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Very recently, Amazon made a small, barely noticeable tweak to the way it sells books. And that little tweak has publishers very, very worried.
The change has to do with what Amazon calls the "Buy Box." That's the little box on the right-hand side of Amazon product pages that lets you buy stuff through the company's massive retail enterprise.
[...] It used to be that when you were shopping for a new copy of a book and clicked "Add to Cart," you were buying the book from Amazon itself. Amazon, in turn, had bought the book from its publisher or its publisher's wholesalers, just like if you went to any other bookstore selling new copies of books. There was a clear supply chain that sent your money directly into the pockets of the people who wrote and published the book you were buying.
But now, reports The Huffington Post, that's no longer the default scenario. Now you might be buying the book from Amazon, or you might be buying it from a third-party seller. And there's no guarantee that if the latter is true, said third-party seller bought the book from the publisher. In fact, it's most likely they didn't.
Which means the publisher might not be getting paid. And, by extension, neither is the author.
Understandably, both publishers and authors are deeply unhappy about this change.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:54PM (18 children)
A greedy publisher hates used books market. Also in the news: water is wet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @10:06PM (13 children)
Yes, but in those cases somebody bought the book. These are digital books and there's no guarantee that a copy that's for sale was ever paid for by anybody. Those used books do also wear out, get destroyed or lost and some people just like new copies.
But, I'm sure your reductionist version of this is perfectly accurate. *eyeroll*
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @10:36PM
That's what GP said and he's right.
This is about greedy publishers and used goods.
These are digital books
That's not in the summary nor in the article.
You're extrapolating--and not at all well.
When Old School newsreader Paul Harvey was guessing, he would say, "and now I'm going to tell you more than I know".
Your comment is missing the disclaimer.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:04PM (10 children)
This article is about books in paper, rather than electronic, format. Amazon.com's product pages for e-books only each show a single option for buying: the buyer cannot choose among sellers, except by finding a different product page, which will offer a different e-book.
The article says "Amazon's third-party sellers have to offer new books, not used ones" but that's not true in general, as one may gather from other statements in the article or from a visit to the site.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FakeBeldin on Monday May 22 2017, @06:57AM (9 children)
Wait, which is it now? Paper or electronics? You and your sibling comment make opposite claims.
The Vox article is talking about paper books, it seems.
So the problem of the Vox article is physical copies of books that were under publisher control and now are in the hands of third parties. This causes the author not to profit from that particular sale. The particular gripe is that Amazon made it now the default, and that the actual offer from the publisher is lower / hidden away.
Honestly: as long as the customer knows he's buying used books, I don't see the problem.
I believe in the USA this is called the First-Sale doctrine [wikipedia.org], which was first recognised in '08 - 1908 that is.
I'd mind if Amazon was deliberately hiding the fact that these are not new books. But as long as buyers are not misled in this, the complaint seems to boil down to "but my business model worked until the Internet came along!"
If buyers are misled, that is (in my view) wrong.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Monday May 22 2017, @07:18AM (1 child)
> Wait, which is it now? Paper or electronics? You and your sibling comment make opposite claims.
Amazon.com sells both paper books and e-books. This article is about publishers' unhappiness at third-party sellers getting preference on a book's product page. Amazon.com sells e-books in a different manner, with only itself as the seller; hence the issue described in the article does not pertain to e-books, only paper books. I was just saying in a long-winded manner that the person who wrote "these are digital books" was mistaken.
I'm confused about what you meant by "sibling comment" (another comment of mine, or one I replied to?) but I hope the above clears up your confusion.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday May 22 2017, @08:19AM
It did, thanks!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday May 22 2017, @07:21AM (1 child)
Correction: This causes the author not to make any additional profit from that particular sale.
The author/publisher made their profit when they sold the book the first time. And when the author/publisher sold the book, they knew the copyright laws as well as the first-sale doctrine, and declared "What the hell, I'll sell it anyway. Now give me my money!"
