not in the e-book writing business, where you are correct that Amazon is the dominant player. He is in the entertainment business, and competes against the likes of JJ Abrams, Vince Gilligan, and LeBron James.
The pot is not fixed; the more people who read books, the larger the pot will be, and the more people who watch live sports or go to the movies instead, the smaller the pot will be. While this is distinctly different from the past where the amount of money spent on books was dependent on the number of books read, in the digital world it makes a lot more sense to charge access to a library (aka netflix, spotify, etc) than to charge people on a per item basis. Once someone writes a book, or records a song, or makes a movie, the marginal cost of having one more person enjoy that entertainment is very small. Therefore why should the income for an author be proportional to the number of e-books distributed? Just because we are used to spending 5 cents for a nail, and $5.00 for one hundred nails, doesn't mean that that is the only or even the best way to charge for most things, especially in the digital age.
The old method of charging per book meant that whether the industry sold 100 books to 100 people or a single, voracious reader didn't make any difference to the income stream. A subscription basis is good for the voracious reader, because it is cheaper, but requires the industry (including authors) to be more attractive to a larger number of potential readers. This situates them properly not as competition for other authors, but rather, for other elements of leisure time
The problem is that Amazon is a monopsony, not a monopoly. That is, they're the only BUYER that's important in the market. If you're not on Amazon, your potential for success is seriously limited. As a result, publishers and authors cede concessions that were previously off the table, harming their long-term prospects. That also ends up giving Amazon a competitive advantage.
But monopsonies aren't regulated, as far as I know. As long as Amazon doesn't do anything damaging monopolistic with their power, they can screw up the landscape as much as they like. Like Walmart.
Libraries have scarcity built in. In the case of physical copies, this is obvious. If they want more of a popular book, they have to buy more copies. I've definitely gotten sick of waiting in the past and just bought the book I was waiting for.
Even the digital library systems have artificial scarcity and time limits built in. At least the ones I've encountered. But as the library is effectively the customer of books, they've always had to pay for them. The writer and publisher always got their cut.
Amazon is the publisher and seller in this case, and their mandate is to make money, not spread reading around. That $10/month has to cover their costs (or at least defray them enough so that they're not even MORE unprofitable) AND pay the authors, and they're not being funded by the government. Sounds pretty tight, to me.
very cool attitude. good post.
I'm not sure I agree. All you can eat books is probably 4 or 5 books a month to me, but I know alot of people that will read 1 or 2 in that same period. I'm betting their algorithm takes into account people who read a chapter or two and then dump the book.
In the normal payment model, I bought that book, so I might as well power through. Especially if I'm an avid reader and I am worried about running out of things to read. With this model I can sample a bunch of crappy books and move on until I find a good one at no cost. That would seem to reward good writing and allow the chaff to sink more quickly.
I can see how this would be scary to big name authors who can churn out a bunch of crappy novels that people buy on name recognition. I would be much more likely to take a chance on an author under this system. It sounds like a boon to good writing to me.
Cheap storage VM.
I think this model will prove excellent for independent writers. It will be detrimental to the Stephan King and Tom Clancy types who put out a lot of books on name recognition alone. I would be much more likely to take a chance on an author if I could dump the book after a chapter or two without any financial penalty. I see this increasing the number of books available as more authors can get themselves in front of readers.
It seems to be a more direct attack on big publishing.
Cheap storage VM.
Serious question then: What do you suppose draws people to their online bookstore?
My question is: Do they charge sales tax?
Since October I have been charged sales tax on individual Ebook purchases. So if the Kindle Unlimited subscription does not get charged sales tax then it would be worth it for me.
But I want to find out before I sign up.
. /me is in MN
When a company is *way* more successful than their competition, you don't have to wait until the competition dies in order to see a monopoly is forming. Yes, I do not believe in a pure free market. Much to the opposite. I believe that players should be able to enter the stage on a field that's as leveled as possible. And this particular case itches me because Amazon found some bits of inovation in a field, then its scope broadened, and now it is causing distorsions in all kinds of unrelated fields. And that is where regulation should kick in.
As long as Amazon is getting the best price for the customer, no one will ask the State to regulate anything. Typically, the State regulate when the customers are complaining about abuse from the monopoly, as long as a monopoly doesn't abuse from its position no one complains. So, a monopoly should take care of the largest group in order to avoid the intervention of the State.
