How Amazon's Ebook Subscriptions Are Changing the Writing Industry 250
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon is now offering an ebook subscription service — $9.99/month gets you access to 700,000 titles, both self-published and traditionally published. The funds are gathered together, Amazon takes its cut, and the rest is divided up based on how many times a given book was read.
Some authors like it, and some don't, but John Scalzi pointed out that this business model is notable for being different from how the writing industry has worked in the past: "[T]he thing to actively dislike about the Kindle Unlimited 'payment from a pot' plan is the fact that it and any other plan like it absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game. In traditional publishing, your success as an author does not limit my success — the potential pool of money is so large as to be effectively unlimited, and one's payment is independent of any other purchase a consumer might make, or what any other reader might read.
In the traditional publishing model, it's in my interest to encourage readers to read other authors, because people who read more buy more books — the proverbial tide lifts all boats. In the Kindle Unlimited model, the more authors you and everyone else reads, the less I can potentially earn. And ultimately, there's a cap on how much I can earn — a cap imposed by Amazon, or whoever else is in charge of the 'pot.'"
Some authors like it, and some don't, but John Scalzi pointed out that this business model is notable for being different from how the writing industry has worked in the past: "[T]he thing to actively dislike about the Kindle Unlimited 'payment from a pot' plan is the fact that it and any other plan like it absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game. In traditional publishing, your success as an author does not limit my success — the potential pool of money is so large as to be effectively unlimited, and one's payment is independent of any other purchase a consumer might make, or what any other reader might read.
In the traditional publishing model, it's in my interest to encourage readers to read other authors, because people who read more buy more books — the proverbial tide lifts all boats. In the Kindle Unlimited model, the more authors you and everyone else reads, the less I can potentially earn. And ultimately, there's a cap on how much I can earn — a cap imposed by Amazon, or whoever else is in charge of the 'pot.'"
Rubbish (Score:2, Insightful)
"Absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game"
Um, no - the more readers, the more money. It's not zero sum at all from the writers' point of view.
Of course, back in the old days, people often curled up in a chair and read eight good books simultaneously; writers didn't compete with each other for readers' time and dollars at all.
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Share per item to author, to seller... (Score:5, Interesting)
Authors have long suffered the publishers pay them a misery compared to what they earn. I have published very little, and via my university (which means, very little distribution but relatively very good terms). I get 10% of the sales. In the "real world", maybe a third of that is normal.
Now, Amazon is continuing to pay the authors the same 3%. But not only no exchange of tangible goods happens, now we the readers also pay Amazon for the book-of-all-books (that is, the Kindle). Yes, some people will use the Kindle store to read on the computer, tablet or whatnot, but it's definitively a lesser experience.
So anyway, Amazon is still paying something to the publishers (except, of course, for Amazon Direct published works). But given the goods themselves "cost" no money, they are getting *way* more than by selling books — Of course, the authors would prefer their income to increase proportionally as well.
Not shrink proportionally.
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Wasn't there some kind of study that when people were presented with a positive choice that favors someone else, and a negative choice that is "fair" they choose the negative (e.g. I will give you a dollar, but I give all of your friends two dollars, or I give no-one any money).?
Re:Share per item to author, to seller... (Score:4, Interesting)
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"Absolutely and unambiguously make writing and publishing a zero-sum game"
Um, no - the more readers, the more money. It's not zero sum at all from the writers' point of view.
Actually, it always was a zero-sum game within any given pool of readers. Each individual has some amount of money that they are willing to spend buying books, and if they buy one author's books, it reduces the available funds that can be used to buy another author's books. The subscription model that Amazon is adopting changes the model by paying authors , not when their work is purchased, but when it is read. This changes the way a book is valued by its author; previously, once the book was sold, the aut
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This guy is a (sic)moreon..... (Score:2)
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*headdesk* Scalzi is certainly smarter than you.
