February 2nd, 2010 / 4:25 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Nick Antosca—
The Amazon crew are being such infantile shitheads with the whole Macmillan thing. Aw, Apple is going to make your ugly, stupid Kindle obsolete? It’s like when a new baby comes home and the older, less cute kid throws a tantrum. (Analogy via my roommate.) Wipe the oatmeal off your chins and grow up.
In the battle of big baby shithead companies, hard to know if Apple or Amazon is worse. Did you see jobs whining about Google invading their turf the other day?
In the battle of big baby shithead companies, hard to know if Apple or Amazon is worse. Did you see jobs whining about Google invading their turf the other day?
In the battle of big baby shithead companies, hard to know if Apple or Amazon is worse. Did you see jobs whining about Google invading their turf the other day?
In the battle of big baby shithead companies, hard to know if Apple or Amazon is worse. Did you see jobs whining about Google invading their turf the other day?
banning google voice is also a piece of shit move. i’d like apple a lot better if they didnt have AT&T jammed so far down their throat.
banning google voice is also a piece of shit move. i’d like apple a lot better if they didnt have AT&T jammed so far down their throat.
banning google voice is also a piece of shit move. i’d like apple a lot better if they didnt have AT&T jammed so far down their throat.
banning google voice is also a piece of shit move. i’d like apple a lot better if they didnt have AT&T jammed so far down their throat.
yeah fuck the shitheads or whatever the fuck
yeah fuck the shitheads or whatever the fuck
yeah fuck the shitheads or whatever the fuck
yeah fuck the shitheads or whatever the fuck
I’m torn on this.
Amazon wants to charge a highly inflated price for e-books.
Macmillan demands a much higher price.
Amazon says fuck you, give in or give up all the money we give you.
Both are evil corporations, but macmillan seems slightly worse. 15 bucks for a file? seriously? 10 is too much.
I’m torn on this.
Amazon wants to charge a highly inflated price for e-books.
Macmillan demands a much higher price.
Amazon says fuck you, give in or give up all the money we give you.
Both are evil corporations, but macmillan seems slightly worse. 15 bucks for a file? seriously? 10 is too much.
I’m torn on this.
Amazon wants to charge a highly inflated price for e-books.
Macmillan demands a much higher price.
Amazon says fuck you, give in or give up all the money we give you.
Both are evil corporations, but macmillan seems slightly worse. 15 bucks for a file? seriously? 10 is too much.
I’m torn on this.
Amazon wants to charge a highly inflated price for e-books.
Macmillan demands a much higher price.
Amazon says fuck you, give in or give up all the money we give you.
Both are evil corporations, but macmillan seems slightly worse. 15 bucks for a file? seriously? 10 is too much.
Yeah but taking all of Macmillan’s books off the site seems the dirtiest move.
Yeah but taking all of Macmillan’s books off the site seems the dirtiest move.
Yeah but taking all of Macmillan’s books off the site seems the dirtiest move.
Yeah but taking all of Macmillan’s books off the site seems the dirtiest move.
I agree wit that. It seems petty.
Both sides seem dirty to me
I agree wit that. It seems petty.
Both sides seem dirty to me
I agree wit that. It seems petty.
Both sides seem dirty to me
I agree wit that. It seems petty.
Both sides seem dirty to me
As in, the move that fucks w/ authors and their sales the most. I mean, there are authors whose books came out today. Paul Tremblay, who by coincidence I post an interview with earlier today. Andre Aciman, who by coincidence I saw read last night.
As in, the move that fucks w/ authors and their sales the most. I mean, there are authors whose books came out today. Paul Tremblay, who by coincidence I post an interview with earlier today. Andre Aciman, who by coincidence I saw read last night.
As in, the move that fucks w/ authors and their sales the most. I mean, there are authors whose books came out today. Paul Tremblay, who by coincidence I post an interview with earlier today. Andre Aciman, who by coincidence I saw read last night.
As in, the move that fucks w/ authors and their sales the most. I mean, there are authors whose books came out today. Paul Tremblay, who by coincidence I post an interview with earlier today. Andre Aciman, who by coincidence I saw read last night.
agreed.
authors are getting fucked. amazon and macmillan should come to an accord.
agreed.
authors are getting fucked. amazon and macmillan should come to an accord.
agreed.
authors are getting fucked. amazon and macmillan should come to an accord.
agreed.
authors are getting fucked. amazon and macmillan should come to an accord.
just a few clarifications here from what I understand.
First off, Amazon is purposefully losing money on some of its ebook sales to promote sales of its expensive Kindle hardware. They aren’t trying to save you the customer any money, they are merely trying to monopolize the ebook hardware market so that down the road they can probably jack up prices.
secondly, Macmillan didn’t want books to be 15 dollars per se. They wanted brand new books (ie hardcover books in print) to cost somewhere between 12 and 15 and then for the price to lower when the book comes out in paperback. Obviously you are free to dislike that move too, but they weren’t trying to jack up ebook prices five bucks across the board, they were just trying to prevent canabalizing their own print sales.
Really it isn’t even about price, but about control.
Lastly, can I ask why you think 10 bucks is too much for a file? Frankly, the cost of production and distrobution is pretty low compared to all the other costs that go into a book. 10 bucks for a paperback ebook is about the normal price of a book minus the production costs (2-3 bucks)
just a few clarifications here from what I understand.
First off, Amazon is purposefully losing money on some of its ebook sales to promote sales of its expensive Kindle hardware. They aren’t trying to save you the customer any money, they are merely trying to monopolize the ebook hardware market so that down the road they can probably jack up prices.
secondly, Macmillan didn’t want books to be 15 dollars per se. They wanted brand new books (ie hardcover books in print) to cost somewhere between 12 and 15 and then for the price to lower when the book comes out in paperback. Obviously you are free to dislike that move too, but they weren’t trying to jack up ebook prices five bucks across the board, they were just trying to prevent canabalizing their own print sales.
Really it isn’t even about price, but about control.
Lastly, can I ask why you think 10 bucks is too much for a file? Frankly, the cost of production and distrobution is pretty low compared to all the other costs that go into a book. 10 bucks for a paperback ebook is about the normal price of a book minus the production costs (2-3 bucks)
just a few clarifications here from what I understand.
First off, Amazon is purposefully losing money on some of its ebook sales to promote sales of its expensive Kindle hardware. They aren’t trying to save you the customer any money, they are merely trying to monopolize the ebook hardware market so that down the road they can probably jack up prices.
secondly, Macmillan didn’t want books to be 15 dollars per se. They wanted brand new books (ie hardcover books in print) to cost somewhere between 12 and 15 and then for the price to lower when the book comes out in paperback. Obviously you are free to dislike that move too, but they weren’t trying to jack up ebook prices five bucks across the board, they were just trying to prevent canabalizing their own print sales.
Really it isn’t even about price, but about control.
Lastly, can I ask why you think 10 bucks is too much for a file? Frankly, the cost of production and distrobution is pretty low compared to all the other costs that go into a book. 10 bucks for a paperback ebook is about the normal price of a book minus the production costs (2-3 bucks)
just a few clarifications here from what I understand.
First off, Amazon is purposefully losing money on some of its ebook sales to promote sales of its expensive Kindle hardware. They aren’t trying to save you the customer any money, they are merely trying to monopolize the ebook hardware market so that down the road they can probably jack up prices.
secondly, Macmillan didn’t want books to be 15 dollars per se. They wanted brand new books (ie hardcover books in print) to cost somewhere between 12 and 15 and then for the price to lower when the book comes out in paperback. Obviously you are free to dislike that move too, but they weren’t trying to jack up ebook prices five bucks across the board, they were just trying to prevent canabalizing their own print sales.
Really it isn’t even about price, but about control.
Lastly, can I ask why you think 10 bucks is too much for a file? Frankly, the cost of production and distrobution is pretty low compared to all the other costs that go into a book. 10 bucks for a paperback ebook is about the normal price of a book minus the production costs (2-3 bucks)
Utlimately I think that what is good for big publishers will be good for indie presses as well. Currently Amazon wants to devalue e-content as much as possible. If you think Amazon is being nasty to a big guy like Macmillan, you really think they are gonna play nice with indie pubs?
Utlimately I think that what is good for big publishers will be good for indie presses as well. Currently Amazon wants to devalue e-content as much as possible. If you think Amazon is being nasty to a big guy like Macmillan, you really think they are gonna play nice with indie pubs?
Utlimately I think that what is good for big publishers will be good for indie presses as well. Currently Amazon wants to devalue e-content as much as possible. If you think Amazon is being nasty to a big guy like Macmillan, you really think they are gonna play nice with indie pubs?
Utlimately I think that what is good for big publishers will be good for indie presses as well. Currently Amazon wants to devalue e-content as much as possible. If you think Amazon is being nasty to a big guy like Macmillan, you really think they are gonna play nice with indie pubs?
I try not to pay more than 7 or 8 dollars for a book. I buy used (mostly).
Will there be used e-book stores? Wherein a used file costs half as much as a new one? Will there be actual physical places where you can go and browse the shelves and say “Ooh! I always wanted to read that! And here’s a like-new used copy for $4.95! Score!!!”?
