As many of you know, the e-book pricing wars came to a head on Friday and Saturday, when Amazon stopped selling Macmillan titles (St. Read the full post.
Feb 1
2010
08:05 AM ET
Amazon capitulates to Macmillan's e-book pricing demands
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“Everything should be free! Who cares if an author or publishing company doesn’t make money…” Ummm…what will we read if they just stopped and fell under? Amazon is just a greedy company that only cares about their own profit. I have a kindle and honestly I still buy books or go to the library.
Yeah, as I understand it — and I’m not an expert, but this is what I understand — the above explanation is completely wrong. Amazon already pays the publisher a wholesale price that the publisher isn’t objecting to. The publisher’s objection isn’t what Amazon pays the publisher, but Amazon’s own retail price. The publishers are demanding that Amazon stop selling e-Books at a loss TO ITSELF. Based on what I’ve read, it’s untrue that Amazon is keeping all the profits; Amazon is selling e-Books at a loss, and that’s what publishers don’t like. Macmillan is demanding that Amazon, rather than purchasing wholesale and then reselling at a price of its own choice (the way most retailing works), act as Macmillan’s “agent,” more like its commissioned salesperson.
If the publishers were, themselves, losing money on these transactions, why on earth would they be participating in them? It makes much more sense to me that the publishers are being paid a reasonable price, but they feel that Amazon selling the books at a loss (to itself) is bad for the long-term market because it creates an expectation that e-Books should cost $9.99, which publishers argue is unsustainable.
That’s too high a price. The overhead has to be considerably lower for ebooks why so high? In a few weeks you can probably go to a discount store like Walmart and buy the hard cover copy for not much more than that. I’ll wait for the price to be reduced for books that cost that much!
It makes 0 sense for Amazon to pull not only all the MacMillan e-Books, but also all the print books, too. What a bully. It makes me want to cancel the pre-orders I have with them and go somewhere else.
As an aspiring author I see many sides to this argument. For one thing what Amazon is doing is ridiculous and I wonder if Steve Jobs is going to get in on the game soon and take it over. I mean come on, we have the E reader the Kindle and a couple other names. I have a feeling if we can get it all in once place he could get it worked out through I tunes. Hopefully he will manage to work it all out and push the kindle out.
But as the mother of a college student I think textbooks are an absolute disgrace. First of all schools should have to post what they will require as their reading at least a week in advance of their class so students can hunt around for the best prices and have some chance of finding a used book. None of this, “oh the professor might not even use that book this time crap.” Things like Kindels or of course I am waiting for something from Apple would be excellent for textbooks, and could definitely really help students especially for when the books are updated when there is very little that has even been updated. I think that is one of the biggest ripoffs that people deal with and I can’t believe nobody has ever done anything about it. It is sickening.
Gol durn them horseless carriages! they is putting us wagon wheelers right out of business.
That’s the way of the world pops…no more 10 million to an author who has substandard writings..or sells his name..or to a publisher who thinks more of his saleable author than the reader…stop horseless carriages!
Back to the library for me. Not enough profit at $9.99? How about NONE if I don’t buy?
I’m not an author, a publisher or an Amazon employee. I’m just an ordinary person. Having said that I don’t see the problem with paying extra for books as I can appreciate the hours, weeks, days and months it must take each author to write them. For me the changes mean that I will research book titles I find interesting before I pay up to download them, that’s all. If I can’t afford one I like, I’ll go to the iibrary or borrow it from a friend. I would rather have the prices go up than disenchant future authors from writing good novels for me in the future. Again, I’m an ordinary person. I’m not made of money. I saw one poster bring up the old argument “Save the trees!”. Really, save it. If we really wanted to save the trees, we wouldn’t be shipping out old computers overseas to dump on the doorsteps of uneducated villagers and oozing toxic waste into their land and waterways. Computers are not clean or green or energy efficient. Don’t kid yourself.
Perhaps I am silly to
think of my Amazon Wish List as mine, but I find it outrageous that Amazon
would alter it over a pricing dispute and not even inform me. Boo Amazon!
I work at a library…we offer downloadable ebooks, which is perfect for those of you who have been reading a book a day on your ebook reader. Unfortunately, because Amazon has made the Kindle proprietary, our ebooks won’t work on your Kindle. Perhaps those who are complaining about paying $14.99 should complain to Amazon about their use of proprietary software instead.
I hate spam
It’s the by-product of our digital economy, so you’d better get used to it.