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday May 22 2017, @08:21AM
Exactly, which is why I don't particularly mind.
Now the Vox article points out a few (legal) cases where a heap of books ends up with a third-party reseller. But since these cases still amount to a legal transfer of ownership from the publisher to the third party, I don't see the problem.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 22 2017, @12:44PM (4 children)
If you think they're butthurt about this, wait until the "general public" discovers the India market textbooks I've bought off Amazon.
I got the latest edition of some control theory text as an India-Only book for quite a bit less than USA text prices. Because the government funds student loans so the publishers know they can screw American college kids so they most certainly do just that, using the legal system to help.
I'm pretty sure the control theory textbook I got was the latest 12th edition of Dorf's MCD, and I paid like $25 for what was not marketed as the India edition but was marketed as the economy edition, instead of paying college student $214 (yeah $214 no kidding thats what textbooks sell for now, thank you government guaranteed student loans). Is it worth upgrading from an older edition to the latest for $214, hell no, but $25, well, maybe?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @03:36PM (3 children)
Big publishers are going to be on this in a hot second. If you like using this workaround, I suggest you stock up quickly on your "made for India" books.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @09:19PM (2 children)
>Big publishers are going to be on this in a hot second. If you like using this workaround, I suggest you stock up quickly on your "made for India" books.
They tried. They failed. Got a bitchslap from the Supremes. So no recourse for them without buying a whole new copyright law. :)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:54AM (1 child)
Got a reference for this SCOTUS case and/or decision? I try to follow this topic and have not heard of this case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:56PM
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/thai-student-protected-by-first-sale-supreme-court-rules/ [arstechnica.com]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 22 2017, @12:25AM
And of course, it is a copy that cost nothing to make, especially since the "purchaser" is paying for the bandwidth to download a bunch of ones and zeros. Interesting complaint. Now the author might have some costs that someone should cover, like being alive enough to smith some words, but the publisher? Heck, they not only do not typeset anymore, they don't even edit! Copy, heh-heh, they said copy, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @10:08PM (3 children)
Yup, same old, same old Amazon. Still out to kill off specialty publishers. Years ago our book publisher objected to Amazon's terms and Amazon played very dirty, retaliated by listing the book as "out of print". I was getting panic emails from people wondering if I still has some personal stock that I could sell. All through this, our publisher had plenty of stock for sale through their online store.
Later Amazon offered the book at 10% over list price, go figure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:52PM (1 child)
Sounds like Amazon is a pretty unreliable book seller.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:10AM
> Sounds like Amazon is a pretty unreliable book seller.
Yes, true. Unfortunately for small specialty publishers, Amazon also has a huge marketing presence, funded by VC or stock holders through retained profit. With the result that to the great unwashed it appears that, "If Amazon doesn't have it, the book must not exist."
If you are looking for a specialty book (of whatever genre), see if you can buy from the publisher directly. In many cases books are now cheaper from the publisher than from Amazon. This has been true for nearly 10 years as Amazon moves their price-chopping behavior (as they strive to crush competitors) to general merchandise.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 22 2017, @05:35AM
Interesting.... I remember buying a copy of "TCP/IP Lean" by Jeremy Bentham... only to discover the CDROM in the back of the book was missing.
Luckily, I found Jeremy Bentham's email address and begged him for a copy. He graciously shared a link to me to let me have a copy of the code.
I have two physical copies of his book. Because the info in these is very precious to me. Another good text set is the "TCP/IP Illustrated" bookset. 3 volumes.
I have not seen anything like them since. Everything has to go through OS these days. My stuff was really raw. DOS. Or less.
This was quite a few years ago, but his book was the only one I found which had the C++ code in it for how to talk to network cards directly without involving the OS, and here I was trying to coin my own special packet protocols so I could talk to my thingies on the net, without requiring any OS whatsoever. My thingies all knew where to look to find me.
