2 800 lb Gorillas were wrestling in the bathtub... or why it's not a good time to buy books

[catsittingstill]

By now people who follow this kind of thing are aware that Macmillian (which includes Tor, which publishes some of my favorite authors)'s books have been pulled from Amazon's listings.  This was originally over a disagreement about e-book pricing, but both e and paper books are gone.

You can still get them from "other sellers"--secondhand bookstores and so on that sell through Amazon.  But you don't get Amazon's free shipping and such.

I hardly know what to think.

On the one hand, Amazon wants to sell e-book new releases at 9.99 and McMillian wants Amazon to charge 15.99.  (Note that this is just for new releases; Macmiillan says it wants to drop the price later, to as low as 5.99.  Also note that Macmillan is not actually all that good about bringing out its books in e-book form at all, so I don't know why they even care, but they do.) Okay,  I know which price I, the reader, like better--and as for the later price drop, Amazon already does that. 

On the other hand, McMillian wants to squeeze more money out of each e-book sale, some of which will theoretically go to authors (though why it couldn't pay royalties to authors based on the wholesale price, which Amazon is still paying, I don't know).  I know a handful of authors, like them, and would be thrilled to see them make more money.  I know many more authors only through their work, like them too, and would be thrilled to see them make more money, and possibly be able to write more books because they don't have to work part time to keep bread and beans on the table.

I frequently sympathize with the underdog, but both companies seem...more gorilla-ish than underdog-ish to me.  The underdogs are the readers and the writers.

I do not fool myself that gorilla A, in moving to keep e-books at 9.99, is really all that concerned about me personally or consumers in general.  Gorilla A wants e-books at 9.99 because that's what gorilla A thinks is best for gorilla A at this time.  Nor do I believe that gorilla B is all that concerned about authors; gorilla B wants flexible pricing because that's what gorilla B thinks is best for gorilla B at this time.

I do think there's going to be a lot of water on the floor and that the gorillas won't be mopping it up.

And darn it, I got a couple of Amazon gift certificates for Christmas.  I was planning to spend them on Kindle books.  Now I'm not sure if I want to, because I don't want to reward Amazon for how it's behaving.  OTOH not spending the gift certificates is rewarding Amazon because they already have the money and don't have to shell out any product for it.  I suppose I could use them to buy paper books, but ...darn it, I really like books that weigh nothing and take no space.

I wish I could convert them to Baen gift certificates.  Grump.

Comments

[alymid.livejournal.com]

you could purchase non-book items - there are a lot of games and such that are sold through 3rd party sellers. Some of which will even give you the prime-shipping discount.

You might be safe

[alymid.livejournal.com]

Evan just read on Gizmodo that Amazon has decided to switch to MacMillian's pricing structure. OTOH their language - Amazon is still being a pissy bitch.

Re: You might be safe

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know about this. And the games and stuff are a good idea.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

The gorillas are Amazon and Apple: Macmillan is Fay Wray. The iPad pricing model is what triggered this. Amazon really wants to keep control of ebook pricing. Personally, I have little love for Amazon who are (among other failings) anti-union and compete in the market they make are notoriously monopolistic. While I think Apple's model is a good bit better for readers and authors they're hardly saints. Bottom line: it's a conflict over control of ebook distribution, and there aren't good guys, only less-bad guys.

Commentary:
Charlie Stross.
Making Light.
Cory Doctorow.
Charlie Stross's links page.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links.

I agree with you about the no good guys.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Well I'll admit that when e-books came out I figured that they would be cheaper. After all, no paper, no printing press to set up, no shipping, none of all that traditional stuff. Since it seemed greener to me I thought it would be great. I also thought it would cut down on cost. I figured less production cost would be passed along to the consumer. More fool I. I like ebooks, really do. I have to re down load a few from bane now than I have a new I-touch, I just have to figure out which reader I going to use. And buying new books? If I knew more money was going to the author I'd be happy, but I know it won't I may be a little dumb, but I'm not that dumb. So I guess I'll have to play wait and see.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

You can always get free out-of-copyright classics on your iPod. There's a program called Stanza in the e-book store: I'm pretty sure it's free, and where you have wifi access, your iPod can just suck books like Tom Sawyer, and The Three Musketeers right off the net.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

I have just finished installing Stanza on my itouch. it took much longer than I like to admit to figure out how to sync the mac and the touch. I like baen. they have free books and inexpensive books. They have some of my very favourite books of all time. And ebooks don't take up space when you travel! So if I need a "Comfort" read I can have one. And yes, I can grab some of the classics as well, though I'll admit I'm not much into them as I used to be. I suspect I'll cycle back. Sigh, I love how a book feels in my hands, but e-books take up so much less space, and they are so much greener, and they don't fall apart no matter how many times you read them. I just have to get used to reading new books that way. And hope that soon more of them come out that way.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you have an e-book solution for your itouch now. Just remember to recharge it often :-) My limited experience suggests that reading drains the battery faster than listening.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Ten bucks for an ebook is already such an offensive ripoff that I am reduced to blithering incoherence at the prospect.

