Corporations rarely talk on the record, but Amazon's side of the dispute with Hachette (and, by proxy, all five major publishers) has been posted:
Amazon clearly sees books as fungible, consumable commodities. Their numbers do not factor in the risk of books that do not sell well into what they call an "unjustifiably high" price. The assumption is that publishers will only publish books that they know will sell. Publishers rarely know in advance how the public will react to a book.
Also, Amazon does not address Kindle Unlimited and renting e-books, which has to be a major part of the dispute. Amazon wants e-books to be rented temporarily, for which publishers will get much less compensation than they would for e-book sales (while Amazon gets fixed yearly fees from customers). So that could change publishing radically if the major publishers agreed to it. (Currently, the 600k Kindle Unlimited selection has little from major publishers.)
Another interesting aspect is that Amazon begins by explaining e-books have almost zero overhead and therefore cost too much, but then say they want a 30% cut, without explaining what value they're adding to deserve almost a third of the selling price.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday August 02 2014, @01:57AM
Nope. [wikipedia.org] Some people were crazy enough to pay for a hard-copy of that book, and there will be a perpetual hipster(and academic) movement with reading real books in spite of the Jewish clutchings on all things profitable.
But Amazon is already known as a sweatshop. They desire profit regardless of the ebbs and flows of life! And suck it, bitches! Ha ha heh heh hee hee hooooo!
(Score: 1) by Crosscompiler on Saturday August 02 2014, @02:31AM
Kroch's and Brentano's kept over 30%
Dell keeps over 30%
Intel keeps over 90%
Microsoft, Oracle and Google keep over 95%
Perhaps you were thinking net profit after jets, bribes, yachts, lobbyists, hookers, marketing, R&D, capital, taxes^W donations to the home country, party barges, electricity, and employees to actually provide the service?
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday August 02 2014, @02:31AM
The main objective being: "We'd like to (again) make tons of money by cornering and disrupting the existing book (publishing) market (again) and not care about the opinion of some dinosaurs that didn't have the foresight to join forces with the RIAA and MPAA. Please let us, and we'll continue to further drive down unemployment rates (pro-forma) and change our motto to 'not evil anymore'."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:06AM
I think the private bookstore was an aberration that will soon die. Walden's was one of the first private bookstores, founded in 1933. It went out of business a few years ago, along with Borders and B. Dalton's. Barnes & Noble is looking wobbly. Used bookstores may be doing well for now, but I think their days are also numbered.
What exactly did a private bookstore have that the local public library did not? Certainly not selection, except for new titles. Nimbleness in getting large quantities of new titles in a printed form into people's hands is pretty much it. With a few notable exceptions, when authors die, their books rapidly disappear from private bookstores' shelves. Now with digital books, public libraries can be just as nimble.
Amazon's bookselling business is still stuck on the old model. $9.99 for a copy of a digital book? Oh, wait, not a sale of a copy no. A rental, which can be terminated at any time, and can't be resold. $9.99 for that? Are they mental? I thought it was dumb to raise prices at nearly double the inflation rate back in the 80s and 90s. At the start of the 1980's, a paperback was $2. By the start of the 90's it was $5. If book prices had followed inflation, a $1.95 paperback would have been $3.33 in 1990, not $5. Today, it should be $6.26. And that's assuming their costs increased at the rate of inflation, which I doubt. I suspect printing and distribution benefited from technology and lowered their costs. It's hard to say what a paperback should cost today. Maybe only now a paperback should cost $5? Whether $5 or $6.26, a digital book should be much, much less. The price hikes of the 1980s served only to reduce demand at a time when demand was about to be seriously sideswiped by new technology.
Personally, $5 was the point at which a paperback no longer seemed like a trivial amount of pocket change, and I responded by slowly dropping out. Got much more conservative in my book choices, trying to stick to authors I thought were reliably good, then trying award winners and nominees. Didn't work. And now there are more and cheaper ways than ever to entertain myself. Who needs a good read anymore? I haven't bought paperbacks regularly since, and I no longer know what's current on the bookshelves. I find used bookstores unreliable, apt to be missing not just a title or 2, but the entire catalog of numerous authors. Because of that, they haven't kept me in the loop.