Ummm, knowing how to do this is what has made me so leery knowing that I am not the only one that could do this!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @10:22PM (5 children)
Those people should get some real skills instead milking their laurels and expecting everyone to pay them in perpetuity for prior work that can be copied with minimal effort. The only jobs that pay are tech jobs because tech geniuses have super tech skills that require more brainpower than writing shit down and then making fucking copies. And that's why tech bros who know their shit are the elite of the universe who deserve to be fucking billionaires.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:16PM (4 children)
> [...] expecting everyone to pay them in perpetuity for prior work that can be copied with minimal effort.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com [wikipedia.org]
That's not something that can be duplicated with "minimal effort," I'd say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:46PM (3 children)
Not Amazon, the book authors, you dumb dickweed. Look here, I just wrote a comment! I don't get paid for it because anyone can copy and paste trillions of copies with minimal effort. But the superintelligent techniggers of SN deserve beer money and blowjobs for doing the needful of running this incredibly valuable techsite on the intertubes. I the writer am nothing. Tech bros are gods incarnate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:28AM (1 child)
Yeah, but:
Not Amazon, the book authors, you dumb dickweed. Look here, I just wrote a comment! I don't get paid for it because anyone can copy and paste trillions of copies with minimal effort. But the superintelligent techniggers of SN deserve beer money and blowjobs for doing the needful of running this incredibly valuable techsite on the intertubes. I the writer am nothing. Tech bros are gods incarnate.
--a slightly different AC
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:51AM
Yeah! Beer money and blowjobs for SN SuperNiggers!
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Monday May 22 2017, @01:02AM
It's easy to set up an online store, but getting mind-share is not so easy. Nor is building a distribution network on the scale that Amazon.com has done. And again, this topic is not about e-books.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday May 21 2017, @10:28PM (23 children)
Which means the publisher might not be getting paid. And, by extension, neither is the author."
Really? These are books for which the publisher was never paid? What, are they stealing them out of the warehouse?
Why do I have a feeling this thing ends with a bunch of whining about how unfair it is that people sell used books.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:05PM (20 children)
If you RTFA, they point to a book that is for sale from a third-party seller, but the condition is described as "new".
The publisher throws their hands in the air, saying that they can't do anything about this, but it appears that what is likely is that books that should have been shredded are being sold. I think that the publisher should look into where those "new" books are coming from.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:31PM (19 children)
But that means nothing. Are they alleging that the books are not actually new, or that they are stolen or counterfeit?
"The publisher throws their hands in the air, saying that they can't do anything about this"
That would seem to indicate that they are not stolen or counterfeit, wouldn't it?
"I think that the publisher should look into where those "new" books are coming from. "
Well yes, they're either stolen or counterfeit or the publisher should already have been paid for them.
The only other possibility I can see is that they've been written off. They used to tear the cover off and send that back in to prove it had not sold, to economize on postage, and if you knew the right bookworms you could pick up books very inexpensively as a result - but with that missing front cover. You can't sell a book missing the front cover as new, that would be noticed for sure.
You seem to be implying these are books that were supposed to have been shredded? If that can be proven they should at least be able to sue the crap out of whoever was supposed to do that... but that's mostly a due diligence issue and it's on them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:05AM (9 children)
OMG, Arik, just RTFA and stop speculating FFS.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 22 2017, @12:32AM (4 children)
Without speculation, there would be no SoylentNews. We are like Wall Street in that respect.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 22 2017, @01:54AM (3 children)
I beg to differ, magister.
Some of the Wall Street speculators actually win something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 22 2017, @05:59AM (2 children)
Wall Street only "wins" filthy lucre, and at the cost of their soles! Have you ever seen the bottom of a Wall Street financier's shoes? Only when he was kicking your for sleeping in the alcove at the front of his Very Large and Impressive Financial Building? Then you get my point.