How do I justify that assertion? Consider that Apple has successfully imposed the idea that an electronic copy of a song should cost a buck. As far as the sales and delivery process are concerned, both of them are just some data. The song is actually a lot more data than a regular text book. And Apple makes a killing selling songs for a buck apiece.

How much of Amazon's ten dollar target price goes to Amazon, and how much of it goes to the publisher? (Once it goes to the publisher, it has to get divided again; the author gets paid by the publisher, and the author should be paid, and the cover artist and the copy editor and a bunch of other useful people contribute to the book and they should be paid. But all of that division is handled by the publisher. I could rant about how much of the pie the publisher's shareholders are entitled to, but that's a separate issue.) I don't actually know, but I am assuming that Amazon's cut is a lot more than $.55, which is (if my memory serves) is the fraction of iTunes' $.99 for a song that isn't sent to the music publisher. And I, as a potential future ebook consumer, don't think that Amazon deserves to get paid so much for doing so little.

As to your personal dilemma -- don't sit on your gift certificate in protest, that's the worst thing you can do! Amazon already has that money, so you should seek to get as much value as you can out of them. If you are upset enough to deny them new money from other business, either your own, or your friends' (by telling them to please choose something other than Amazon gift certificates for you), great.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can see that just sitting on the gift certificates would be unproductive in the long run. I *am* planning on spending them. Just having a hard time making up my mind what to spend them on.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

I've been following this, too. I'm not a Kindle owner, though. If you don't mind my asking, of th books you have on Kindle, how many are non-DRM? It's one aspect I'm not familiar with, but the idea of not owning the purchase bugs me, though maybe it's not a big deal to do personal retrievable back-ups.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

You can get non-DRMed classics from Manybooks.net or Mobileread, and non-DRMed modern books from Fictionwise (just their Multiformat books, mind) or Baen.

That said, probably 80% of my Kindle books are DRMed, though for the ones that were freebies (giveaways, hoping to spur interest in a particular author's work), which are probably easily half the total number of DRMed books, I have no problem with this.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I was curious about the DRMed books on your Kindle. I've read that in some cases the DRM is based on the publisher's request and sometimes not.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Analysis from researcher Lisa Gold. I don't think this war is over, unfortunately, despite Amazon seemingly having lost this battle. (By last reports, they still haven't turned the buy buttons on on Macmillan's books.) I suspect Bezos is the sort who holds grudges.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link.

[howeird]

Sounds to me like Amazon is helping keep eBooks affordable, which works for me. If you think any of McMillan's price increase goes to the authors, I have some oceanfront property in Iowa to sell you. BTW, it's spelled McMillan. No "i" in front of the "a". http://www.macmillan.com/

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the correction.

I am not insensible to the charms of cheap e-books. Just wondering if they're sustainable.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Depends on the number sold. If eBooks sold as much as paper books, they could be very cheap. But IIRC most eBooks sell under 1,000 copies and even without printing costs (a few dollars a book) and sales and distribution costs (around 70% of cover price IIRC), the costs of editing, design, and so forth are a fairly hefty percentage of the price.

There's a second problem, however: customary contracts make author royalties a percentage of the selling price. So unless lower prices increase the numbers of sales hugely, authors get a very poor deal until new contracts are worked out.

Any resemblance to the music industry is surely coincidence. Right.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you read Scalzi or not. He posts a behavior-based analysis here (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/all-the-many-ways-amazon-so-very-failed-the-weekend/), with further ummm, pithy exposition here (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/seriously-now-theyre-just-being-dicks/). In short, regardless of whether Macmillan is being an idiot with their pricing model (ostensibly to do right by the authors, editors, and other members of the publishing industry - and having had this explained in person to me by Mary Robinette Kowal at Orycon last, I'm a lot more willing to give Macmillan the benefit of the doubt), Amazon is violating Wheaton's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Don%27t_be_a_dick).

This is not unusual behavior for Amazon; I'll spare you the gory details.

I second the suggestion of a previous poster. Use the GC's to buy third-party. That way AMZN only gets commission and not wholesale revenue.

And definite agreement on Baen; if any house is worthy of our dollars simply by house, they are, and they host some damn fine authors as well.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yes, I read Scalzi's blog pretty much every day. He's one of my favorites.

Baen has some authors I like... and an awful lot of war porn.

But they do have some authors I like very much--I should remember to check if a book is available from Baen before buying it elsewhere.

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

An Ethiopian former coworker once said that his culture has a proverb:
"When elephants fight, it's the grass that gets trampled."

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the kind of thing I was thinking here. :-)

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

More coverage from Charlie Stross, whose books still aren't available from Amazon.com.

This comment on the matter is funny.