Probably not. But if there will be, yeah I’ll totally get interested in reading e-books.
I try not to pay more than 7 or 8 dollars for a book. I buy used (mostly).
Will there be used e-book stores? Wherein a used file costs half as much as a new one? Will there be actual physical places where you can go and browse the shelves and say “Ooh! I always wanted to read that! And here’s a like-new used copy for $4.95! Score!!!”?
Probably not. But if there will be, yeah I’ll totally get interested in reading e-books.
I try not to pay more than 7 or 8 dollars for a book. I buy used (mostly).
Will there be used e-book stores? Wherein a used file costs half as much as a new one? Will there be actual physical places where you can go and browse the shelves and say “Ooh! I always wanted to read that! And here’s a like-new used copy for $4.95! Score!!!”?
Probably not. But if there will be, yeah I’ll totally get interested in reading e-books.
I try not to pay more than 7 or 8 dollars for a book. I buy used (mostly).
Will there be used e-book stores? Wherein a used file costs half as much as a new one? Will there be actual physical places where you can go and browse the shelves and say “Ooh! I always wanted to read that! And here’s a like-new used copy for $4.95! Score!!!”?
Probably not. But if there will be, yeah I’ll totally get interested in reading e-books.
personally, i don’t think ebooks should cost ten dollars because they’re not made of paper, ink, and binding. you shouldn’t charge for materials that don’t exist. printing costs are roughly 10% of a book’s total cost.
but it’s not only that there’s no paper, ink, or binding – that would be thinking about it too simply.
there will be no lost expenses on shipping returned books, which is an enormous waste of money for publishers because the distributors don’t cover it. anywhere from 20-60% of books are returned to the publisher. you can imagine how much money that is.
there is also, of course, no cost for distribution, which is another 10%. the cost of transferring a file is virtually nothing when compared to physical shipping.
retailers charge anywhere from 40-60% for sales. but i don’t think ebook retailers will charge that much because it would be impractical. for instance, scribd store is charging 20%.
what i’ve just outlined is, at minimum, a 40% cut in publishing expenses, if not much more.
frankly, the only reason companies would want to charge more than ten dollars for an ebook is to make up for their losses on printed books.
personally, i don’t think ebooks should cost ten dollars because they’re not made of paper, ink, and binding. you shouldn’t charge for materials that don’t exist. printing costs are roughly 10% of a book’s total cost.
but it’s not only that there’s no paper, ink, or binding – that would be thinking about it too simply.
there will be no lost expenses on shipping returned books, which is an enormous waste of money for publishers because the distributors don’t cover it. anywhere from 20-60% of books are returned to the publisher. you can imagine how much money that is.
there is also, of course, no cost for distribution, which is another 10%. the cost of transferring a file is virtually nothing when compared to physical shipping.
retailers charge anywhere from 40-60% for sales. but i don’t think ebook retailers will charge that much because it would be impractical. for instance, scribd store is charging 20%.
what i’ve just outlined is, at minimum, a 40% cut in publishing expenses, if not much more.
frankly, the only reason companies would want to charge more than ten dollars for an ebook is to make up for their losses on printed books.
personally, i don’t think ebooks should cost ten dollars because they’re not made of paper, ink, and binding. you shouldn’t charge for materials that don’t exist. printing costs are roughly 10% of a book’s total cost.
but it’s not only that there’s no paper, ink, or binding – that would be thinking about it too simply.
there will be no lost expenses on shipping returned books, which is an enormous waste of money for publishers because the distributors don’t cover it. anywhere from 20-60% of books are returned to the publisher. you can imagine how much money that is.
there is also, of course, no cost for distribution, which is another 10%. the cost of transferring a file is virtually nothing when compared to physical shipping.
retailers charge anywhere from 40-60% for sales. but i don’t think ebook retailers will charge that much because it would be impractical. for instance, scribd store is charging 20%.
what i’ve just outlined is, at minimum, a 40% cut in publishing expenses, if not much more.
frankly, the only reason companies would want to charge more than ten dollars for an ebook is to make up for their losses on printed books.
personally, i don’t think ebooks should cost ten dollars because they’re not made of paper, ink, and binding. you shouldn’t charge for materials that don’t exist. printing costs are roughly 10% of a book’s total cost.
but it’s not only that there’s no paper, ink, or binding – that would be thinking about it too simply.
there will be no lost expenses on shipping returned books, which is an enormous waste of money for publishers because the distributors don’t cover it. anywhere from 20-60% of books are returned to the publisher. you can imagine how much money that is.
there is also, of course, no cost for distribution, which is another 10%. the cost of transferring a file is virtually nothing when compared to physical shipping.
retailers charge anywhere from 40-60% for sales. but i don’t think ebook retailers will charge that much because it would be impractical. for instance, scribd store is charging 20%.
what i’ve just outlined is, at minimum, a 40% cut in publishing expenses, if not much more.
frankly, the only reason companies would want to charge more than ten dollars for an ebook is to make up for their losses on printed books.
reynard:
The paper ink and binding plus distribution only cost like 3 bucks for a book. How much does a normal book cost? I’d say about 12-14 bucks. So a 10 dollar ebook is not charging you for paper, ink and binding.
retailers charge anywhere from 40-60% for sales. but i don’t think ebook retailers will charge that much because it would be impractical. for instance, scribd store is charging 20%.
Amazon has been taking around 70% actually.
reynard:
The paper ink and binding plus distribution only cost like 3 bucks for a book. How much does a normal book cost? I’d say about 12-14 bucks. So a 10 dollar ebook is not charging you for paper, ink and binding.
retailers charge anywhere from 40-60% for sales. but i don’t think ebook retailers will charge that much because it would be impractical. for instance, scribd store is charging 20%.
Amazon has been taking around 70% actually.
reynard:
The paper ink and binding plus distribution only cost like 3 bucks for a book. How much does a normal book cost? I’d say about 12-14 bucks. So a 10 dollar ebook is not charging you for paper, ink and binding.
retailers charge anywhere from 40-60% for sales. but i don’t think ebook retailers will charge that much because it would be impractical. for instance, scribd store is charging 20%.
Amazon has been taking around 70% actually.
reynard:
The paper ink and binding plus distribution only cost like 3 bucks for a book. How much does a normal book cost? I’d say about 12-14 bucks. So a 10 dollar ebook is not charging you for paper, ink and binding.
retailers charge anywhere from 40-60% for sales. but i don’t think ebook retailers will charge that much because it would be impractical. for instance, scribd store is charging 20%.
Amazon has been taking around 70% actually.
i know they are, but do you really think that’s going to last? it’s totally unrealistic, even sadistic. i can’t imagine amazon being the main retailer of ebooks unless they lower their cut, because other people will undercut them. it’s only, like, the second inning, lincoln.
you can get a lot of paperbacks on amazon, brand new, for 10 dollars. for instance, justin taylor’s collection is $9.44.
i know they are, but do you really think that’s going to last? it’s totally unrealistic, even sadistic. i can’t imagine amazon being the main retailer of ebooks unless they lower their cut, because other people will undercut them. it’s only, like, the second inning, lincoln.
you can get a lot of paperbacks on amazon, brand new, for 10 dollars. for instance, justin taylor’s collection is $9.44.
i know they are, but do you really think that’s going to last? it’s totally unrealistic, even sadistic. i can’t imagine amazon being the main retailer of ebooks unless they lower their cut, because other people will undercut them. it’s only, like, the second inning, lincoln.
you can get a lot of paperbacks on amazon, brand new, for 10 dollars. for instance, justin taylor’s collection is $9.44.
i know they are, but do you really think that’s going to last? it’s totally unrealistic, even sadistic. i can’t imagine amazon being the main retailer of ebooks unless they lower their cut, because other people will undercut them. it’s only, like, the second inning, lincoln.
you can get a lot of paperbacks on amazon, brand new, for 10 dollars. for instance, justin taylor’s collection is $9.44.
I’m not really sure why retailers who’ve been taking 40-60% and are currently taking 70% will suddenly start taking 20%, at least not without publishers like Macmillan taking a stand.
Justin Taylor’s book is 9.44 after amazon is discounting it, but the normal price is 13.99. I’m sure amazon and other retailers will discount e-book titles in similar fashion in the future, but not sure either effects the publishing expense difference between an ebook and print book.
I’m not really sure why retailers who’ve been taking 40-60% and are currently taking 70% will suddenly start taking 20%, at least not without publishers like Macmillan taking a stand.
Justin Taylor’s book is 9.44 after amazon is discounting it, but the normal price is 13.99. I’m sure amazon and other retailers will discount e-book titles in similar fashion in the future, but not sure either effects the publishing expense difference between an ebook and print book.
I’m not really sure why retailers who’ve been taking 40-60% and are currently taking 70% will suddenly start taking 20%, at least not without publishers like Macmillan taking a stand.
Justin Taylor’s book is 9.44 after amazon is discounting it, but the normal price is 13.99. I’m sure amazon and other retailers will discount e-book titles in similar fashion in the future, but not sure either effects the publishing expense difference between an ebook and print book.
I’m not really sure why retailers who’ve been taking 40-60% and are currently taking 70% will suddenly start taking 20%, at least not without publishers like Macmillan taking a stand.