On the other hand, the wealth and riches to be had on SoylentNews defy description. Rampant speculation may be bad for actual markets, but here it can produce ideas never before thought, connections and correlations that have never occurred to anyone's mind before in history! Of course, it also could be that somebody did not RTFA, again!! But at least wild speculation never crashed SN, unless, sadly, it is speculation by the totally unhinged about right-wing nut-job conspiracies, or Runaway1929.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 22 2017, @06:30AM (1 child)
Not for the lack of trying, no.
Sometimes I have this uneasy felling TMB is just floating his ideas as a way of stress-testing SN.
I mean... look... he's quite predictably self-repetitive and yet (predictably) his posts generate a flurry of comments. There has to be a rational method behind this madness.
(you wanted speculation. Here's one not coming from a right-winger and, at the same time, adds no useful idea to the conversation).
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 22 2017, @06:43AM
Interesting! Put me down for a hundred thousand.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday May 22 2017, @01:30AM (1 child)
The article doesn't answer the question. The article doesn't make a lot of sense actually, and that's what we're discussing. Hope that helped you catch up.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Whoever on Monday May 22 2017, @02:57AM
But that's the point isn't it? It's quite clear that you didn't read. Your postings in this story discussion have been based on speculation and ignorance.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday May 22 2017, @03:08PM (1 child)
The Fine Article (Vox) offers two suggestions where third-party sellers get their books from:
1. promotional copies sent out to reviewers and bloggers etc.
2. buying books from warehouses with minor damage
Option 2 clearly includes the third party paying for the book. So the publisher and author should be getting paid in that case. Option 1 doesn't clearly state that. Then again, these were copies the publisher chose to give away for free. If the volume of what the publisher is giving away for free is so large, that resell of parts of that will hurt its bottom line, maybe it shouldn't be sending out so many free copies.
The other Fine Article (HuffPo) has this to say:
So either the publisher was already reimbursed, or the publisher chose to give the book away for free.
Neither of the two Fine Articles alleges widespread fraud/theft of books.
If there's a suspicion of widespread illicit acquisition of books that are then resold, that should be investigated.
Amazon offering the cheapest new version of an item that you are looking for is not a problem, it's what people expect from Amazon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @03:40PM
> Amazon offering the cheapest new version of an item that you are looking for is not a problem, it's what people expect from Amazon.
If you believe this I have a bridge you might be interested in. Amazon prices are often cheapest in areas where they are trying to dominate a market segment (started with books) but then quickly rise once the competition has been killed off. New, first quality, books are often available for less at many other outlets, including in some cases direct from the publisher.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 22 2017, @01:07AM (3 children)
Here's the relevant paragraph from the article. Pardon the formatting.
A representative I spoke to from one of the big five publishers theorized that
third-party sellers might be selling some of the free promotional copies that
publishers routinely send out to critics and bloggers just before a book is published
-- not the galleys, which are clearly marked "not for resale," but the free
promotional copies of the finished book, which have no such marking on their covers
and often end up sold to bookstores like the Strand. Others have suggested that they
might be buying books with minor cosmetic damage from warehouses, just damaged enough
to be discounted but not so damaged that Amazon stops considering them "new."
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 22 2017, @01:15AM (2 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 22 2017, @02:40AM (1 child)
> How can that number possibly be large enough to have the effect?
Again from the article:
It goes on to say that buyers can find sellers nonetheless. If that's correct, a seller needn't have a large supply of books to create a problem.
> [...] start marking them 'not for resale' which you'd think they would be doing from the start [...]
I don't know why they haven't been. At a guess, perhaps reviewers prefer to receive copies that are not stamped "not for resale" precisely because the reviewers wish to sell on those books, and are perhaps inclined to give more favourable reviews as a result.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday May 22 2017, @03:13PM
I agree that Amazon should clearly distinguish between one seller being out of stock and an item being out of stock for all sellers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday May 22 2017, @01:21AM (1 child)
Generally speaking, I'm usually sympathetic to publishers when dealing with a force like Amazon, which now exercises huge control over the book market. But in this particular case, the publishers sound like a bunch of whiners -- unless I'm missing something.