Readers read more. The more you get somebody to read, the more of their income they're probably going to spend on books. I've seen it, I've lived it. So encouraging people to read other, similar authors is good for you too! They'll probably buy more books in total, including yours. Maybe would have just bought one of yours. Now they buy three of somebody else's and two of yours. That's a win for you!
In the end, all of life is a zero sum game. But in context,
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I think you missed his context. He was saying that in the past encouraging your own readers to check out other writers works benefited the whole market, whereas now it will dilute the fixed contribution that reader is making over more authors. I have trouble believing that a subscription model is going to bring more people into reading. If someone doesn't read are they really likely to start with a $10 subscr
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I think you are glossing over a not insignificant group that reads books, but doesn't pay. Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Spotify have proven that if it is cheap enough and convenient enough, many people who previously chose illicit methods can be converted to paying customers.
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If the pool is greater than $0, it's a positive sum game for the authors.
If Amazon behaves economically rationally, the pool size should increase with the number of readers.
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Take a look a Netflix as counter example and you could see why it might be worse for the authors.
Before Netflix people would spend large amounts of money building up their DVD library. After Netflix, people would pay a flat rate to rent movies – often lower than what they were paying to build their video library. Thus the overall poll of money spent fell. The the financial recession was a crucial point – people were forced to start renting from Netflix, Amazon, etc. in mass and found that it was
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Do you spend $120 a year on books?
Yes. But I also KEEP and REREAD my books. So I ammortize out the cost of the book over multiple years. Hell, I have books I've been reading for 20-30 years! $5.99/360=1.663 cents/month.
And, if I don't buy another book this month, I still have all the books I've already read. They don't get taken away from me until I pay my sub again.
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Amortising the cost doesn't decrease it, it just spreads it over a period of time. If you're spending more money buying books than on 'renting' them then it costs more regardless of how you choose to account for it. I'll keep buying physical books but not because I have delusions that it is cheaper; I've got an irrational desire to own paper books and prefer reading them to using a screen.
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You just pointed out the fallacy of your argument. Libraries.
Libraries have allowed multiple people to read a variety of authors works while only paying the authors once, and yet the publishing industry has continued to survive. I see nothing that different from a Library and Amazon's setup, except well read authors will continuously receive payments, so in fact they are getting a net gain.
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Although amazon subscription and a public library have very similar models (except for the monthly/yearly fee for amazon), the reality of using them is very different.
On Amazon, you can read one of the subscribed books at any time you want with a few clicks or taps. With a public library, you have to reserve the book (there are fewer copies than amazon) many days in advance. When the other patron has returned the book, you have to physically go to
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for one month it's kinda zero sum..
there's only a set number of money in the pool from the set number of subscribers and they read what they read.
in the old one, the reader might have bought both of your books... and in the new one, no, the reader will only spend 10 bucks / month. - that is the "zero" sum, the sum doesn't depend on if people read two books from you and one from your competitor. there's no monthly variation if the reader wanted to read books from both authors.
Re:Rubbish (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't know the basics of how Kindle works, why are you posting so authoritatively on the subject?
Re:Rubbish (Score:4, Interesting)
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Someone should tell Brandon Sanderson before he finishes the Stormlight Archive. At his current trajectory, the last book in the series may be 10k pages.
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To be fair, that model is rewarded in the traditional publishing world, too. Nobody will write "War and Peace" again. Instead it'd be "War" and "Peace."
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As an author, this right there would be much more interesting than a new revenue model. If I knew that x% of readers stop around page 50, I knew where to look towards improving my writing.
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A Consumer's opinions OUGHT to be the authority on that consumer's consumption.
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Good and bad read is subjective. The amount paid should be based on the full retail price of the book. If Amazon is paying a fixed $X for Y number of pages or Z% of the book, that's obviously a crap model. Paperback novels cost $8-$29 and technical books cost $50-$150. If the reader reads only 50% of each type of book, shouldn't there be a difference on how much the tech book author is paid versus the nov
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The crappy authors get paid less for having their books read than the successful author.