Justin Taylor’s book is 9.44 after amazon is discounting it, but the normal price is 13.99. I’m sure amazon and other retailers will discount e-book titles in similar fashion in the future, but not sure either effects the publishing expense difference between an ebook and print book.
no, there won’t be used ebook stores, but there will be piracy. that’s one reason why publishers would be wise to lower the ebook costs, because if the price is right, they could sell more books than ever before. used bookstores, while i love them, cost the publishing industry an unbelievable amount of money.
no, there won’t be used ebook stores, but there will be piracy. that’s one reason why publishers would be wise to lower the ebook costs, because if the price is right, they could sell more books than ever before. used bookstores, while i love them, cost the publishing industry an unbelievable amount of money.
no, there won’t be used ebook stores, but there will be piracy. that’s one reason why publishers would be wise to lower the ebook costs, because if the price is right, they could sell more books than ever before. used bookstores, while i love them, cost the publishing industry an unbelievable amount of money.
no, there won’t be used ebook stores, but there will be piracy. that’s one reason why publishers would be wise to lower the ebook costs, because if the price is right, they could sell more books than ever before. used bookstores, while i love them, cost the publishing industry an unbelievable amount of money.
All i’m saying is that you said ebooks shouldn’t even cost 10 dollars because they lack production and distribution costs, but I’m saying the production and distrobution costs are not as high as most people think. The main costs are in editing, marketing, proofing and so on. If we move to a world where ebooks are the rule and not the exception, all of those costs will still exist. And in some sense those costs will increase because the lack of hardcover sales help recoup some of those, but that wouldn’t exist in a world of ebooks all costing less than 10 bucks.
All i’m saying is that you said ebooks shouldn’t even cost 10 dollars because they lack production and distribution costs, but I’m saying the production and distrobution costs are not as high as most people think. The main costs are in editing, marketing, proofing and so on. If we move to a world where ebooks are the rule and not the exception, all of those costs will still exist. And in some sense those costs will increase because the lack of hardcover sales help recoup some of those, but that wouldn’t exist in a world of ebooks all costing less than 10 bucks.
All i’m saying is that you said ebooks shouldn’t even cost 10 dollars because they lack production and distribution costs, but I’m saying the production and distrobution costs are not as high as most people think. The main costs are in editing, marketing, proofing and so on. If we move to a world where ebooks are the rule and not the exception, all of those costs will still exist. And in some sense those costs will increase because the lack of hardcover sales help recoup some of those, but that wouldn’t exist in a world of ebooks all costing less than 10 bucks.
All i’m saying is that you said ebooks shouldn’t even cost 10 dollars because they lack production and distribution costs, but I’m saying the production and distrobution costs are not as high as most people think. The main costs are in editing, marketing, proofing and so on. If we move to a world where ebooks are the rule and not the exception, all of those costs will still exist. And in some sense those costs will increase because the lack of hardcover sales help recoup some of those, but that wouldn’t exist in a world of ebooks all costing less than 10 bucks.
well, they wouldn’t be the same retailers. with new media comes new companies and new rules, new expenses, new cost/benefit analyses, etc. bookstores and warehouses charge that much because they have to pay employees, electricity, rent, etc. servers need that stuff too, but not nearly as much of it.
well, they wouldn’t be the same retailers. with new media comes new companies and new rules, new expenses, new cost/benefit analyses, etc. bookstores and warehouses charge that much because they have to pay employees, electricity, rent, etc. servers need that stuff too, but not nearly as much of it.
well, they wouldn’t be the same retailers. with new media comes new companies and new rules, new expenses, new cost/benefit analyses, etc. bookstores and warehouses charge that much because they have to pay employees, electricity, rent, etc. servers need that stuff too, but not nearly as much of it.
well, they wouldn’t be the same retailers. with new media comes new companies and new rules, new expenses, new cost/benefit analyses, etc. bookstores and warehouses charge that much because they have to pay employees, electricity, rent, etc. servers need that stuff too, but not nearly as much of it.
this is something I wonder about too. MP3s are sold pretty cheaply, but the music biz has not recovered its sales. Just judging on the people I know, I really doubt the people who download everything would ever stop unless mp3s were so ridiculously cheap that artists got no money and I doubt the people I know who tried to never download illegally and now buy music would change their habits much if the price increased or decreased reasonable amounts.
this is something I wonder about too. MP3s are sold pretty cheaply, but the music biz has not recovered its sales. Just judging on the people I know, I really doubt the people who download everything would ever stop unless mp3s were so ridiculously cheap that artists got no money and I doubt the people I know who tried to never download illegally and now buy music would change their habits much if the price increased or decreased reasonable amounts.
this is something I wonder about too. MP3s are sold pretty cheaply, but the music biz has not recovered its sales. Just judging on the people I know, I really doubt the people who download everything would ever stop unless mp3s were so ridiculously cheap that artists got no money and I doubt the people I know who tried to never download illegally and now buy music would change their habits much if the price increased or decreased reasonable amounts.
this is something I wonder about too. MP3s are sold pretty cheaply, but the music biz has not recovered its sales. Just judging on the people I know, I really doubt the people who download everything would ever stop unless mp3s were so ridiculously cheap that artists got no money and I doubt the people I know who tried to never download illegally and now buy music would change their habits much if the price increased or decreased reasonable amounts.
I guess I’m pessimistic about the new media. I hear a lot of people (not directing this at you here) throwing around empty phrases about how things will work out, but there is plenty of chance that the new media system will destroy a lot of what we love or need. it is has already gutted the news industry and obliterated it for anything outside of the largest cities, meaning even some of our biggest cities don’t have anything resembling adequate coverage of their politics and affairs. I don’t see it coming back unless something radical happens like congress making newspapers non-profits.
books aren’t newspapers of course, but things dont’ always work themselves out.
I guess I’m pessimistic about the new media. I hear a lot of people (not directing this at you here) throwing around empty phrases about how things will work out, but there is plenty of chance that the new media system will destroy a lot of what we love or need. it is has already gutted the news industry and obliterated it for anything outside of the largest cities, meaning even some of our biggest cities don’t have anything resembling adequate coverage of their politics and affairs. I don’t see it coming back unless something radical happens like congress making newspapers non-profits.
books aren’t newspapers of course, but things dont’ always work themselves out.
I guess I’m pessimistic about the new media. I hear a lot of people (not directing this at you here) throwing around empty phrases about how things will work out, but there is plenty of chance that the new media system will destroy a lot of what we love or need. it is has already gutted the news industry and obliterated it for anything outside of the largest cities, meaning even some of our biggest cities don’t have anything resembling adequate coverage of their politics and affairs. I don’t see it coming back unless something radical happens like congress making newspapers non-profits.
books aren’t newspapers of course, but things dont’ always work themselves out.
I guess I’m pessimistic about the new media. I hear a lot of people (not directing this at you here) throwing around empty phrases about how things will work out, but there is plenty of chance that the new media system will destroy a lot of what we love or need. it is has already gutted the news industry and obliterated it for anything outside of the largest cities, meaning even some of our biggest cities don’t have anything resembling adequate coverage of their politics and affairs. I don’t see it coming back unless something radical happens like congress making newspapers non-profits.
books aren’t newspapers of course, but things dont’ always work themselves out.
but lincoln, amazon discounts almost every book. that is what they do. so it isn’t really a discount is it? that’s like when people say, there’s a sale. and you ask, what’s on sale? and they say, everything. everything is on sale.
again, i think most people underestimate how much the production and disribution costs really are because they’re not looking at the related costs.
and of course publishers don’t want them to know about this, so they oversimplify the math. they’re like, oh yeah, printing only costs 2 bucks so let’s knock off 2 bucks. but we still need to charge you 24 dollars for a new ebook. this, for example: http://theharperstudio.com/2009/02/why-e-books-cost-money-to-publish/
since we disagree on retailer expense i’ll substitute returns (which i didn’t count before).
material – 10%
distribution – 10%
returns – 20%
thus, with just these simple variables taken into account, the publisher is saving roughly 40% on ebooks. if a normal book is, as you say, 12-14 dollars, an ebook should cost $7.20-8.40.
the only reason it isn’t like that is BECAUSE amazon is charging 70%. because they are total, absolute dickheads.
don’t get me wrong, i’m worried too, lincoln. but i feel like books have been too expensive for a while and that’s why sales have gone down and amazon has succeeded because they strong-arm the publishers into terrible contracts where they often lose money simply because they must have the book on amazon and this ebook thing is sort of a way to make up for that maybe so i guess i am optimistic in a way. sort of.
but lincoln, amazon discounts almost every book. that is what they do. so it isn’t really a discount is it? that’s like when people say, there’s a sale. and you ask, what’s on sale? and they say, everything. everything is on sale.
again, i think most people underestimate how much the production and disribution costs really are because they’re not looking at the related costs.
and of course publishers don’t want them to know about this, so they oversimplify the math. they’re like, oh yeah, printing only costs 2 bucks so let’s knock off 2 bucks. but we still need to charge you 24 dollars for a new ebook. this, for example: http://theharperstudio.com/2009/02/why-e-books-cost-money-to-publish/
since we disagree on retailer expense i’ll substitute returns (which i didn’t count before).