(Score: 1) by sgleysti on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:20AM
I find reading highly enjoyable; it's also good for your brain.
Used books on amazon is, for me, the best way to get good reads. You have wide selection, on-site reviews, and reasonable prices.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:33AM
Used book stores are also a bargain.
If you have the time to sift through their musty shelves.
Their indexing is a mess, but if you know at least the author you can find some great buys, cheaper than Amazon.
They also don't always know what they have. I've found first editions by famous authors laying around. Bought them for pennies.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Uncle_Al on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:49AM
"Used book stores are also a bargain."
If you can deal with the crowds, library book sales are even cheaper. People have been disposing
of books literally by the carload for the past 10 years at least.
FOPAL (Friends of the Palo Alto Library) is excellent, if you're in the SF Bay Area
and holds sales monthly.
(Score: 2) by carguy on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:33AM
> Used books on amazon is, ...
I can't stomach Bezos (variety of reasons), but I have good luck finding used books through Barnes & Noble. Bonus is that B&N take PayPal which works well for me. We also use the library extensively (including ebooks).
(Score: 2) by hubie on Saturday August 02 2014, @04:06AM
I've had good luck with Abe Books [abebooks.com], and there's another good used book market (Powell's [powells.com], maybe?). With Abe Books I've had books sent from England and Germany to the US for cheap shipping.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Thursday August 07 2014, @07:07PM
AbeBooks has been a subsidiary of Amazon for six years [wikipedia.org].
1702845791×2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:25AM
> Walden's was one of the first private bookstores, founded in 1933.
You have confused "corporate bookstore" with "private bookstore" there were many privately owned bookstores long before 1933 and still are. I didn't even know such a thing as a corporate bookstore existed until I got to college and discovered the college bookstore had been outsourced to Barnes and Noble.
> I find used bookstores unreliable, apt to be missing not just a title or 2, but the entire catalog of numerous authors.
http://www.abebooks.com/ [abebooks.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday August 02 2014, @12:25PM
You say, in American bookstores you only can get the books they have on their shelves?
If so, then I understand your sentiment: In Germany that's a big difference between a bookstore and a library. A bookstore will get you any deliverable book. Name it, and if possible it will be there in a few days. A library will usually only buy books which are expected to be read by enough people. And while you can wish for a book, you're absolutely not guaranteed to get it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by carguy on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:05PM
>> ... when authors die, their books rapidly disappear from private bookstores' shelves.
> ... in American bookstores you only can get the books they have on their shelves?
Two different things:
-- Books on the shelf are assumed to be more likely to sell.
-- In USA bookstores can also order any book that is "in print" (probably same as "deliverable" in Germany), arrives in a few days, similar to ordering online.
As you say, local libraries tend to buy popular books, so selection is limited. However, when nearly *all* the libraries are searched together, via "interlibrary loan" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlibrary_loan [wikipedia.org] they are an amazing resource. Librarians are usually very helpful and using this service they have dug up some rare references for me over the years.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by redneckmother on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:16AM
Disclaimer: a close relative of mine was "in the book trade".
The "majors", like Barnes & Snowball, Walden Shnooks, and many others destroyed the book trade.
The majors (through "pre-orders") were able to define the NYT "Best Seller List", and influenced what many people read, or attempted to read (and certainly what they bought). Many truly fine books languished through their machinations, and a great deal of dreck sold millions.
The majors controlled publication and price, and they turned their attention to destroying independent bookstores. You know, the local retailer who knew you and your tastes, and could recommend a book that you would absolutely love. After reading a book you could then come into the store and have an in depth discussion about it with both the salesperson and other clients. The feedback loop would lead you to yet more wonderful books, many of which were available in the "used" section (and provided no profit to the majors).