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However, I think they'll need to be more careful in accounting; otherwise a "popular" book that nobody actually reads may walk away with the lion's share of the income.
Fortunately for Amazon, the Kindle stores a terrifying amount of information about how you read a book. They could pay authors for the number of pages a reader spent more than a minute on if they wanted to.
Rose the tide in other industry. Buy my book, get (Score:5, Interesting)
In another industry I was closely involved in, this approach significantly increased total revenue. Instead of saying "buy my book for $20", the author can say "get my book and 70,000 others for just $20". Which do you think generates more sales?
In the very successful implementations, the amount paid out was based not just on which content was most viewed, but which generated sales via something like an affiliate code. There may be smaller content which many people will click if it's free, but nobody bought a subscription in order to see that content. Others, such as TAOCP, may have fewer viewers, but those viewers bought the subscription specifically to read TAOCP. TAOCP would be rewarded for bringing buyers.
Yes, that was a problem. Not unsolveable (Score:2)
> Write a bad book, but find a way to get people to download your book, and you make money, even if most readers stop at page 10.
That WAS a problem in the successful businesses I worked with using this model. Not necessarily an unsolvable problem, but a problem. A trivial partial solution is to require reader ratings of at least X to get a share, or a rating of at least Y to get a higher share.
it's the old shopping mall strategy (Score:2)
No different from music publishing (Score:3)
How is Kindle Unlimited any different from Spotify or any of the other online streaming music services in terms of how royalties are paid?
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Encouraging quality (Score:2)
Re:Encouraging quality (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember the saying "bad money drives out good"? People will horde their genuine currency and try to pass off counterfeits as quickly as possible to the next sucker. Same as people now are selling Rubles for Euros and Dollars.
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I know we don't RTFA arounf here, but authors don't get paid when the book is downloaded, they get paid when someone reads at least 10% of the book.
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Re:Encouraging quality (Score:4, Interesting)
Fair enough. However, lets say I just bulk downloaded 25 books by Mr. Hack Writer, and I read enough of the first book to determine it is, for me, crap. I'm still going to delete all 25 books, and one read is all he will score from me. On the other hand, if I like an author I tend to plow through a bunch of their books. Good military sci-fi (don't judge) seems to come in series and I will often read a dozen books by one author. The bad writer will not get zero, but the good writer will still get a much greater reward.
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Good military sci-fi (don't judge)
Who on /. hates good sci-fi? Fantasy, on the other hand ...
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You shouldn't pay out more for getting your 5 100 page books read than you do for a read of a 500 page epic. If anything it should be the epic that gets the higher payout. It takes longer and is more difficult to write a quality epic novel than a few quick reads.
Re:Encouraging quality (Score:4, Interesting)
I know we don't RTFA arounf here, but authors don't get paid when the book is downloaded, they get paid when someone reads at least 10% of the book.
Parents point still stands: I published on Amazon. I've still got a collection of short stories on Amazon. To game this system all I have to do is publish all my short stories as different books. Instead of one 40k word book that might get read 10% through, I can have 7 smaller "books" that will almost certainly hold the reader for 10% of each book.
The flat fee incentivises the wrong thing - it provides an incentive for crappy authors and/or crappy books to join en masse. The payoff is so small that any popular author (Stephen King, Pratchett, etc) will be stupid to join. The popular authors *are* the draw, and people who have paid the flat-fee will still shell out extra to get the popular author's latest work if it isn't in the flat-fee library.
So, this model incentivises crap being included and masterpieces being excluded - why do you think that you will see anything different in practice?
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I imagine if I were a "popular" author I would put my older, lesser producing works into a service like this. Let someone who recognizes your name but has never read your books read something that represents your style, but isn't your current top moneymaker. Then if they decide "hey, this Stephen King fella is actually pretty good" they can buy your other works individually.
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I got hooked on a fantasy series by somebody I'd never heard of because they made the first book available for $0. "Meh, for free, I'll give it a whirl!" After that I paid full price for the other 5 books.