material – 10%
distribution – 10%
returns – 20%
thus, with just these simple variables taken into account, the publisher is saving roughly 40% on ebooks. if a normal book is, as you say, 12-14 dollars, an ebook should cost $7.20-8.40.
the only reason it isn’t like that is BECAUSE amazon is charging 70%. because they are total, absolute dickheads.
don’t get me wrong, i’m worried too, lincoln. but i feel like books have been too expensive for a while and that’s why sales have gone down and amazon has succeeded because they strong-arm the publishers into terrible contracts where they often lose money simply because they must have the book on amazon and this ebook thing is sort of a way to make up for that maybe so i guess i am optimistic in a way. sort of.
but lincoln, amazon discounts almost every book. that is what they do. so it isn’t really a discount is it? that’s like when people say, there’s a sale. and you ask, what’s on sale? and they say, everything. everything is on sale.
again, i think most people underestimate how much the production and disribution costs really are because they’re not looking at the related costs.
and of course publishers don’t want them to know about this, so they oversimplify the math. they’re like, oh yeah, printing only costs 2 bucks so let’s knock off 2 bucks. but we still need to charge you 24 dollars for a new ebook. this, for example: http://theharperstudio.com/2009/02/why-e-books-cost-money-to-publish/
since we disagree on retailer expense i’ll substitute returns (which i didn’t count before).
material – 10%
distribution – 10%
returns – 20%
thus, with just these simple variables taken into account, the publisher is saving roughly 40% on ebooks. if a normal book is, as you say, 12-14 dollars, an ebook should cost $7.20-8.40.
the only reason it isn’t like that is BECAUSE amazon is charging 70%. because they are total, absolute dickheads.
don’t get me wrong, i’m worried too, lincoln. but i feel like books have been too expensive for a while and that’s why sales have gone down and amazon has succeeded because they strong-arm the publishers into terrible contracts where they often lose money simply because they must have the book on amazon and this ebook thing is sort of a way to make up for that maybe so i guess i am optimistic in a way. sort of.
but lincoln, amazon discounts almost every book. that is what they do. so it isn’t really a discount is it? that’s like when people say, there’s a sale. and you ask, what’s on sale? and they say, everything. everything is on sale.
again, i think most people underestimate how much the production and disribution costs really are because they’re not looking at the related costs.
and of course publishers don’t want them to know about this, so they oversimplify the math. they’re like, oh yeah, printing only costs 2 bucks so let’s knock off 2 bucks. but we still need to charge you 24 dollars for a new ebook. this, for example: http://theharperstudio.com/2009/02/why-e-books-cost-money-to-publish/
since we disagree on retailer expense i’ll substitute returns (which i didn’t count before).
material – 10%
distribution – 10%
returns – 20%
thus, with just these simple variables taken into account, the publisher is saving roughly 40% on ebooks. if a normal book is, as you say, 12-14 dollars, an ebook should cost $7.20-8.40.
the only reason it isn’t like that is BECAUSE amazon is charging 70%. because they are total, absolute dickheads.
don’t get me wrong, i’m worried too, lincoln. but i feel like books have been too expensive for a while and that’s why sales have gone down and amazon has succeeded because they strong-arm the publishers into terrible contracts where they often lose money simply because they must have the book on amazon and this ebook thing is sort of a way to make up for that maybe so i guess i am optimistic in a way. sort of.
Not to rain on your parade more or anything…but here’s some more shitty news: http://m.gizmodo.com/site?t=Oli.8.tX-6fW2FAQiWnyQQ&sid=gizmodoip
Just for the record, I have a nook and I love it, but I’m gonna be pissed if I have to pay 14 bucks for a file instead of a paperback that costs less. I don’t mind paying 14 when just a hardcover is available, but these publishers need to bring the price down when the paperback comes out.
And I lived Apple and have just about every Apple product but fuck the iPad and fuck them for causing this price jump in the first place.
Not to rain on your parade more or anything…but here’s some more shitty news: http://m.gizmodo.com/site?t=Oli.8.tX-6fW2FAQiWnyQQ&sid=gizmodoip
Just for the record, I have a nook and I love it, but I’m gonna be pissed if I have to pay 14 bucks for a file instead of a paperback that costs less. I don’t mind paying 14 when just a hardcover is available, but these publishers need to bring the price down when the paperback comes out.
And I lived Apple and have just about every Apple product but fuck the iPad and fuck them for causing this price jump in the first place.
Not to rain on your parade more or anything…but here’s some more shitty news: http://m.gizmodo.com/site?t=Oli.8.tX-6fW2FAQiWnyQQ&sid=gizmodoip
Just for the record, I have a nook and I love it, but I’m gonna be pissed if I have to pay 14 bucks for a file instead of a paperback that costs less. I don’t mind paying 14 when just a hardcover is available, but these publishers need to bring the price down when the paperback comes out.
And I lived Apple and have just about every Apple product but fuck the iPad and fuck them for causing this price jump in the first place.
Not to rain on your parade more or anything…but here’s some more shitty news: http://m.gizmodo.com/site?t=Oli.8.tX-6fW2FAQiWnyQQ&sid=gizmodoip
Just for the record, I have a nook and I love it, but I’m gonna be pissed if I have to pay 14 bucks for a file instead of a paperback that costs less. I don’t mind paying 14 when just a hardcover is available, but these publishers need to bring the price down when the paperback comes out.
And I lived Apple and have just about every Apple product but fuck the iPad and fuck them for causing this price jump in the first place.
‘love,’ not lived. Stupid iPhone.
‘love,’ not lived. Stupid iPhone.
‘love,’ not lived. Stupid iPhone.
‘love,’ not lived. Stupid iPhone.
so, my math and logic were a little fuzzy in that last one. returns are probably more like 10% of costs. but it varies widely so who knows. a lot of times i think the publishers hardly know because it figures into the back end and is really more of an ongoing expense they incur, almost like a tax or something. but let’s say, with returns and a drop in retailer expense, the cost of publishing an ebook is half that of a regular book.
now let me paint a picture: amazon is forced to stop acting like a sociopath and commit to normal business practices. they lower their fee to say 30%. ebooks are priced at $6-$8. e-readers drop in price, leading to sales in the tens of millions over the next ten years. ebook sales overtake book sales. say total sales go up 50% (i think that’s totally possible) because of a 50% decrease in price. that may seem like it’s just proportional or whatever but it isn’t because it’s all direct money. there are no weird expenses or gaps of time when payments are received and so on, leading to a much healthier and more stable industry that can make more authors available to more people, furthering the culture of reading, which could foster more and more sales without losing money to used bookstores. so that 50% increase could more than double over like another ten years.
that’s my pretty picture of what could happen. maybe it’s idealistic but it certainly isn’t going to happen if you keep the cost of ebooks the same as a printed book. to me it’s sort of like a fixed exchange rate, and that’s not always a good thing.
so, my math and logic were a little fuzzy in that last one. returns are probably more like 10% of costs. but it varies widely so who knows. a lot of times i think the publishers hardly know because it figures into the back end and is really more of an ongoing expense they incur, almost like a tax or something. but let’s say, with returns and a drop in retailer expense, the cost of publishing an ebook is half that of a regular book.
now let me paint a picture: amazon is forced to stop acting like a sociopath and commit to normal business practices. they lower their fee to say 30%. ebooks are priced at $6-$8. e-readers drop in price, leading to sales in the tens of millions over the next ten years. ebook sales overtake book sales. say total sales go up 50% (i think that’s totally possible) because of a 50% decrease in price. that may seem like it’s just proportional or whatever but it isn’t because it’s all direct money. there are no weird expenses or gaps of time when payments are received and so on, leading to a much healthier and more stable industry that can make more authors available to more people, furthering the culture of reading, which could foster more and more sales without losing money to used bookstores. so that 50% increase could more than double over like another ten years.
that’s my pretty picture of what could happen. maybe it’s idealistic but it certainly isn’t going to happen if you keep the cost of ebooks the same as a printed book. to me it’s sort of like a fixed exchange rate, and that’s not always a good thing.
so, my math and logic were a little fuzzy in that last one. returns are probably more like 10% of costs. but it varies widely so who knows. a lot of times i think the publishers hardly know because it figures into the back end and is really more of an ongoing expense they incur, almost like a tax or something. but let’s say, with returns and a drop in retailer expense, the cost of publishing an ebook is half that of a regular book.
now let me paint a picture: amazon is forced to stop acting like a sociopath and commit to normal business practices. they lower their fee to say 30%. ebooks are priced at $6-$8. e-readers drop in price, leading to sales in the tens of millions over the next ten years. ebook sales overtake book sales. say total sales go up 50% (i think that’s totally possible) because of a 50% decrease in price. that may seem like it’s just proportional or whatever but it isn’t because it’s all direct money. there are no weird expenses or gaps of time when payments are received and so on, leading to a much healthier and more stable industry that can make more authors available to more people, furthering the culture of reading, which could foster more and more sales without losing money to used bookstores. so that 50% increase could more than double over like another ten years.
that’s my pretty picture of what could happen. maybe it’s idealistic but it certainly isn’t going to happen if you keep the cost of ebooks the same as a printed book. to me it’s sort of like a fixed exchange rate, and that’s not always a good thing.