Here's what the Vox article in the summary says:
Okay, review copies are a thing, but outside of stuff like textbooks (for which publishers might send out thousands of free review copies), I can't imagine they make up a huge market. Maybe a couple hundred copies to reviewers at major newspapers, magazines, internet sites known for reviews, etc.?
In any case, if huge numbers of new or "near new" copies are flooding the market in 3rd-party sellers, it sounds like that's a publisher problem, not Amazon's problem. If they're sending out so many review copies that they are actually competing with profits from legit sales, maybe they need to tighten up their policy on who gets free review copies. If they're seeing "near perfect" books sold at deep discounts from their warehouses for damage so minor that they can be passed off as "new" on Amazon, maybe they need to reconsider their discount policies. (They should still be making money off of those books; just not full price.)
If, on the other hand, 3rd party sellers are sending out copies claiming to be "new" condition, and they're NOT -- that IS Amazon's problem.
The HuffPost article from TFS says this:
A "used bookstore that buys stock back from consumers" is selling USED books. If they are marketing them as "new" on Amazon, that's FRAUD. Same thing for anyone who might "troll book bins" for recycled books. I do think Amazon should have some standards for people who want to claim that they're marketing "new" merchandise on their site, and if they aren't willing/able to prove that their products are actually new, that's an issue.
There's a difference between "New" and "Used - like new." If sellers are marketing items as the latter, I don't see a problem with any of these things. If, however, they are marketing them as "New" rather than "Used," and Amazon is selecting them as a default seller -- that IS a problem.
I've never had an issue with book condition in Amazon purchases, but I have received poor condition, very poorly packaged (and thus slightly damaged), and simply incorrect (wrong item, wrong model, etc.) items from 3rd party sellers. In almost all such cases, I deliberately chose a different seller from Amazon, but if a 3rd-party seller is promoted to be the DEFAULT seller on Amazon, they better be selling the right stuff and the condition as claimed.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:59AM
> No one is quite sure where their books come from, including, it seems, Amazon itself
Wild speculation -- perhaps there is a grey/black market for popular books? Many books are printed/bound in China (and other locations far from US or European publisher headquarters). Perhaps these printers are printing extra copies beyond the press run that was ordered by the publisher? Once the press/bindery is all set up it could be extremely cheap to run off more copies. Similar to ersatz fashion goods that are made in the same factories as the big brand names.
If Amazon is fencing these copies (by not checking into the bona fides of marketplace sellers) I think that is Amazon's problem...because the publishers will sue them!
(Score: 1) by daver!west!fmc on Monday May 22 2017, @06:22AM (2 children)
That "tear the cover off" thing is for unsold pocket paperbacks which were historically a separate sales channel from retail book stores. (Pocket paperbacks were for casual sales in grocery and drug stores, not the retail book trade.) Return the covers to certify that the books were destroyed and get credit for the unsold copies.
In the retail book trade the whole book is returned for credit. But, the lots of returned books are often marked as "remaindered" and sold in lots to folks who then sell them individually in discount book stores. Often the remainder mark (usually made with a felt marker pen across the bottom of the text block) is not noticeable to someone who doesn't know the book biz, and even if you do notice it you may not care, it really doesn't interfere with reading the book.
Either way, the publisher treats these books as "not sold" for purposes of royalty payments to authors.
Selling a remaindered book as new online is questionable, but is not too far from what the discount book stores who sell remaindered books do.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Monday May 22 2017, @10:32AM
Of course, there is the more severe approach, as described in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose [wikipedia.org], which interestingly enough involved a remaindered copy of Aristotle's work on Comedy, the second book of the Poetics. Nice plot, since we no longer have a copy of this work, due to copyright maddened publishers, or just puritanical Domincan monks, who poisoned the upper outside corners of the text, so that anyone who read it, and licked their fingers and thumb to turn the page (Parchment, it seems, requires more friction than paper) would die with a blackened tongue. At least that is what the Franciscans who were sent to investigate concluded. I have always wanted to do this, but
Good movie, [imdb.com] starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater, with a really realistic portrayal of life in Medieval Europe, trust me, I was there. But don't get your saliva on books, it's just not right, or good for the books.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday May 22 2017, @12:05PM
Interesting, I remember quite clearly the bookstore in my town doing this back in the 80s, with paperbacks yes but pocket? Regular retail bookstore, full size paperbacks, boxes of them, brand new and untouched aside from that front cover.