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Was it mentioned if an author has to put ALL of their books into this service? I can't tell you how many times a friend loaned me the first book in a series and I bought the rest. If you put 1/3rd of your catalog into a service like this and people are exposed to your work, then they may buy the stuff that isn't in this service. It's just another form of advertising, only this one pays you instead of the other way around.
Library Alternative (Score:2)
What difference? (Score:2)
In the traditional publishing model, it's in my interest to encourage readers to read other authors, because people who read more buy more books â" the proverbial tide lifts all boats. In the Kindle Unlimited model, the more authors you and everyone else reads, the less I can potentially earn
Under the traditional model, how are those readers reading other books? Library? Purchase?
If it's the library - the reader isn't paying for the other book, but probably not the author's book either. These readers don't matter.
If it's purchased ... well, that's $5~10 that's not spent on the author's own books.
Even without KU, there's less "potential earnings" when recommending other authors. So KU does not make the book market more or less zero-sum.
So it's a library except digital with monthly fees (Score:2)
I don't see why authors should feel threatened by Amazon's subscription model for books? In the case of books and other publications, our government has been funding repositories for the physical printed works so anyone can read as many of them as they like at NO additional cost -- and this has been the case for many, many years.
As a general rule, I think people who actually buy their own copies of books only do so with a very select group of them they consider so good, they might want to read them over an
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According the the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/technology/amazon-offers-all-you-can-eat-books-authors-turn-up-noses.html), authors who make their works available via Kindle Unlimited are experiencing income drops some in excess of 75%. So unless Amazon changes the model, authors' income is threatened and KU is doomed to fail. The exodus has already started and Amazon really has nothing more to entice authors to allow their works to be distributed through it.
Re: So it's a library except digital with monthly (Score:2)
If 1/50 people write one book in their life, and 1/50 of them are good, and all of them get published because there is zero barrier to entry, we would have so many more books that were good than we do now.
People have more free time and better access to distribution than before. You're not entitled to your streetlamp lighting job, you know.
Re: So it's a library except digital with monthly (Score:2)
Libraries have scarcity built in. In the case of physical copies, this is obvious. If they want more of a popular book, they have to buy more copies. I've definitely gotten sick of waiting in the past and just bought the book I was waiting for.
Even the digital library systems have artificial scarcity and time limits built in. At least the ones I've encountered. But as the library is effectively the customer of books, they've always had to pay for them. The writer and publisher always got their cut.
Amazon is
Invalid logic (Score:4, Interesting)
It does change the industry. It is no longer a function of publishers to pick the winners but a function of readers. Everyone can publish. I don't know if Amazon considers reader ratings in their pot distribution but they should.
"Tradition?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Writing has changed a lot over the years.
When Homer (or at least whoever copied him down) and Plato and Vergil and Cicero wrote, an author published (divulgavit = made common or public; publicavit = threw open to the public, also used of public confiscation of private property and of prostitution; in lucem edidit = gave into the light of life) by making a work available for anyone to hear, listen to, or copy. It wasn't paid through sales, but rather supported for by patronage (the rich supported the arts) or own's own income from other sources. It wasn't about profit, and making copies (and making copies available) was a virtuous endeavor also supported by the rich. Manuscript subscriptions (like "Emendavi ego Dracontius") tell scholars who in late antiquity edited copies and recopied them for the benefit of others. This virtue continued to be practiced by monks through the middle ages, who copied older works and wrote new ones and disseminated both across Europe through networks of borrowing and lending that were the key to sustaining and maintaining written culture: we would have no literature from antiquity or the middle ages without the Church's non-profit model of supporting literature through copying and patronage. While books became precious commodities as writing materials grew scarce (while papyrus, bast, and other writing materials were used even for wrapping fish in antiquity, it took a flock of sheep to make a physical book in the middle ages) the "intellectual property" was not regarded as such, but rather as the common inheritance of humanity (the patrimonium humanitatis). Carmina (songs and poetry) and prose alike were no one person's intellectual property: the author could be praised by name, or he could hide under a monk's anonymity, but it wasn't even conceivable that he could restrict the further publication of his works. The Church could try to burn heretical material, just as Roman emperors had tried, but copies often survived somewhere and were recopied; but restricting intellectual property wasn't even a consideration.