so, my math and logic were a little fuzzy in that last one. returns are probably more like 10% of costs. but it varies widely so who knows. a lot of times i think the publishers hardly know because it figures into the back end and is really more of an ongoing expense they incur, almost like a tax or something. but let’s say, with returns and a drop in retailer expense, the cost of publishing an ebook is half that of a regular book.
now let me paint a picture: amazon is forced to stop acting like a sociopath and commit to normal business practices. they lower their fee to say 30%. ebooks are priced at $6-$8. e-readers drop in price, leading to sales in the tens of millions over the next ten years. ebook sales overtake book sales. say total sales go up 50% (i think that’s totally possible) because of a 50% decrease in price. that may seem like it’s just proportional or whatever but it isn’t because it’s all direct money. there are no weird expenses or gaps of time when payments are received and so on, leading to a much healthier and more stable industry that can make more authors available to more people, furthering the culture of reading, which could foster more and more sales without losing money to used bookstores. so that 50% increase could more than double over like another ten years.
that’s my pretty picture of what could happen. maybe it’s idealistic but it certainly isn’t going to happen if you keep the cost of ebooks the same as a printed book. to me it’s sort of like a fixed exchange rate, and that’s not always a good thing.
but mp3s are usually $1 a song. for a full album that’s an average of $12, so it’s really the same, more or less, as what they were selling albums for at best buy, which is pretty equivalent to amazon. so i don’t really think they tried making mp3s around 30 cents or so until pretty recently and at this point they’ve already lost the people who might have gone for that.
my hope is that because they’re different mediums things are simply going to happen differently. and you know, everyone has always said, hopefully the book industry will learn some lessons from the music industry’s failure. but i don’t know if that’s really going to be the case because in my mind their failure was the unwillingness to lower prices in order to keep consumers interested and now it’s too late.
but mp3s are usually $1 a song. for a full album that’s an average of $12, so it’s really the same, more or less, as what they were selling albums for at best buy, which is pretty equivalent to amazon. so i don’t really think they tried making mp3s around 30 cents or so until pretty recently and at this point they’ve already lost the people who might have gone for that.
my hope is that because they’re different mediums things are simply going to happen differently. and you know, everyone has always said, hopefully the book industry will learn some lessons from the music industry’s failure. but i don’t know if that’s really going to be the case because in my mind their failure was the unwillingness to lower prices in order to keep consumers interested and now it’s too late.
but mp3s are usually $1 a song. for a full album that’s an average of $12, so it’s really the same, more or less, as what they were selling albums for at best buy, which is pretty equivalent to amazon. so i don’t really think they tried making mp3s around 30 cents or so until pretty recently and at this point they’ve already lost the people who might have gone for that.
my hope is that because they’re different mediums things are simply going to happen differently. and you know, everyone has always said, hopefully the book industry will learn some lessons from the music industry’s failure. but i don’t know if that’s really going to be the case because in my mind their failure was the unwillingness to lower prices in order to keep consumers interested and now it’s too late.
but mp3s are usually $1 a song. for a full album that’s an average of $12, so it’s really the same, more or less, as what they were selling albums for at best buy, which is pretty equivalent to amazon. so i don’t really think they tried making mp3s around 30 cents or so until pretty recently and at this point they’ve already lost the people who might have gone for that.
my hope is that because they’re different mediums things are simply going to happen differently. and you know, everyone has always said, hopefully the book industry will learn some lessons from the music industry’s failure. but i don’t know if that’s really going to be the case because in my mind their failure was the unwillingness to lower prices in order to keep consumers interested and now it’s too late.
My brother totally did that when I was brought home from the hospital. Wait are we talking about Apple’s recent failure at impressing even the most loyal of geeks? Shit…
My brother totally did that when I was brought home from the hospital. Wait are we talking about Apple’s recent failure at impressing even the most loyal of geeks? Shit…
My brother totally did that when I was brought home from the hospital. Wait are we talking about Apple’s recent failure at impressing even the most loyal of geeks? Shit…
My brother totally did that when I was brought home from the hospital. Wait are we talking about Apple’s recent failure at impressing even the most loyal of geeks? Shit…
I guess you have a more positive view of people than I do, because I don’t believe there is any price point that would have satisfied most pirates AND still be able to pay artists any kind of decent wage for their work. Luckily in music people still pay for concerts and merchandise, but that doesn’t exist in the book world right now.
I guess you have a more positive view of people than I do, because I don’t believe there is any price point that would have satisfied most pirates AND still be able to pay artists any kind of decent wage for their work. Luckily in music people still pay for concerts and merchandise, but that doesn’t exist in the book world right now.
I guess you have a more positive view of people than I do, because I don’t believe there is any price point that would have satisfied most pirates AND still be able to pay artists any kind of decent wage for their work. Luckily in music people still pay for concerts and merchandise, but that doesn’t exist in the book world right now.
I guess you have a more positive view of people than I do, because I don’t believe there is any price point that would have satisfied most pirates AND still be able to pay artists any kind of decent wage for their work. Luckily in music people still pay for concerts and merchandise, but that doesn’t exist in the book world right now.
reynard, i absolutely agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here. really really fantastic thoughts and broken down a lot better than i managed yesterday. it’s true: the fact of the matter is that all these crocodile tears about ‘devaluing books’ (rupert murdoch is on the bandwagon now) is basically the industry saying to amazon “no fair, you’re a rouge agent in a system we work by match fixing”. and amazon is not the victim in this – it’s, as i said the other day, breaking the rules of a game that depends on a certain stable cheating – it’s cheating the cheaters and, in so doing, is exposing the reality of the imaginary logic behind this particular industry’s effort to turn a profit grab into the commonsense ‘fair’ price (not for ethical reasons, only to shore up the Kindle, but it doesn’t matter what the reasons are: the effect is the same, it still reveals the publishing industry’s freedom to drop prices in a way that ensures e-literature is sold at its lowest possible price). and it has come to a head now that apple has given the publishers a viable way out; before, to make any money, (in their terms), they needed to deal with amazon; apple has finally given them leverage, which is, of course, apple’s highly brilliant, highly manipulative strategy. it’s worth pointing out too that higher e-book prices dont translate into anything necessarily for authors. the best way for all authors to make more money – whether they sell big or sell small – isn’t by hiking prices but by giving them a higher percentage of the profits, a solid rate not a projected number. that is nowhere mentioned and nor will it ever be brought up in this, despite all the ‘concerned’ expressions by the publishers about the ‘devaluation’ of the book. to be honest, i partially think this is an attempt not only to shore up the losses on certain aspects of book selling – such as the shipping issues Reynard noted – but also an attempt to fix the market “worth” of bound books, which are – for all the crying and carrying on – still the fundamental source of profit for publishers. it is precisely the fact a file is worth next to nothing materially that worries them because people switching in increasing numbers to e-books means a sudden re-evaulation of what a bound book would be worth to them. and good. when did we become so conservative about the price of literature? back in the mid-nineties, there was a huge furious debate in australia about a goods and services tax the conservative government introduced. one of the things that caused a whole lot of anger was the fact the government didnt exempt books: for the first time in our history, there was a tax on the fundamental vehicle for the transmission of knowledge. book prices are staggeringly overbloated in this country and why? because the publishers exercise the same control over the transmission of bound books as they would in this model. my bet is – and if i’m wrong, i’m only too glad to be but i cant see from what i know why this would be any different – my best is you’ll see the price not only of e-books rise but also the price of bound books, as well as discounting become a non-event in e-books precisely because of this so-called granulated system of value. bound books are not granulated in value currently: they sustain “drops”, not slow declines. the hardcover is devalued by the paperback. the paperback is devalued by the second-hand vendors as well as by the decline of sales from the initial point of release in time. all of this factors in to why you get deals on books. not only can none of this happen under the macmillan model for e-books but it also poses questions about what exactly the future pricing of bound books will come to look like to. if we say that the short term aim is for the hiking of e-book prices to encourage people to contemplate the “worth” of buying bound books, there is no reason at all for the price of hardbacks to come down. the market is tilted on its head: while in theory the price deflation is exactly what should happen under market capital, what always happens in practice is the reverse: the market is fixed to shore up value not recalibrated to meet the new plane of competition. so even if e-books do eventually outstrip bound books, i dont there will be much incentive for their price to drop as they’ll still be taking up the so-called slack for bound books and will have already proven they can sell in big amounts at higher prices. hy change it? the other thing is too inflation over time is going to see the price of bound books increase. if there is a tethered system between e-books and bound books, the costs can only go up. i’ve looked at this and looked at this and really i cannot see a player in the whole affair who really gives two damns about author or reader’s rights. amazon, apple, macmillan, news ltd: not one of these have indie publishing at heart. and, in the end, say what you like about amazon, and all the shitty things about it are true, but the fact remains because of it i’m able to buy small press literature i really would have had almost zero chance of buying before. and it is the only big online book seller that consistently sells small press stuff. this is not a defence of it – but any dumping on amazon needs to be calibrated as to what it actually is or is not doing. simply knee-jerk hatred of it only winds up with a woeful bad-guys/better-guys model that just misconstrues the whole situation.