No. The owners and employees of "lesser" companies are terribly affected. The State should stop any company that is tending to become a monopoly.
He publishes many different ways. Some books with trad publisher, some with small press, some he does directly as e-books. Also, FWIW, his first novel got it's start as an online book, before the kindle was even a thing.
whiny and wrong. Amazon can easily tell if a book is read for one page or ten pages or the entire book. The kindle has all of this information available, it's a bit terrifying, but this service would probably now work without that part in place.
Cheap storage VM.
Or certain authors or publishers to not join the service - you can't get any of my favourite authors on the subscription service, and I dont see that changing.
The more I think about it, it's awesome for new authors.
I can actually see myself (as a reader) using this subscription to try out a lot of different books. I'm pretty picky, so I buy a LOT of books that I only end up reading the first few chapters of. Normally I buy them used so I don't pay much for them. The author isn't getting anything from these used books that I'm buying and cluttering my office up with. Sometimes I'll buy the Kindle version as a tryout if it's not too expensive.
If I end up liking the book, it's a whole different story. Then I'll want to purchase a nice pristine copy of it to have in my library. And now I'm on the lookout for more books by this same author that I will likely buy and add to it.
If you are a good new author and need exposure, it's awesome because people can try you out at no additional financial risk. If you suck, it's probably about a wash. If you're already established, you will likely already have a fan base that will purchase your books.
The subscription only lets you READ the book, not own it. That's a big difference to bibliophiles. I think this will aid us in converting more casual readers to bibliophiles.
Yes, just like Woolworth's, Sears, and now Walmart did
Amazon is NOT a monopoly. A monopoly is when one company, or a small group of companies, control the supply of a product/service/etc. in a way that harms the consumer. Amazon does not control any supply and it is not harming the US consumers. First and foremost, in the grand scheme of things Amazon controls only a small segment of retail itself. In 2013 US retail spending was $5.4 Trillion. US E-Commerce sales totaled $263 Billion. So even if Amazon was the sole eCommerce site used by everyone in the US that would still amount to only 5.8% of all US retail.
The true monopolists in the book industry are the publishers. Let's examine the Amazon/Hachette spat in detail a little. Amazon wanted more freedom to price eBooks cheaper and Hachette objected. That's the core of the argument right there. Now let's take a look at some of Amazon's behavior during this spat:
1) They stopped taking pre-orders for Hachette books. Since Amazon no longer had a sales agreement with Hachette, it would seem logical that they would not want to take pre-orders and then be unable to fulfill them since its stock of these titles would be at Hachette's discretion and not at a mutually agreed upon level.
2) Amazon stopped stocking Hachette titles as much. So? Where is it written that a retail store must carry the products of a vendor with whom it has disagreements? Other retailers reported upswings in purchasing of Hachette titles during the negotiations with Amazon (it took 6 months). People were still able to get the titles.
3) They stopped discounting Hachette titles. Discounts has been Amazon's thing, it's why most of us shop there when we don't need the item right away. But let's really examine this one because it is the pièce de résistance. What Hachette was complaining about was that Amazon was selling Hachette's books at the price Hachette set for them. Keep that in mind, because Hachette wanted Amazon to sell eBooks at the price Hachette set. Translation: Hachette wanted Amazon to sell eBooks more expensive than they had to be (something Hachette, five other publishers, and Apple got nailed by the Department of Justice and several State Attorneys General for) in order to subsidize their print sales which is what Hachette is trying so hard to protect because the barriers of entry to the eBook market are substantially lower.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
Your response makes absolutely no sense. This is not about the quality of books, but rather distribution channels. Authors have noticed that their sales were being cannibalized by the KU reads. Which translates into less money. And if their a midlist author, like 99.9% are, then this hurts them even more so there's no incentive to allow their works to be put onto KU. Even if Amazon makes it a condition to receiving 70% royalties, which they would be stupid to do, it still would not be an incentive to do it because all you'd be doing is forcing authors to take a smaller pay cut because they did not take a huge pay cut.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
You'd think that being most text, low-bandwidth books would have been one of the first widely available content in the modern digital world. But hiding behind strong copyright and publisher overhead they among the last media (after music and video) to particpate in the "all-you-can-eat" distribution model like spotify or netflix.