Then, in the late middle ages, came Cathedral schools and the first universities, and students began paying to copy books themselves for classes. When the printing press and paper came to Europe, the idea of the privilegium, or exclusive right to furnish copies, was already in place, and books could be issued under copyright. Some authors began to profit from their books, but more often publishing houses did. Songs were still common material, and people sang what they learned without fear of legal retribution. Many authors disapproved of the copyright of privilegium: Erasmus, in a 1586 letter to Jacopo Sadoleto, complains of the copyright (backed by threat of excommunication) given to the Francesco Giulio Calvo: "But since Calvo's publishing house cannot supply copies to all parts of the world, it would be a serious blow to scholarship, in my opinion, if a book of such importance could be obtained only from a single Roman publisher." Books were sometimes copied without privilegium or even against the privilegium of another publishing house, and some authors clung to the tradition of making their work truly public.
Then came the twentieth century and the "Culture Industry" (a term coined by Western Marxists like the Frankfurt School, who despised mass or "low" culture). What had been "culture" and "literature" for ornamenting the soul and improving the mind became "content" to generate revenue streams, mass-produced by division of labor instead of genius and careful cultivation. Although electronic distribution through computers designed to reproduce and spread information meant that books and songs and new forms of art like movies could be distributed for free -- no flocks of sheep required -- nevertheless, pirating an .mp3 of Britney Spears or a copy of that new North Korea movie or some godawful e-book will get you a stiffer sentence than if you shoplifted a copy from the store. The irony is that much of what is now peddled by the "culture industry" is utter crap compared to Homer and Vergil, who never charged a dime.
Now an author complains, because he's paid for the content he produced and has to compete with others who are also producing. He'd like simply to be paid for being a writer, no matter how little he's read. He wants the profit of the for-profit market without the competition, because that's "traditional" and somehow more fair. The Western tradition of literature is far older than his idea of "tradition." If he wants real tradition, let him produce his works for free to be copied for free by whoever wants them, like the Greeks and Romans and all of medieval Europe and even some authors of the Renaissance. If he wants to market his work and retain copyright, then let him face the competition of the market. But if he wants ensured income without competition, that is private profit without risk, he's in the same boat as the banks who want to socialize their risk while privatizing profit. That's a boat that can sink, as far as I'm concerned.
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Nice history lesson. Thank-you!
I will say that Amazon has a long history of being self-interested scuzzes. The work involved in creating a decent book can be measured in the tens of hundreds of hours, and it is not at all unreasonable for a hard working author to want to receive enough compensation from his or her work to at least offset the cost of living, -like any other working person.
I have no problem with that.
If information wants to be free, then that's fine, but at some point if the tens of h
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Mr. Coward, that was excellently written and informative. Thank you!
Re:"Tradition?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Not bad, up to the last paragraph. Scalzi is used to competing with other demands for the readers' money, and is not asking to be paid for nothing. He'd like to be paid every time somebody buys "Redshirts" or something in the Human War series. This is competition in the market. I have no idea how you could possibly have misinterpreted him that badly.
What he is complaining about is that he would be put in direct competition with all other authors, and that the amount he would be paid would be capped by another entity. Currently, he benefits by people buying his books, whether or not they buy anybody else's. With this model, if somebody read one of his books and no other that month, he'd make $X, while if said person read one of his books and one of somebody else's books that month, he'd make $X/2. In the traditional model, he'd make $Y if somebody bought one of his books, regardless of anything else the reader did that month. Similarly, in the traditional model, if he wrote something that sold like the Harry Potter series, he could make any amount of money. (Rowling is reportedly a billionaire.) In this model, he'd make a certain chunk of what Amazon had allocated.