reynard, i absolutely agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here. really really fantastic thoughts and broken down a lot better than i managed yesterday. it’s true: the fact of the matter is that all these crocodile tears about ‘devaluing books’ (rupert murdoch is on the bandwagon now) is basically the industry saying to amazon “no fair, you’re a rouge agent in a system we work by match fixing”. and amazon is not the victim in this – it’s, as i said the other day, breaking the rules of a game that depends on a certain stable cheating – it’s cheating the cheaters and, in so doing, is exposing the reality of the imaginary logic behind this particular industry’s effort to turn a profit grab into the commonsense ‘fair’ price (not for ethical reasons, only to shore up the Kindle, but it doesn’t matter what the reasons are: the effect is the same, it still reveals the publishing industry’s freedom to drop prices in a way that ensures e-literature is sold at its lowest possible price). and it has come to a head now that apple has given the publishers a viable way out; before, to make any money, (in their terms), they needed to deal with amazon; apple has finally given them leverage, which is, of course, apple’s highly brilliant, highly manipulative strategy. it’s worth pointing out too that higher e-book prices dont translate into anything necessarily for authors. the best way for all authors to make more money – whether they sell big or sell small – isn’t by hiking prices but by giving them a higher percentage of the profits, a solid rate not a projected number. that is nowhere mentioned and nor will it ever be brought up in this, despite all the ‘concerned’ expressions by the publishers about the ‘devaluation’ of the book. to be honest, i partially think this is an attempt not only to shore up the losses on certain aspects of book selling – such as the shipping issues Reynard noted – but also an attempt to fix the market “worth” of bound books, which are – for all the crying and carrying on – still the fundamental source of profit for publishers. it is precisely the fact a file is worth next to nothing materially that worries them because people switching in increasing numbers to e-books means a sudden re-evaulation of what a bound book would be worth to them. and good. when did we become so conservative about the price of literature? back in the mid-nineties, there was a huge furious debate in australia about a goods and services tax the conservative government introduced. one of the things that caused a whole lot of anger was the fact the government didnt exempt books: for the first time in our history, there was a tax on the fundamental vehicle for the transmission of knowledge. book prices are staggeringly overbloated in this country and why? because the publishers exercise the same control over the transmission of bound books as they would in this model. my bet is – and if i’m wrong, i’m only too glad to be but i cant see from what i know why this would be any different – my best is you’ll see the price not only of e-books rise but also the price of bound books, as well as discounting become a non-event in e-books precisely because of this so-called granulated system of value. bound books are not granulated in value currently: they sustain “drops”, not slow declines. the hardcover is devalued by the paperback. the paperback is devalued by the second-hand vendors as well as by the decline of sales from the initial point of release in time. all of this factors in to why you get deals on books. not only can none of this happen under the macmillan model for e-books but it also poses questions about what exactly the future pricing of bound books will come to look like to. if we say that the short term aim is for the hiking of e-book prices to encourage people to contemplate the “worth” of buying bound books, there is no reason at all for the price of hardbacks to come down. the market is tilted on its head: while in theory the price deflation is exactly what should happen under market capital, what always happens in practice is the reverse: the market is fixed to shore up value not recalibrated to meet the new plane of competition. so even if e-books do eventually outstrip bound books, i dont there will be much incentive for their price to drop as they’ll still be taking up the so-called slack for bound books and will have already proven they can sell in big amounts at higher prices. hy change it? the other thing is too inflation over time is going to see the price of bound books increase. if there is a tethered system between e-books and bound books, the costs can only go up. i’ve looked at this and looked at this and really i cannot see a player in the whole affair who really gives two damns about author or reader’s rights. amazon, apple, macmillan, news ltd: not one of these have indie publishing at heart. and, in the end, say what you like about amazon, and all the shitty things about it are true, but the fact remains because of it i’m able to buy small press literature i really would have had almost zero chance of buying before. and it is the only big online book seller that consistently sells small press stuff. this is not a defence of it – but any dumping on amazon needs to be calibrated as to what it actually is or is not doing. simply knee-jerk hatred of it only winds up with a woeful bad-guys/better-guys model that just misconstrues the whole situation.
reynard, i absolutely agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here. really really fantastic thoughts and broken down a lot better than i managed yesterday. it’s true: the fact of the matter is that all these crocodile tears about ‘devaluing books’ (rupert murdoch is on the bandwagon now) is basically the industry saying to amazon “no fair, you’re a rouge agent in a system we work by match fixing”. and amazon is not the victim in this – it’s, as i said the other day, breaking the rules of a game that depends on a certain stable cheating – it’s cheating the cheaters and, in so doing, is exposing the reality of the imaginary logic behind this particular industry’s effort to turn a profit grab into the commonsense ‘fair’ price (not for ethical reasons, only to shore up the Kindle, but it doesn’t matter what the reasons are: the effect is the same, it still reveals the publishing industry’s freedom to drop prices in a way that ensures e-literature is sold at its lowest possible price). and it has come to a head now that apple has given the publishers a viable way out; before, to make any money, (in their terms), they needed to deal with amazon; apple has finally given them leverage, which is, of course, apple’s highly brilliant, highly manipulative strategy. it’s worth pointing out too that higher e-book prices dont translate into anything necessarily for authors. the best way for all authors to make more money – whether they sell big or sell small – isn’t by hiking prices but by giving them a higher percentage of the profits, a solid rate not a projected number. that is nowhere mentioned and nor will it ever be brought up in this, despite all the ‘concerned’ expressions by the publishers about the ‘devaluation’ of the book. to be honest, i partially think this is an attempt not only to shore up the losses on certain aspects of book selling – such as the shipping issues Reynard noted – but also an attempt to fix the market “worth” of bound books, which are – for all the crying and carrying on – still the fundamental source of profit for publishers. it is precisely the fact a file is worth next to nothing materially that worries them because people switching in increasing numbers to e-books means a sudden re-evaulation of what a bound book would be worth to them. and good. when did we become so conservative about the price of literature? back in the mid-nineties, there was a huge furious debate in australia about a goods and services tax the conservative government introduced. one of the things that caused a whole lot of anger was the fact the government didnt exempt books: for the first time in our history, there was a tax on the fundamental vehicle for the transmission of knowledge. book prices are staggeringly overbloated in this country and why? because the publishers exercise the same control over the transmission of bound books as they would in this model. my bet is – and if i’m wrong, i’m only too glad to be but i cant see from what i know why this would be any different – my best is you’ll see the price not only of e-books rise but also the price of bound books, as well as discounting become a non-event in e-books precisely because of this so-called granulated system of value. bound books are not granulated in value currently: they sustain “drops”, not slow declines. the hardcover is devalued by the paperback. the paperback is devalued by the second-hand vendors as well as by the decline of sales from the initial point of release in time. all of this factors in to why you get deals on books. not only can none of this happen under the macmillan model for e-books but it also poses questions about what exactly the future pricing of bound books will come to look like to. if we say that the short term aim is for the hiking of e-book prices to encourage people to contemplate the “worth” of buying bound books, there is no reason at all for the price of hardbacks to come down. the market is tilted on its head: while in theory the price deflation is exactly what should happen under market capital, what always happens in practice is the reverse: the market is fixed to shore up value not recalibrated to meet the new plane of competition. so even if e-books do eventually outstrip bound books, i dont there will be much incentive for their price to drop as they’ll still be taking up the so-called slack for bound books and will have already proven they can sell in big amounts at higher prices. hy change it? the other thing is too inflation over time is going to see the price of bound books increase. if there is a tethered system between e-books and bound books, the costs can only go up. i’ve looked at this and looked at this and really i cannot see a player in the whole affair who really gives two damns about author or reader’s rights. amazon, apple, macmillan, news ltd: not one of these have indie publishing at heart. and, in the end, say what you like about amazon, and all the shitty things about it are true, but the fact remains because of it i’m able to buy small press literature i really would have had almost zero chance of buying before. and it is the only big online book seller that consistently sells small press stuff. this is not a defence of it – but any dumping on amazon needs to be calibrated as to what it actually is or is not doing. simply knee-jerk hatred of it only winds up with a woeful bad-guys/better-guys model that just misconstrues the whole situation.
