For example, if I knew of an e-publisher that made strange, funny, sophisticated horror novels, I would happily pay $10 for each download, knowing that less of the money would go to middlemen and shipping costsWhy not just find a good reviewer and buy the books they recommend directly from the authors? Publishers do a lot more then 'filtering' today (like actually typesetting and actually manufacturing the book). If all you need is a filter, then that particular task can be filled in another way, for less money (and the reviewer could make money off affiliate links)
The American library system was invented in a different cultural climate. This is how it happened. You're Benjamin Franklin, a printer and your average universal genius, and it's the Year of Our Lord 1731. You have this freewheeling debating club called the Junto, and you decide you're going to pool your books and charge everybody a very small fee to join in and read them. There's about fifty of you. You're not big people, in the Junto. You're not aristocrats or well-born people or even philanthropists. You're mostly apprentices and young people who work with their hands. If you were rich, you wouldn't be so anxious to pool your information in the first place. So you put all your leatherbound books into the old Philadelphia clubhouse, and you charge people forty shillings to join and ten shillings dues per annum....posted by artlung at 12:48 PM on January 30, 2010 [14 favorites]
Now forget 1731. It's 1991. Forget the leatherbound books. You start swopping floppy disks and using a bulletin board system. Public spirited? A benefit to society? Democratic institution, knowledge is power, power to the people? Maybe... or maybe you're an idealistic nut, Mr. Franklin. Not only that, but you're menacing our commercial interests. What about our trade secrets, Mr Franklin? Our trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Our intellectual property rights. Our look-and-feel. Our patented algorithms. Our national security clearances . Our export licenses. Our FBI surveillance policy. Don't copy that floppy, Mr. Franklin! And you're telling me you want us to pay taxes to support your suspicious activities? Hey, if there's a real need here, the market will meet it, Mr Franklin. I really think this ``library'' idea of yours is something better left to the private sector, Mr Franklin. No author could possibly want his books read for free, sir. Are you trying to starve the creative artist?
This Macmillan thing makes me angry at Amazon. I feel like they don't care about me (as a consumer of Macmillan books). I don't want them to limit my choices because they are having internal battles with publishers. I specifically shop at Amazon because they have "everything." (Not really, of course, but most of the time I find what I'm looking for on their site.)Amazon doesn't have everything on Kindle. They're not getting rid of paper books, obviously.
Amazon's response has cut Macmillan off from almost half the US book market. How long to you think Macmillan can live without that much of the market for their books, given they've been slashing expenses and laying people off?Uh, e-books only. for example (pulled off this page on wikipedia). Obviously they haven't stopped selling actual books. Just kindle books which for now probably only takes up a small portion of their sales.
No. Broadcast media destroyed print journalism. First radio, followed by television. Loooong time before the internet ever came around.Not at all. If you look at when newspaper employment it actually peaks in the '80s. (IIRC -- I saw a chart once) Newspapers were golden because they each had a local monopoly on text. Sure, lots of people just watched TV, but lots of people still read the paper. There was no alternative for in depth reporting. Now there is. They all wrote the same story and covered the same topics. A lot of the time they just ran wire copy. And most importantly they were the only way for individuals and small businesses to advertise if they couldn't afford local TV.
I think it's somewhat analogous to if the publishers said they wanted to raise the wholesale price from 60% to 70% of the retail price. Yes, they have the right, but that doesn't mean the booksellers wouldn't flip out. It's their profits that the money is coming out of.Well, realistically, what right does Amazon have to make money off kindle books? They're not giving out the readers for free. The only cost is the wireless bandwidth (which they pay for, there's no monthly fee). So past that cost, what right do they have to set prices? Of course publishers will have weird deals with bookstores (like, you can't sell the book for less then X, etc)
Even if you're someone, like Civil Disobedient (see below), who believes we don't need publishers to act as a filter that is still the author, editor, and store. So you're going to pay three groups of people out of a DOLLAR? Now, lets say the book sells 20,000 copies. Thats $20,000 to go around. How the hell is this supposed to work? Answer: It does not. A dollar or two is utterly and completely ridiculous on every single imaginable level.If you're talking about non-best seller fiction, that's like about 4 times what an author will get up front. I do think $1 is kind of cheap for a book. I think $5 would be more reasonable. But it's ridiculous to pay $10 for something you can buy in paperback for $7.99
Civil Disobedient: editors are publishers. You can't disassociate the two.Because editors are paid by publishers. They work for the publisher on the authors manuscript. Even authors who work with the same editor over and over do so because they work with the same publisher over and over.