I'd probably read five to ten in a month, meaning that I'd get my books cheaper per book than you. Right now, I spend more on books.
Big-name authors who can churn out a lot of crappy novels are likely to do better under this system. Good authors who take a year or three to deliver a book that's as good as they can make it will suffer, since a really good book will not make proportionally more money than a fairly good one.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'm not coming in on Hachette's side, but Hachette found itself in real difficulties when they seriously disagreed with Amazon. That should tell you that Amazon is a dangerous player in the market, and wields some monopoly-like power.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Yeah, it'll be excellent for independent 'writers' who get picked up only by random chance, when it's 'free' anyway, and detrimental to the likes who know how to spell Stephen King's name.
Many authors would probably be more than happy to receive anywhere near $3.99 per reader. While the per book numbers may be a bit better earlier on during hardcover sales, I really doubt an author gets half of the cost of a $7.99 paperback after taking into account editing, printing, marketing, distribution, retailer markup, etc. Perhaps there are a very small number of authors who can negotiate that sort of deal, but most can't.
So your telling me this Stephan King book I picked up at Big Lots wasn't such a good deal?
Cheap storage VM.
That's true today, "Fifty Shades of Grey" is no literary masterpiece.
Cheap storage VM.
Indeed.
John Scalzi is one of my favorite authors. I buy his books. Whether or not he joins the subscription service, I'm still going to buy his books. Piers Anthony, R.A. Salvatore, the authors I like - I will buy their books regardless.
This service just opens them to a wider audience.
Dammit. I must have missed the memo. When did we stop hating on Walmart and turn on Amazon instead? At least I won't have to learn new rationale.
Hachette forgot the cardinal rule. One does not shit where one eats.
According to the Forbes article you referred to, Kindle sales are 19.5% of ALL book sales. Since all ebook sales are 30% of total book sales, Kindle sales are about 65% of ebook sales, not 19.5%.
That $9/month (more or less) that I pay is not enough to support a ecosystem to create new works, but it's plenty to milk more out of old works. Book subscription services (Amazon/Scribd/Oyster) live off the past. There's little chance that any new book that I want to read is in their libraries, but with 700,000 old books available, there's enough to keep me occupied, much in the same way that I can sit with Netflix and kill time with 10 years of Grey's Anatomy instead of supporting new works.
If the cardinal rule is "Don't piss off Amazon", Amazon has too much power in the market.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The author might be making as much money on that $3 ebook as they do on a $25 hardcover. If you self publish through Amazon you get about $2 for each $3 ebook; they widely tout their 70% royalty but there some additional fees that take that down a bit. Of course, the author isn't getting any of the services that the hardcover publisher might provide such as editing and promotion.
I don't think Amazon has gone public with this info, but I suspect they have a threshold of somewhere in the 10-20% range for novels. That is, if you haven't read at least that much of the book it doesn't count. Reference books, if they offer any, would have to be counted differently since you don't normally read the entirety of those.
Half? You are wildly optimistic. The typical author doesn't even see $1 from that paperback sale.
Incumbent big businesses are most vulnerable during paradigm shifts. The problem with trying to compete against Amazon is that they already ARE the paradigm shift, so your new online service would be taking them on more directly.
As long as there are more decent books to read than hours in the day, who cares?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If the cardinal rule is "Don't piss off Amazon", Amazon has too much power in the market.
If Amazon has "too much power" it is because they deliver the best shopping experience and customers choose to take advantage of it. Hatchette "owns" the biggest authors and book titles and as such should be able to take their ball and go play elsewhere. The problem is that they want to play with someone else's toys and they want to call the game and the rules too.
The people writing the books care.
You claim to want the greatest number of good books possible. The number of good books that will be written if it's possible to make your living writing books can only be greater than the number of good books that will be written if it isn't. Therefore, if you want to maximize the number of good books, you should want writers to be able to write for a living.
If you oppose that, then you're an idiot and/or you're lying about what it is you really want.
I don't want to maximize the number of good books at all cost, and I don't want people writing for a living and neglecting everything else, and I don't lie.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Writing for a living doesn't mean neglecting everything else. You knew that when you said it, so yes, you do lie. What is it you really want?
This is the exact opposite of a zero-sum game. There is no effective limit to the size of the pot, and someone buying my work in no way limits your ability to sell yours.