reynard, i absolutely agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here. really really fantastic thoughts and broken down a lot better than i managed yesterday. it’s true: the fact of the matter is that all these crocodile tears about ‘devaluing books’ (rupert murdoch is on the bandwagon now) is basically the industry saying to amazon “no fair, you’re a rouge agent in a system we work by match fixing”. and amazon is not the victim in this – it’s, as i said the other day, breaking the rules of a game that depends on a certain stable cheating – it’s cheating the cheaters and, in so doing, is exposing the reality of the imaginary logic behind this particular industry’s effort to turn a profit grab into the commonsense ‘fair’ price (not for ethical reasons, only to shore up the Kindle, but it doesn’t matter what the reasons are: the effect is the same, it still reveals the publishing industry’s freedom to drop prices in a way that ensures e-literature is sold at its lowest possible price). and it has come to a head now that apple has given the publishers a viable way out; before, to make any money, (in their terms), they needed to deal with amazon; apple has finally given them leverage, which is, of course, apple’s highly brilliant, highly manipulative strategy. it’s worth pointing out too that higher e-book prices dont translate into anything necessarily for authors. the best way for all authors to make more money – whether they sell big or sell small – isn’t by hiking prices but by giving them a higher percentage of the profits, a solid rate not a projected number. that is nowhere mentioned and nor will it ever be brought up in this, despite all the ‘concerned’ expressions by the publishers about the ‘devaluation’ of the book. to be honest, i partially think this is an attempt not only to shore up the losses on certain aspects of book selling – such as the shipping issues Reynard noted – but also an attempt to fix the market “worth” of bound books, which are – for all the crying and carrying on – still the fundamental source of profit for publishers. it is precisely the fact a file is worth next to nothing materially that worries them because people switching in increasing numbers to e-books means a sudden re-evaulation of what a bound book would be worth to them. and good. when did we become so conservative about the price of literature? back in the mid-nineties, there was a huge furious debate in australia about a goods and services tax the conservative government introduced. one of the things that caused a whole lot of anger was the fact the government didnt exempt books: for the first time in our history, there was a tax on the fundamental vehicle for the transmission of knowledge. book prices are staggeringly overbloated in this country and why? because the publishers exercise the same control over the transmission of bound books as they would in this model. my bet is – and if i’m wrong, i’m only too glad to be but i cant see from what i know why this would be any different – my best is you’ll see the price not only of e-books rise but also the price of bound books, as well as discounting become a non-event in e-books precisely because of this so-called granulated system of value. bound books are not granulated in value currently: they sustain “drops”, not slow declines. the hardcover is devalued by the paperback. the paperback is devalued by the second-hand vendors as well as by the decline of sales from the initial point of release in time. all of this factors in to why you get deals on books. not only can none of this happen under the macmillan model for e-books but it also poses questions about what exactly the future pricing of bound books will come to look like to. if we say that the short term aim is for the hiking of e-book prices to encourage people to contemplate the “worth” of buying bound books, there is no reason at all for the price of hardbacks to come down. the market is tilted on its head: while in theory the price deflation is exactly what should happen under market capital, what always happens in practice is the reverse: the market is fixed to shore up value not recalibrated to meet the new plane of competition. so even if e-books do eventually outstrip bound books, i dont there will be much incentive for their price to drop as they’ll still be taking up the so-called slack for bound books and will have already proven they can sell in big amounts at higher prices. hy change it? the other thing is too inflation over time is going to see the price of bound books increase. if there is a tethered system between e-books and bound books, the costs can only go up. i’ve looked at this and looked at this and really i cannot see a player in the whole affair who really gives two damns about author or reader’s rights. amazon, apple, macmillan, news ltd: not one of these have indie publishing at heart. and, in the end, say what you like about amazon, and all the shitty things about it are true, but the fact remains because of it i’m able to buy small press literature i really would have had almost zero chance of buying before. and it is the only big online book seller that consistently sells small press stuff. this is not a defence of it – but any dumping on amazon needs to be calibrated as to what it actually is or is not doing. simply knee-jerk hatred of it only winds up with a woeful bad-guys/better-guys model that just misconstrues the whole situation.
I happy you guys are having this conversation. It adds a lot of insight into both the conflict between Macmillan and Amazon, and to this digital age the publishing industry is trying to deal with. You guys really opened my mind to a lot, and I thank you for that.
I do wonder if there will ever come a point when these bigger companies will realize their struggles are directly related to their price point. Regardless of the amount of work (editing, proofing, promoting) that goes into the production of a book, I immediately assume that someone down the line is getting paid too much. I don’t know whether it’s Amazon or Macmillan or agencies et. al., but it’s both authors and readers that are hurt the most.
Either way, I don’t think you’ll see the same rampant piracy that happens in the music industry, because publishing is a beast of a different nature. Labels struggled so much not just because they priced themselves out of relevancy, but because pirating MP3s used to be so easy (back in the days of Kazaa and Napster). We’ve seen the movie industry struggle through piracy, but ultimately survive and (somewhat flourish)– I assume that’s because the average internet user has a harder time using torrents then they do Frostwire. Maybe I’m being optimistic, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare the publishing industry to the music industry for these reasons.
You know what honestly scares me the most about the Kindle and the iPad? The temporal nature of hardware. Over the last 6 or so years, I’ve been through 4 DVD players, 3 iPods, and 2 computers. I never needed to get a replacement power supply on Jesus’ Son. And I’m not sure I’m ready to start dealing with that issue.
I happy you guys are having this conversation. It adds a lot of insight into both the conflict between Macmillan and Amazon, and to this digital age the publishing industry is trying to deal with. You guys really opened my mind to a lot, and I thank you for that.
I do wonder if there will ever come a point when these bigger companies will realize their struggles are directly related to their price point. Regardless of the amount of work (editing, proofing, promoting) that goes into the production of a book, I immediately assume that someone down the line is getting paid too much. I don’t know whether it’s Amazon or Macmillan or agencies et. al., but it’s both authors and readers that are hurt the most.
Either way, I don’t think you’ll see the same rampant piracy that happens in the music industry, because publishing is a beast of a different nature. Labels struggled so much not just because they priced themselves out of relevancy, but because pirating MP3s used to be so easy (back in the days of Kazaa and Napster). We’ve seen the movie industry struggle through piracy, but ultimately survive and (somewhat flourish)– I assume that’s because the average internet user has a harder time using torrents then they do Frostwire. Maybe I’m being optimistic, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare the publishing industry to the music industry for these reasons.
You know what honestly scares me the most about the Kindle and the iPad? The temporal nature of hardware. Over the last 6 or so years, I’ve been through 4 DVD players, 3 iPods, and 2 computers. I never needed to get a replacement power supply on Jesus’ Son. And I’m not sure I’m ready to start dealing with that issue.
I happy you guys are having this conversation. It adds a lot of insight into both the conflict between Macmillan and Amazon, and to this digital age the publishing industry is trying to deal with. You guys really opened my mind to a lot, and I thank you for that.
I do wonder if there will ever come a point when these bigger companies will realize their struggles are directly related to their price point. Regardless of the amount of work (editing, proofing, promoting) that goes into the production of a book, I immediately assume that someone down the line is getting paid too much. I don’t know whether it’s Amazon or Macmillan or agencies et. al., but it’s both authors and readers that are hurt the most.
Either way, I don’t think you’ll see the same rampant piracy that happens in the music industry, because publishing is a beast of a different nature. Labels struggled so much not just because they priced themselves out of relevancy, but because pirating MP3s used to be so easy (back in the days of Kazaa and Napster). We’ve seen the movie industry struggle through piracy, but ultimately survive and (somewhat flourish)– I assume that’s because the average internet user has a harder time using torrents then they do Frostwire. Maybe I’m being optimistic, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare the publishing industry to the music industry for these reasons.
You know what honestly scares me the most about the Kindle and the iPad? The temporal nature of hardware. Over the last 6 or so years, I’ve been through 4 DVD players, 3 iPods, and 2 computers. I never needed to get a replacement power supply on Jesus’ Son. And I’m not sure I’m ready to start dealing with that issue.
I happy you guys are having this conversation. It adds a lot of insight into both the conflict between Macmillan and Amazon, and to this digital age the publishing industry is trying to deal with. You guys really opened my mind to a lot, and I thank you for that.
I do wonder if there will ever come a point when these bigger companies will realize their struggles are directly related to their price point. Regardless of the amount of work (editing, proofing, promoting) that goes into the production of a book, I immediately assume that someone down the line is getting paid too much. I don’t know whether it’s Amazon or Macmillan or agencies et. al., but it’s both authors and readers that are hurt the most.
Either way, I don’t think you’ll see the same rampant piracy that happens in the music industry, because publishing is a beast of a different nature. Labels struggled so much not just because they priced themselves out of relevancy, but because pirating MP3s used to be so easy (back in the days of Kazaa and Napster). We’ve seen the movie industry struggle through piracy, but ultimately survive and (somewhat flourish)– I assume that’s because the average internet user has a harder time using torrents then they do Frostwire. Maybe I’m being optimistic, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare the publishing industry to the music industry for these reasons.
You know what honestly scares me the most about the Kindle and the iPad? The temporal nature of hardware. Over the last 6 or so years, I’ve been through 4 DVD players, 3 iPods, and 2 computers. I never needed to get a replacement power supply on Jesus’ Son. And I’m not sure I’m ready to start dealing with that issue.
Used to be easy? i’d say it is far easier today than ever before.
Used to be easy? i’d say it is far easier today than ever before.
Used to be easy? i’d say it is far easier today than ever before.
Used to be easy? i’d say it is far easier today than ever before.
I honestly don’t know what the kids are using these days to download mp3s. I still have Soulseek, which is probably archaic by now.
I honestly don’t know what the kids are using these days to download mp3s. I still have Soulseek, which is probably archaic by now.
I honestly don’t know what the kids are using these days to download mp3s. I still have Soulseek, which is probably archaic by now.