"In the retail book trade the whole book is returned for credit. But, the lots of returned books are often marked as "remaindered" and sold in lots to folks who then sell them individually in discount book stores."
Ok, so these aren't books that have been stolen, they're books that have been returned to the publisher who then willingly sold them to someone else at a discount. Still sounds like someone wants to have their cake and eat it too. When you're selling the same thing out of the front door at top dollar and out the back door at a deep discount, backdoor sales can compete with front door sales. But this is still all on the publisher, I don't see how they can think this is someone elses fault.
"Either way, the publisher treats these books as "not sold" for purposes of royalty payments to authors."
So what we're saying is the publisher writes the contract so the author doesn't get any share of copies sold at a discount, proceeds to sell large quantities at discount, doesn't split the proceeds with the author, and then tries to act like IT is the victim here.
Yeah, that's sleazy.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:28PM (1 child)
Hmm I thought I read a machine exists that can very cheaply print out a book. Complete with cover and binding. And able to scan a new book in a short time.
So new comes out. Is popular. Scan print sell. Sure I should get caught one day. But how much can I make first?
Is this the worry or is it simply selling of used books or both?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:32AM
My impression from the second link in the summary seems to be the worry is that the publisher's main link isn't the default option anymore. Instead the cheapest option is. So if the publisher sells to a retailer at wholesale prices (you know, how commerce works) and that retailer doesn't actually sell at the "Suggested Retail Price", then that retailer gets the default buy button option. In this case, the publisher is still getting paid, and the writers are still getting paid.
All of these other assumptions I'm seeing written here, while some of them at least might be possible, are things that should eventually be caught if in fact illegal. (ie: bootleg copies from china or copies being made from some mystical super printer in someone's basement.) or will cause Amazon's reputation harm if not illegal but dishonest (used physical books being sold as "new", and there being on question they're not new.) or will result in the publisher no longer giving out those free promotional copies that don't explicitly say "NOT FOR RESALE". And really for that last one, why are they even still doing that. You want a promotional copy out there for people to read and review your book, just fucking give out a free e-book copy.
And notice that this is NOT about e-books at all. That's why in the screenshot provided of the example book, the ebook copy was still laughably expensive. There's no way to shop around with those, and no way for a publisher to sell less than the Suggested Retail Price on those.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:41PM
I use kindle unlimited to get a lot of my books, but those that aren't available on unlimited I buy in printed format as the selling price for an ebook is so close to that of a printed book and yet I can't share or resell the ebook. By the time I share the printed book with my uncle and 2 cousins, and then my young niece who reads them and then gets to sell them back to half-priced books it is well worth the addition dollar or two, especially as I get to read the material they buy as well.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Monday May 22 2017, @02:33AM (2 children)
So tell me, are these “third-party sellers” running their own printing presses producing their own copies of books without the consent of the author or publisher? In that case a lawyer would be in order for blatant cases of copyright infringement. Seems not though. Having a look at the article comes up with this:
(emphasis added) Now, I think I would refer them to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram [wikipedia.org]. There’s this thing called the doctrine of first sale which makes most of these things legal, and if I can get books cheaper and legally in that way, so much the better. Cry me a river: publishers already got paid for your book and authors already got their royalties at some point in the majority of these cases. They aren’t entitled to them as many times as a book is resold! The “hurts” part, well, that depends on the contractual relationship of the distributor/wholesaler who does it to the publisher. If you allowed them to do that, then well, I hear the world’s smallest violin playing Hearts and Flowers for you. And I imagine reviewers’ promotional copies make up a minuscule fraction of these books and in that case, well, they decided to waive that as a promotional cost to begin with.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday May 22 2017, @03:37AM
You have missed the point that they are representing these copies as new. If they have already been sold, they are not new.