What the heck happened to society? Apparently, corporatism.
I could probably go on, and earn a "boring" mod, but I think I've typed enough.
/soapbox
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:28AM
Most of these private book stores, my town still has two, and a B&N 9 miles away, knew precious little about their books. They didn't have time to read them all, and they only pretended to know your tastes.
They uses lists of like-subjects. If you liked that, you'll Love this. These lists are everywhere on the internet these days. Most of the time they relied on the publishers to suggest bundles of titles for their shelves. Some times the kept up with book-of-the-month clubs, and steered them toward books they were being offered by publishers or the book-club 50 miles down the road.
Not saying the B&N and Amazon's of the world do it better, just saying nostalgia isn't all its talked up to be.
I've had better luck in the library than in my local book stores. Friendlier too.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by redneckmother on Saturday August 02 2014, @04:21AM
Well, perhaps that's just another reflection on the decay in our society. I promise you, had you visited my relative's stores, you would have been blown away. I spent a few days in those stores during a visit. It was inspirational. I met a lot of interesting people.
I learned a lot about the clientele and local history, and gained an appreciation of people in a different locale and culture.
I count many of them as good friends, and I learned a lot about a part of the US I had only heard about in deprecating jokes.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02 2014, @05:22AM
Amazon: we want to charge what the market will bear, but not so much that it reduces sales.
Publishing giants: No! Charge more! We insist that you charge more!
Amazon: Uhhh ... yeah. Collusion is illegal, and the judge agrees with us, you can't force us into your agency model.
Publishing giants: You monster! Why do you hate authors?
Amazon: Actually, as an electronic publisher we sell more than anyone else, and give authors a bigger cut than you want to. Oh, and because electrons are cheap midlist authors can make a good living through us while they need second jobs through you.
*Judge forces publishing giants to negotiate individually, Hachette is up first*
Amazon: OK, so let's talk business. We want to be resellers, agency model not on the table.
Hachette *sulks for many moons, hoping apparently to run out the clock*
Amazon: fine, then we don't have a contract, we won't be able to do the regular bulk orders, pre-orders, yaddayaddayadda that we do otherwise ...
Hachette: AMAZON HATES US!
*much whining ensues*
*Flavor Aid drinking shills like the story submitter try to paint Amazon as evil when in fact more writers make more money avoiding Big Publishing and distributing and publishing through Amazon*
Oh, wait, that was the microwave. My popcorn. Don't go away, I'll be right back!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:07PM
Another aspect of this situation is that Amazon is responsible for what they're calling "unjustifiably high" prices. By selling books priced like commodities, Amazon has been forcing publishers to raise prices to give bigger discounts.
Today, if you go to a clothes store like Belk or someplace, you'll see that most clothes have an MSRP about double what the item is worth, and the clothes are usually 40% off. So a $10 t-shirt is marked up to $20, and discounted to $12. This is the commodity price model.
With books, prices have been rising much faster than inflation. I call it the "Dover Effect" because you really see it with Dover's math books. Dover is a small niche publisher who reprints old math books (and other books, of course) with cheap prices. Most math books were around $10-15 a few years ago. Now they're about $30. But the net amount you pay is about the same. Dover had to raise their prices to give Amazon bigger discounts. Because Dover did this almost overnight, it's much more obvious. Other publishers do it too, because hardbacks have jumped from about $25 to $35 over the past few years, mostly to price in the deep discount Amazon wants.
When Amazon could undercut other booksellers, they were able to steal customers. Now, all books are sold at basically the same prices. Barnes and Noble's prices do not vary much from Amazon. Because the 30-40% discounts Amazon once offered are factored into the price already. Amazon has destroyed its own competitive advantage.
There are no good guys in this war, nether Amazon nor the big publishers. I feel sorry for small independent publishers (like Dover) who get caught in the crossfire. Probably at some point Amazon will just drop them and you'll have to buy direct from them.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)