In other words, Scalzi wants to compete in an open market, where he can succeed or fail along with others, and where he can potentially make a whole lot of money. That's a boat that should float, as far as I'm concerned.
iBooks (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just iTunes, but for books. The book industry was just a little slower to go digital. They will go, kicking and screaming, but they will go. And the result will be a win for consumers, and even a win for authors (maybe except for the few who are household names).
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I wasn't aware that iTunes offered an all-you-can-eat access to music.
Um, Libraries? (Score:2)
Where, exactly, is Amazon's Unlimited plan effectively much different from a Library? Oh other than the fact authors will be getting continuous revenue, rather than only being paid for a few copies to fill the library's shelves.
Yet somehow writers managed to profit and thrive, even as libraries allowed anyone who wished to walk in and read all their works for free.
Rather than turn publishing into a zero-sum game and Scalzi believes, it appears to me that Amazon has turned the idea of a library into a new r
I love Shashdotters, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love Slashdot and Slashdotters. But in this case I'm kind of taken back by the responses.
Being married to an Author and knowing many, many authors, I can point out a few things:
Most authors, beyond the "super big names" struggle to make even a moderate living off of their books. When these folks try out a new system like the Amazon plan, and they find the are making less, we're not talking about folks who used to make 3 million, now only making 2.5 million. We're talking about someone who might be making for example 30k per yea,r making so much less that they are forced to cease writing as a vocation.. It's directly impactful, and the impact is not tied to quality of the book. Rather, the impact is books with catchy titles and sales pitches getting more downloads and making more money, regardless of quality. "hey, it's free, I'll click that since there's no downside to me for doing so." This leads to other books making less of the allotted bucket of funds. When spending money on books, folks tend to check reviews, read the sample download or use various criteria to filter down their selection to what they enjoy reading. So better books get rewarded. With the new plan, shotgun approaches become the norm.
Lets try it another way. Say tomorrow, there was one major store through which the majority of all software (personal, business, etc.) and all IT services (Ops, support, admin, etc, each treated as a service ticket item) were offered and the owners of that store decided "Forget what people pay today for software and services, we'll sell them anything and everything for $10 a month and just divvy up profits as we see fit, And we'll do it without reporting to anyone how the process works or what actual counts occurred, we'll just send them a check."
How would you feel about that when it was your app that you worked for a year and you usually make about $50k per year. But now when another app AngryBirds sells 30 million copies, your get a check for $5 for the month for your app despite people still downloading downloading it because statistically it's insignificant?
Or how about your IT job that you now get paid 1$ per service ticket because a billion other service tickets get processed as well? Did you enjoy working all day for $20?
While it's easy to assume that anything cheaper is better, remember to take into account that the cheaper may be coming at the actual workers pocket. I'd expected to see Slashdotters more upset at the middleman holding the actual workers over a barrel.
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Re: I love Shashdotters, but.... (Score:2)
Yeah, but this system is taking that sales part away. Books take time to read, and the alotment of funds comes out of a small fixed pool. Where once an author would be able to hustle and just make sure they were good and that people knew about their new work, this pool makes sure that they take less away. Exposure means a lot less with a system like this. The great writers draw people in, and the crap writers get an equal cut of the pie.
And then these authors WILL get new jobsâ"as you suggestâ"and
I'm failing to see the problem here... (Score:3)
I'm sorry, but I don't see a problem here... Amazon has made participation in KU completely optional. If Amazon, say, made KU mandatory in order to have your book available on Kindle at all, there might be something to complain about.
But since there IS no such requirement, if you, Author or Publisher, feel you'll make less money via KU vs. only offering stand-alone copies, then don't participate.
The movie industry hardly seems to be dying despite the fact most movies aren't available on NetFlix streaming.
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You are still free to start your own online retailer
And free to get crushed by Amazon. There's no competing against a behemoth.
