Comments on: Amazon “caves”

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:36:41 +0000

I don’t even see it as a “let’s teach MacMillan a lesson”. It’s a simple question of economics and personal preferences – do you want to pay that much for an ‘ebook’ which you can only read on 1 device, etc. etc. or would you rather get a normal book which comes with other rights? What the authors get is never a consideration in buying any books; people don’t buy books because they want to feed a poor starving author. Personally I don’t got for *any* ebooks; they’re simply not worth the money and hassle for me. The other thing with an ebook is that you don’t have all the expenses of a print run or any issues with stock control – you can sell as many ebooks as you please. So ebooks are pure profit (well, of course there’s the author’s advance and the work of editors etc to recover). Anyway, given the restrictions on ebooks, their very low cost of distribution and the fact that there is no need for physical reproduction, they *should* be much cheaper than they are. As a consumer I have no interest in boosting the profits of the people I buy goods from.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:46:42 +0000

The kindle is not yet available in the UK, hence the row over E rights at Amazon is irrelevent. A question, does anyone know what Amazons market share is? Specifically is Amazon UK’s market share over 30%?
UK readers may realise the importance of 30%: the OFT and Competition Commission do

By: chezjake

chezjake — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:17:07 +0000

I for one will find a source other than Amazon (and a non-Kindle format) for any and all e-book purchases, just as I buy all hard copy books from my local independent bookseller.

By: Deen

Deen — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:16:57 +0000

@Jared: according to the WSJ, Amazon actually makes a loss on new releases, because their fixed price is lower than what the publisher would charge for a new release. I don’t think Amazon is stupid, so I imagine they more than make up for that by the fact that they charge the same fixed price for older e-books too.

I’m personally not completely convinced that the new prcing policy will really give more money to Amazon (it certainly doesn’t seem to be the purpose of the new pricing policy). Amazon will earn more on new realeases, but less on older books. That could also mean they might sell fewer expensive books, and more cheap books. I have no clue how all these effects will add up.

I have even less of an idea about how this new pricing scheme could be good for the consumers, though.

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:15:00 +0000

Jared, Amazon is currently selling these at a discount, at the price they wanted Macmillan to conform to. So they’d be selling the same number of books at the same price and paying less to the publisher (and, thus, the author).

By: Jared

Jared — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:58:33 +0000

I wonder how they worked out that Amazon would be making more money with this particular price setup… I mean, would they be making the same amount of money per item and selling as many items, or would they be selling fewer items at higher profit margins?

By: Deen

Deen — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:05:46 +0000

So, Amazon tried to control pricing on a major product in two ways: 1) Keep it low to be nice to the user (I assume) and 2) keep a higher percentage of the proffit.

According to Macmillan, though, Amazon will be making more money on the new pricing policy, not less. They also claim that they themselves as well as the authors would make less on the new policy as well. Of course, this doesn't make much sense - why would a publisher go head-to-head with a behemoth like Amazon and lose money on it as well? Turns out that this is the same pricing policy that Apple wants to put in place for their new iBook store. And suddenly it all makes sense again.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:19:59 +0000

Yeah, I just read that (saw your tweet). I guess the foot stomping tantrum approach is kind of obvious.

My comment about not buying Macmillan is actually snark. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a best selling book retail and with any currency in my life. I own more books than any human being that I personally know, but that is not how I got any of them!

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:15:33 +0000

Must read Scalzi on this one. The teenager analogy is even better than you may think.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/all-the-many-ways-amazon-so-very-failed-the-weekend/

Also, understand that if you’re boycotting Macmillan over holding prices higher, you’re also boycotting Macmillan over keeping author royalties higher. A pretty standard ebook royalty clause gives the author a straight percent of the retail sale price. In this case, that would be before Amazon discounts it.