Huh? Why not? Of course they can be disassociated. Isn't it common for established authors to work with their own editor?
posted by delmoi at 5:23 PM on January 30 [+] [!] [quote]Other [3/3]: «≡·
No, it is real books, that's why this is such a big deal. Look at either edition of Wolf Hall (cloth, paper).Huh. Sounds like an invitation to an antitrust action. Of course you can still actually buy the books (new and used) from other providers through Amazon's store.
To: All Macmillan authors/illustrators and the literary agent communityposted by Justinian at 4:05 PM on January 30, 2010
Editors' note: This message ran as a paid advertisement in a special Saturday edition of Publishers Lunch
To: All Macmillan authors/illustrators and the literary agent community
From: John Sargent
This past Thursday I met with Amazon in Seattle. I gave them our proposal for new terms of sale for e books under the agency model which will become effective in early March. In addition, I told them they could stay with their old terms of sale, but that this would involve extensive and deep windowing of titles. By the time I arrived back in New York late yesterday afternoon they informed me that they were taking all our books off the Kindle site, and off Amazon. The books will continue to be available on Amazon.com through third parties.
I regret that we have reached this impasse. Amazon has been a valuable customer for a long time, and it is my great hope that they will continue to be in the very near future. They have been a great innovator in our industry, and I suspect they will continue to be for decades to come.
It is those decades that concern me now, as I am sure they concern you. In the ink-on-paper world we sell books to retailers far and wide on a business model that provides a level playing field, and allows all retailers the possibility of selling books profitably. Looking to the future and to a growing digital business, we need to establish the same sort of business model, one that encourages new devices and new stores. One that encourages healthy competition. One that is stable and rational. It also needs to insure that intellectual property can be widely available digitally at a price that is both fair to the consumer and allows those who create it and publish it to be fairly compensated.
Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.
The agency model would allow Amazon to make more money selling our books, not less. We would make less money in our dealings with Amazon under the new model. Our disagreement is not about short-term profitability but rather about the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market.
Amazon and Macmillan both want a healthy and vibrant future for books. We clearly do not agree on how to get there. Meanwhile, the action they chose to take last night clearly defines the importance they attribute to their view. We hold our view equally strongly. I hope you agree with us.
You are a vast and wonderful crew. It is impossible to reach you all in the very limited timeframe we are working under, so I have sent this message in unorthodox form. I hope it reaches you all, and quickly. Monday morning I will fully brief all of our editors, and they will be able to answer your questions. I hope to speak to many of you over the coming days.
Thanks for all the support you have shown in the last few hours; it is much appreciated.
All best,
John
So I guess I'm going to have to go with the "FUCK AMAZON" side of the equation. Which hurts, because I've been buying from Amazon since freakin' 1996 and spend a really huge percentage of my disposable income there. 1996! But they really do appear to be attempting to prop themselves up in the short term (through their pricing relative to the Apple e-books) by destroying the business of publishing as we have known it.How on earth does Amazon's refusal to agree to Macmillan's deal "Destroy publishing" That makes no sense to me at all. I mean we're essentially talking about a zero-sum deal between the customer, Amazon and the author/publisher -- How exactly does switching that permutation around "destroy publishing" as long as the publisher/author get a reasonable cut? In fact according to MacMillan's memo, Amazon would have made more money.