You're like the idiots who say "hurr durr either do better or shut your mouth", as if one needs to master everything to be allowed the privilege of speaking their mind. The criticism here isn't even stupid, it's completely valid to think of the consequences a different business model could have on writing.
Walmart called (Score:2)
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Informative)
And free to get crushed by Amazon. There's no competing against a behemoth.
Smashwords seem to be doing just fine (see my link). An artist's biggest problem is obscurity not piracy. Amazon is not helping in this regard, and in fact their insistence on distributing only paid-for books and not free ones means that they (Amazon) are actually a poor platform for new authors.
I want people to read my book and remember my name. On Amazon I get maybe 30 downloads when the book goes for free for five days out of every 90. On Smashwords I get many more downloads (200+) in the same time period. Smashwords is helping me be an author, Amazon wants to help me be a business. I want to be an author.
If enough people decide that I'm a good author then I might decide to be a business, but for now I'm content with just being an author, and Smashwords furthers my goal more than Amazon does.
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On the other hand, this is a very good example on how specific business practices can hurt quite different areas of endeavour. Bezos started off early and Amazon became an effective monopoly. When a large enough group feels (and proves!) a single provider is hurting them, the State should intervene regulating monopolies; I'm sure that were Amazon to be audited, many strange issues would arise as a result of the strict application of the described scheme.
After all, some market regulation is better for everyb
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No, there isn't a need for regulation. We have more than enough laws already. If they're somehow a monopoly, as you suggest, there are laws already on the books to address that. But what's worse, your comment implies that Amazon is up to no good simply because they're a market leader. I buy ebooks there because they have the best selection. I'll bet that's why most of their customers are there. It sounds like you want nothing more than to punish success. Do you work for the IRS? You don't audit to f
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When a half dozen corporations produce and sell everything, capitalism will bleed the lower classes dry.... until the revolution.
Re:Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Your premise is that Amazon is the only seller of books? B&N is still around, last I checked. Heck, public libraries still exist, and you don't even have to pay to access the books there. This anti-capitalist meme is getting really tiresome. People shop Amazon because it's convenient and generally affordable. Want to compete? Provide something better.
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Interesting)
For the authors that I know I like, I try to go out of my way to purchase as close to directly through them, or from their recommended source as I can.
I know that buying from Amazon is not in my long term best interest, but for a product I don't know that I will value, even as high as Amazon does, or for a product that I don't know gets any more money to the actual author, rather than just higher profits for the middle men, I'll put my near term interst over speculating that something else is a better long term strategy.
Re: (Score:2)
I hear you. I was a long time customer of B&N, but the Kindle is killer. It may lead to lock in, but for now, there are plenty of competitors. iTunes hasn't monopolized music, and I think that's more likely than Amazon cornering the book trade.
I do bristle at the thought of people calling for regulation or audits simply because a company has a successful product or service. It's absurd.
Re: (Score:3)
Kindle ebooks account for 19.5% of all ebook sales, ebooks make up 30% of book sales. I'm not sure about the paper book stats, but that's not really what we're talking about here anyway.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/je... [forbes.com]
Twenty percent is no monopoly. Not even close. As of a year ago, iTunes accounted for 63% of digital music sales. Are they also a monopoly that must be regulated? They're more than three times the offender that Amazon is with ebooks.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4... [theverge.com]
Amazon wasn't even the
Re:Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as Amazon is getting the best price for the customer, no one will ask the State to regulate anything. Typically, the State regulate when the customers are complaining about abuse from the monopoly, as long as a monopoly doesn't abuse from its position no one complains. So, a monopoly should take care of the largest group in order to avoid the intervention of the State.
However, abusing from its position on the authors may also harm the customers at the end, since the authors will have no more interest in writing given the are abused and the customers will then have not longer have new books to discover.
A monopoly can be a good thing, but it is rarely a good thing since the equilibrium is hard to reach.