I honestly don’t know what the kids are using these days to download mp3s. I still have Soulseek, which is probably archaic by now.
mark, you can get almost anything by googling the name and putting some variation of rar, rapidshare, megaupload, or media fire at the end of it. soulseek sucks now.
as far as i can tell, music companies have to decide which albums are worth going through the trouble of taking off these file sharing sites. if they have a new album coming out by an artist, they sometimes promote the album by allowing older ones to be downloaded illegally, even, at times, commenting on the blog posts with some kind of promotion for what isn’t available illegally.
i’m glad you got something out of the conversation.
i agree with you on the piracy thing. books are a different beast altogether. but it will happen, i think. i mean, it already does, all the time. you can search for popular books and easily find them in ebook format right now. also, who knows where the whole google books thing will lead. that of course is a whole other can of worms, especially because i firmly believe in the library system, at the same time it’s different because libraries buy books.
i also agree that it’s going to be a while before the ereader thing actually takes off, maybe five years or so, because right now i’ve only seen maybe three or four people with kindles and i live in a tech-happy area. i don’t know anyone in real life who owns one. but they’ll get cheaper.
lincoln, it is sad that that sort of thing (concerts & merch, etc) doesn’t exist for books, aside from like, literary death match, rumpus events, and maybe a few other things. of course, you’re way more likely to sell books at readings so it’s like, sort of there, but not on the same level certainly. too bad.
mark, you can get almost anything by googling the name and putting some variation of rar, rapidshare, megaupload, or media fire at the end of it. soulseek sucks now.
as far as i can tell, music companies have to decide which albums are worth going through the trouble of taking off these file sharing sites. if they have a new album coming out by an artist, they sometimes promote the album by allowing older ones to be downloaded illegally, even, at times, commenting on the blog posts with some kind of promotion for what isn’t available illegally.
i’m glad you got something out of the conversation.
i agree with you on the piracy thing. books are a different beast altogether. but it will happen, i think. i mean, it already does, all the time. you can search for popular books and easily find them in ebook format right now. also, who knows where the whole google books thing will lead. that of course is a whole other can of worms, especially because i firmly believe in the library system, at the same time it’s different because libraries buy books.
i also agree that it’s going to be a while before the ereader thing actually takes off, maybe five years or so, because right now i’ve only seen maybe three or four people with kindles and i live in a tech-happy area. i don’t know anyone in real life who owns one. but they’ll get cheaper.
lincoln, it is sad that that sort of thing (concerts & merch, etc) doesn’t exist for books, aside from like, literary death match, rumpus events, and maybe a few other things. of course, you’re way more likely to sell books at readings so it’s like, sort of there, but not on the same level certainly. too bad.
mark, you can get almost anything by googling the name and putting some variation of rar, rapidshare, megaupload, or media fire at the end of it. soulseek sucks now.
as far as i can tell, music companies have to decide which albums are worth going through the trouble of taking off these file sharing sites. if they have a new album coming out by an artist, they sometimes promote the album by allowing older ones to be downloaded illegally, even, at times, commenting on the blog posts with some kind of promotion for what isn’t available illegally.
i’m glad you got something out of the conversation.
i agree with you on the piracy thing. books are a different beast altogether. but it will happen, i think. i mean, it already does, all the time. you can search for popular books and easily find them in ebook format right now. also, who knows where the whole google books thing will lead. that of course is a whole other can of worms, especially because i firmly believe in the library system, at the same time it’s different because libraries buy books.
i also agree that it’s going to be a while before the ereader thing actually takes off, maybe five years or so, because right now i’ve only seen maybe three or four people with kindles and i live in a tech-happy area. i don’t know anyone in real life who owns one. but they’ll get cheaper.
lincoln, it is sad that that sort of thing (concerts & merch, etc) doesn’t exist for books, aside from like, literary death match, rumpus events, and maybe a few other things. of course, you’re way more likely to sell books at readings so it’s like, sort of there, but not on the same level certainly. too bad.
mark, you can get almost anything by googling the name and putting some variation of rar, rapidshare, megaupload, or media fire at the end of it. soulseek sucks now.
as far as i can tell, music companies have to decide which albums are worth going through the trouble of taking off these file sharing sites. if they have a new album coming out by an artist, they sometimes promote the album by allowing older ones to be downloaded illegally, even, at times, commenting on the blog posts with some kind of promotion for what isn’t available illegally.
i’m glad you got something out of the conversation.
i agree with you on the piracy thing. books are a different beast altogether. but it will happen, i think. i mean, it already does, all the time. you can search for popular books and easily find them in ebook format right now. also, who knows where the whole google books thing will lead. that of course is a whole other can of worms, especially because i firmly believe in the library system, at the same time it’s different because libraries buy books.
i also agree that it’s going to be a while before the ereader thing actually takes off, maybe five years or so, because right now i’ve only seen maybe three or four people with kindles and i live in a tech-happy area. i don’t know anyone in real life who owns one. but they’ll get cheaper.
lincoln, it is sad that that sort of thing (concerts & merch, etc) doesn’t exist for books, aside from like, literary death match, rumpus events, and maybe a few other things. of course, you’re way more likely to sell books at readings so it’s like, sort of there, but not on the same level certainly. too bad.
david, i also agree with pretty much everything you said. and it’s true what you said about amazon. my only complaint with them is that, like wal-mart, they don’t promote healthy business practices. they don’t care about their clients’ growth. they just want to squeeze everything they can from them. publishers won’t go out of their way to say this, they might not even say it if you ask, but behind closed doors they ALL hate amazon, even the big guys.
david, i also agree with pretty much everything you said. and it’s true what you said about amazon. my only complaint with them is that, like wal-mart, they don’t promote healthy business practices. they don’t care about their clients’ growth. they just want to squeeze everything they can from them. publishers won’t go out of their way to say this, they might not even say it if you ask, but behind closed doors they ALL hate amazon, even the big guys.
david, i also agree with pretty much everything you said. and it’s true what you said about amazon. my only complaint with them is that, like wal-mart, they don’t promote healthy business practices. they don’t care about their clients’ growth. they just want to squeeze everything they can from them. publishers won’t go out of their way to say this, they might not even say it if you ask, but behind closed doors they ALL hate amazon, even the big guys.
david, i also agree with pretty much everything you said. and it’s true what you said about amazon. my only complaint with them is that, like wal-mart, they don’t promote healthy business practices. they don’t care about their clients’ growth. they just want to squeeze everything they can from them. publishers won’t go out of their way to say this, they might not even say it if you ask, but behind closed doors they ALL hate amazon, even the big guys.
couldn’t agree more, reynard. amazon is totally pathological when it comes to protecting its market monopoly. i shed no tears for it or wal-mart and their asshole actions because, in the end, it’s the whole contract with people (whether their workers or their customers) that eventually turns to shit. sure, $10 e-books looks good comparatively but if amazon were the only player in town, they’d never get lower than that, as if that were the natural ‘worth’. but the closed door loathing of amazon you mention: it’s exactly that universal hatred of the company i find so intriguing. not because it’s wrong, or unfair, but because for publishers to hate a seller like this is unusual and it is a ‘tip off’ as to the wider, stunted logic of the publishing industry itself. amazon gets that monopoly is the name of the book game. what it doesn’t get, however, is that you’re not meant to monopolize the monopolizers. hence the hatred. thanks for your clarifying remarks on this above, it helped me sort a lot of what i was trying to get at in my head.
couldn’t agree more, reynard. amazon is totally pathological when it comes to protecting its market monopoly. i shed no tears for it or wal-mart and their asshole actions because, in the end, it’s the whole contract with people (whether their workers or their customers) that eventually turns to shit. sure, $10 e-books looks good comparatively but if amazon were the only player in town, they’d never get lower than that, as if that were the natural ‘worth’. but the closed door loathing of amazon you mention: it’s exactly that universal hatred of the company i find so intriguing. not because it’s wrong, or unfair, but because for publishers to hate a seller like this is unusual and it is a ‘tip off’ as to the wider, stunted logic of the publishing industry itself. amazon gets that monopoly is the name of the book game. what it doesn’t get, however, is that you’re not meant to monopolize the monopolizers. hence the hatred. thanks for your clarifying remarks on this above, it helped me sort a lot of what i was trying to get at in my head.
couldn’t agree more, reynard. amazon is totally pathological when it comes to protecting its market monopoly. i shed no tears for it or wal-mart and their asshole actions because, in the end, it’s the whole contract with people (whether their workers or their customers) that eventually turns to shit. sure, $10 e-books looks good comparatively but if amazon were the only player in town, they’d never get lower than that, as if that were the natural ‘worth’. but the closed door loathing of amazon you mention: it’s exactly that universal hatred of the company i find so intriguing. not because it’s wrong, or unfair, but because for publishers to hate a seller like this is unusual and it is a ‘tip off’ as to the wider, stunted logic of the publishing industry itself. amazon gets that monopoly is the name of the book game. what it doesn’t get, however, is that you’re not meant to monopolize the monopolizers. hence the hatred. thanks for your clarifying remarks on this above, it helped me sort a lot of what i was trying to get at in my head.
Amazon. Sheesh. Somebody should go over there and do something ridiculous as retaliation. You know, like write a bunch of silly comments about a crystal gavel or something.
Amazon. Sheesh. Somebody should go over there and do something ridiculous as retaliation. You know, like write a bunch of silly comments about a crystal gavel or something.