This is not a case of used books competing with new.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @10:38AM
> are these “third-party sellers” running their own printing presses producing their own copies of books without the consent of the author or publisher?
Wild speculation (copied from earlier thread) -- many books are printed in China and other places far from the eyes of the North American or European publishing company offices. Perhaps the printing/binding companies are printing extra copies beyond the number ordered by the publisher. Once the printing/binding process is set up and in production this would be extremely cheap. Similar to the grey/black market for "fake" designer clothes that are made in the same factories as the brand names, but sold out the back door without knowledge of the original brand/designer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday May 22 2017, @06:02AM (2 children)
I have already run across this on Amazon.de. At the time, I was mystified - so here's the explanation. Actually, I'm still mystified. Amazon has gone to the trouble to build up this huge, well-oiled logistics chain...and now they don't want to use it?
Anyway, as a consumer, it's a nuisance. First, I went to Amazon to buy a book, partially because I trust their logistics chain. Third-party sellers, not so much - they are often slow, package things poorly, etc.. This is especially true, since I order from .de but live in .ch - I have had third party sellers accept an order and then refuse delivery when they discover they have to pay international postage. Others show up in the "buy box", but then comes the red text on the right "this item does not ship to your location". Yet Amazon itself ships here with no problems. Lastly, if I'm buying multiple items, I generally expect them to ship together, not in a zillion different packages.
Mind, it's nice to have the broader selection provided by third party sellers. I've bought unusual items (including, for example, out-of-print books) from them. They offer things that Amazon itself does not. But I want to *know* when I'm buying from someone else - I don't appreciate having it happen in stealth-mode.
A completely different comment: TFA goes on and on about how the publishers aren't getting paid by the third-party sellers, even though those sellers are shipping books printed by the publishers. The problem is that publishers are still relying on an utterly antiquated logistics, which has lots of holes in it. Maybe they need to modernize? They shouldn't be sending out product that isn't paid. The old practice of having bookstores rip the covers off of books that they didn't sell (rather than sending them back) was always stupidly wasteful. It turns out that lots of these unpaid, "damaged" or "destroyed" product are being sold after all. The dinosaurs are wishing the mammals would just go away; evolving is sooooo much trouble...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @10:29AM (1 child)
A footnote -- some small publishers are no longer selling direct to Amazon. The terms and other problems in dealing with Amazon are just too much trouble for these companies. Sorry, I don't have a reference, but I have discussed this with my small engineering press and they have withdrawn certain titles from Amazon. Of course Amazon still sells the books used, mostly from what I can see through third party sellers.
For just one example, Amazon insists that the publishers pay return shipping for unsold copies, which doesn't make any sense to me. After all Amazon can control this in several ways without beating up on publishers: With their predictive capability they can order just-in-time so they never have too many books in stock. With their giant international reach (and access to cheap logistics), Amazon can always move books to another market.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday May 22 2017, @11:12AM
Yes, Amazon does have an awful lot of power over publishers. There's not much way around that. That said, there are other solutions for the specialty press (for example, scientific reference books that sell very few copies). For example, I would think that this would be an ideal application of print-on-demand.
Also, frankly, eBooks.
Some publishers are pretty stupid about this: I just had a publisher send me a printed book that I don't even want! I specifically asked for an eBook, because I am not going to carry around printed books for all of the courses I teach. Just not. Of course, their electronic copy comes with DRM, which requires a special program in order to read it. So, should I ever get the damned eBook, the first thing I will have to do is strip the DRM, so that I can use it under Linux.
Sometimes, it's like the old, established publishers are *trying* to go out of business...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.