Re: Freedom (Score:2)
The problem is that Amazon is a monopsony, not a monopoly. That is, they're the only BUYER that's important in the market. If you're not on Amazon, your potential for success is seriously limited. As a result, publishers and authors cede concessions that were previously off the table, harming their long-term prospects. That also ends up giving Amazon a competitive advantage.
But monopsonies aren't regulated, as far as I know. As long as Amazon doesn't do anything damaging monopolistic with their power, they
Re: (Score:2)
Despite being an author, Scalzi doesn't realize what business he is in. He is not in the e-book writing business, where you are correct that Amazon is the dominant player. He is in the entertainment business, and competes against the likes of JJ Abrams, Vince Gilligan, and LeBron James.
The pot is not fixed; the more people who read books, the larger the pot will be, and the more people who watch live sports or go to the movies instead, the smaller the pot will be. While this is distinctly different from
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Launched by Papal Law? Or did you actually mean "cannon"?
And is the Matahorn anywhere near the Matterhorn? Just curious....
Re: Bah, humbug! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Launched by Papal Law? Or did you actually mean "cannon"?
It was an n+1 error.
Re: (Score:2)
So the above "launched by canon from the top of the Matahorn" can be taken to mean "forced to stop buggering about" and it fits into the post well.
Of course I could be giving you a load of Bull. I've typed too much after a night of card games. Euchre wrist is driving me mad.
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A full tablet PC is not the answer until one has eink, you may as well just use a PC and monitor since LCD tablets are unreadable if the sun cand shine in to where they are.
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I spend about $20 to $30 a month on books (roughly 3 books a month). Most of those books I will read once, but a few I consider keepers.
My biggest problem is that I hate the Kindle app.
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App is kinda irritating. You should try the e-ink version once, it is quite fun to read!
Re: (Score:2)
Partly true, perhaps, but not entirely. Good authors write books that result in people spending more money on books. In the 'traditional' model, there are two ways to grow:
1. Get existing customers to buy more books
2. Get new customers to start buying more books
This 'new' model removes growth source #1 because revenue doesn't increase if a customer reads more books - they've already paid their dues.
On the other hand, it has the potential to increase growth of #2, because in the 'new' model you can't lend
more months =~ more books (Score:2)
Not everyone is automatically a customer for life. Likely, their average retention will be around 18 months. Buying more books (the old model) may be analogous to remaining a customer longer.
Either way, getting more money from the happy customer. It's just measured in time vs count of books.
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Re: (Score:2)
Which is exactly why the summary is wrong about this meaning you shouldn't promote good books from other authors. The more quality works the more subscribers and books take time to write so if you want those subscribers to be around when your next book comes out you need other authors to fill the gap.
I spend far more time with nothing left to read than having to choose
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon sells pay-per-view reading.
I like buying used books. I like buying used books a lot. I have many books that are decades old. I have some books that are hundreds of years old. If Amazon succeeds with ebooks, 20 years from now there will barely be any access to low cost books at all. There will be nothing available to read that was controversial and got pushed down the Orwellian 'memory hole.'
For each ebook Amazon sells, they can fuck off.
Re: (Score:2)
It may soon be "boo hoo" for the readers as well. If Amazon won't pay enough, expect new books to be cheaper, matching how much readers pay per book. Nobody is going to spend years writing books if it only brings then $3.99 per reader or less.
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And nobody is going to build big budget video games if everything in mobile app stores costs a dollar. Except Chris Roberts somehow managed to score $60M dollars for a game without shipping anything.
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99% of free/cheap mobile games are super simple to play and have no depth compared to their console competitors. As a book world analogy, that would be like comparing short stories to novels.
Amazon is yet again screwing authors, just like paper book publishers in the past, by offering them something like $1.33 per book read. If this model continues, your books will be crappy and culture-less or the authors will have to starve (again).
These authors are better of selling/hosting the books themselves. But mark
Re: (Score:3)
In the normal payment model, I bought that book, so I might as well power through. Especially if I'm an avid reader and I am worried about running out of things to read. With this model I can sample a bunch of crappy books and move on until I find a good