Sarah Palin's Book "Going Rogue: An American Life" As Installation Art by Nigel Tomm (Not An Autobiography Or Memoir) (Kindle Edition)And today's your lucky day empath! It's just 99¢!
Product Description: As the title says this is not a book by Sarah Palin. To be completely honest - this is not Nigel Tomm's book either. It is a drama "Hedda Gabler" by Henrik Ibsen (premiered in 1891) with a difference that the names of the main characters are interchanged with those from Sarah Palin's bio, i.e., Hedda Gabler now is Sarah Palin and George Tesman is Todd Palin (her husband). Wikipedia says: "The character of Hedda is considered by some critics as one of the great dramatic roles in theatre, the "female Hamlet," and some portrayals have been very controversial. Depending on the interpretation, Hedda may be portrayed as an idealistic heroine fighting society, a victim of circumstance, a prototypical feminist, or a manipulative villain." Can we call her Sarah Palin? The answer is up to you. The author of the book, Nigel Tomm calls it a textual installation art where such phenomenon as authorship, perception, cognition and law are being questioned. The book also questions the role of the author and its significance in today's mashup world.
you see this as an unprecedented power grab by the publishers. I see it as a long-overdue response to Amazon's unprecedented power grab and attempt to monopolize the supply chain (which ultimately threatens authors' ability to earn a livingAs is obvious, I've come to agree with Charlie. If it looks like Macmillan is being obstinate, it is only because every time Amazon is given an inch they take a mile, and they've been given a whole lot of inches already.
Macmillan said Amazon could continue to buy e-books under its current wholesale model, paying the publisher 50 percent of the hardcover list price while pricing the e-book at any level Amazon chooses, but that Macmillan would delay those e-book editions by seven months after hardcover release.posted by smackfu at 7:50 AM on February 1, 2010
Macmillan's position depends fundamentally on assuming full ownership and control of not just the rights actually transferred in publishing agreements with the authors, but of a full, unrestricted ownership interest in Macmillan's packaging of the author's intellectual property for market. Crucially, Macmillan could not maintain this position without having oligopoly power to exert — and we'll be returning to that shortly.How this got to be yet another debate about whether or not copyright infringement is theft (it's not) is beyond me. Perhaps we need a new Goodwin's law corollary or something
Nonetheless, most of the blame here goes to Amazon.30 It's actually fallout from a bad Supreme Court decision from a couple of years ago regarding ladies' leather accessories. (Sadly, this is about the closest we're going to get to "leather" in this whole discussion.) In Leegin31 the Supreme Court overturned a 95-year-old decision holding that resale price maintenance agreements represent a per se antitrust violation, holding instead that they must be judged under the antitrust "rule of reason" doctrine. In practical terms, that means that a plaintiff complaining that a resale price maintenance agreement violates antitrust law can win if, and only if, the plaintiff hires outrageously expensive lawyers, and has a smoking gun, while the defendant hires a bottom-of-the-class graduate of a bottom-of-the-heap law school who never took antitrust law and has never handled an antitrust matter before.
The 90,000 people who lost their publishing jobs last year don't feel so fictional.Were they authors? If not, why do we care? Why should society be structured in order to provide jobs in the "publishing industry"? rather then supporting authors directly?
It sounds like Amazon was, indeed, paying Macmillan the amount of money Macmillan wanted and Macmillan wanted Amazon to charge more even if Macmillan got less money. In which case... well... I don't know what to say. Now they both look like giant dickbags.What MacMillan wanted was to be able to set the retail price. That way they could start out charging a lot, and then gradually lower the price to sell more copies. What Amazon wanted was to pay MacMillan a fixed price and then sell the books for whatever they wanted. That's what they do with paper books. In particularly they could sell the books for less then the cover price.
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Fuck.
You.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:23 AM on January 30, 2010 [2 favorites]