posted
I am a total Kindle addict and I am very excited that OSC is going to be releasing his books for the Kindle.
I was just wondering if someone could explain how Amazon is ripping off the authors? I always thought that since the cost of transporting and printing the books is eliminated, the books could be sold at a reduced price and everyone could make more money. Also, since you can't let someone borrow your book, more overall copies of the book will get sold. I am sure there are many aspects of the publishing world I am ignorant of, so I am hoping someone can tell me exactly how the authors are losing out.
Posts: 3 | Registered: Oct 2006
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From what I understand, Amazon requests 65% of profits from books sold on Kindle. That leaves 35% to split between the author and publisher-- significantly less than what is provided by brick-n-mortar booksellers.
The publisher isn't likely to cut back on their profits (especially not in this economy); that means that they'll start authors out on smaller royalties.
As an author, I'm excited by e-readers. I'm not so excited about Amazon. They're an enormous force in literary e-distribution, to the point of having a practical monopoly.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Scott, do you know anything about other ebook vendors? I am a frequent purchaser at fictionwise. Secure content for the Kindle can only be purchased from Amazon, but if non-secure content would be better for the author at other places, I'd like to know about it.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
I'm not sure what you mean by secure content...
I know Sony's e-reader is a lot more versatile than the last iteration of the Kindle (or at least, that's what I've heard); I like that it allows you to read pdfs without having to jump through hoops.
Ultimately, I think it will be a game of chicken with Amazon-- authors and agents will need to take a hard look at whether Amazon is the type of distributer they want to give power to to be the future of literary distribution.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
At Fictionwise, they sell secure and non-secure books. In general, novel length books are secure, meaning they can only be read on whatever device they are registered for. So, for example, if I download it in pdf format, I can only read it on a version of Acrobat that is registered to the same email address that is associated with my fictionwise account. Whereas if it's non-secure, like most short fiction is, I can read it on any Acrobat reader anywhere.
However, secure content at Fictionwise cannot be read on the Kindle *at all*. This was a business decision made by Amazon; any such books *must* be purchased through Amazon.
Which is kind of irritating, because, for example, Fictionwise has secure versions of "Caves of Steel" and "The Naked Sun", and Amazon doesn't have them available for the Kindle yet...
Seeing what you've said above, I'm inclined to buy as little as possible through Amazon. I'm glad you brought this to my attention, because I have a subscription to Asimov's that expires in two months, and I was going to renew it through Amazon, but now I think I'll renew it through Fictionwise since it's not secure.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
I'm curious to know, is the same pricing scheme true of Audible? From what I understand, Audible content can be listened to on the Kindle.
Of course, the Kindle is by far the most convenient e-book reader for anyone that lives outside of high speed internet areas - though I imagine we're a pretty small percentage of the market. Still, it seems that Kindle has the far upper hand in the ebook reader market. If the market goes away from paper books and into e-books, will it really matter what authors think? Won't they HAVE to settle for the smaller profits simply to sell their works? It seems unlikely that a large portion of authors will manage to box out Amazon because there are simply too many authors to pick from.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
You're describing what could be a monopoly. In the case of such a thing happening, Amazon could be and would be sued. The government would possibly order that the company be split, and forced to compete in the marketplace. They are aware of that at Amazon, and so will probably try to broker some kind of deal with the writers beforehand.
It's really just a question of when Amazon will have to be broken up at this point.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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How is the Kindle a monopoly? Just because something is good or has a large market share doesn't mean it's a monopoly...
"It's really just a question of when Amazon will have to be broken up at this point. " -That's a pretty laughable statement, whats your basis for that?
Posts: 57 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: You're describing what could be a monopoly. In the case of such a thing happening, Amazon could be and would be sued. The government would possibly order that the company be split, and forced to compete in the marketplace. They are aware of that at Amazon, and so will probably try to broker some kind of deal with the writers beforehand.
It's really just a question of when Amazon will have to be broken up at this point.
Amazon isn't a monopoly, not even close. For it to be a monopoly, it would have to be the only place you could buy books. If you're a business person, you have a choice. If you don't like Amazon's policies, go to Barnes and Noble or any of the dozens of other places out there.
There is no legal expectation that Amazon sell a product in a way that the product's creator approves of.
Posts: 50 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:There is no legal expectation that Amazon sell a product in a way that the product's creator approves of.
Well...sort of. It depends on the publisher's agreement with Amazon. For example, Amazon can't sell books using its Kindle service if the publisher and author haven't agreed to allow those books to be sold in that format.
No, Amazon isn't a monopoly right now. But they are extremely powerful, and they do occasionally resort to monopolistic practices.
Just a note-- those two articles were written in 2005, I think. As of last quarter, Amazon beat Borders' sales. It's only competition (in scale) is Barnes and Noble.
It's also worth noting that the publishing world is bleeding to death. There are no publishers that aren't suffering.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: HI, this is a person who reads the thread before responding to a post completely out of context.
You don't deserve a response.
Just because my response wasn't as simplistic as the post I was responding to doesn't mean I didn't read the thread.
I do concede I could have been a bit clearer in what I said however, so I'll explain in more detail.
Amazon could have a 100% lock on all eBooks and it wouldn't be considered a monopoly because there would still be vendors selling books in the traditional sense. One of the few exceptions would be if all those traditional vendors disappeared and Amazon were the only choice for books on both paper and digital.
A close comparison would be Sirius XM. It is now the only satellite music vendor in the country. It's not considered a monopoly because listeners still have other methods to listen to music/talk radio/etc through the traditional terrestrial frequencies.
Posts: 50 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Ah, well you are in luck because I had this explained to me by OSC himself in my writing class last Wednesday because he just bought a Kindle and passed it around.
When you download a book for the Kindle the publisher gets 35% of the profits. So if you by a book for 20$ the publisher get's 7 dollars. Of the publisher's profits the author gets 7 percent. Not 7% of 20$ 7% of the 7$ that the publisher gets. So if you bought one of OSC's books for 20$ he would get 49 cents.
The issue that many of the authors are seeing with this is that when it comes to ebooks there are no publishing costs whatsoever. There are no printing fees, shipping fees, cover art, binding. The ONLY thing that you get when you buy an ebook are the words that the author wrote. The ONLY thing that a publisher has to do is maintain a download server, which is actually covered by Amazon and probably at around $300 a month.
In this case it's pretty clear the author is being ripped off.
Posts: 208 | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
"The issue that many of the authors are seeing with this is that when it comes to ebooks there are no publishing costs whatsoever. There are no printing fees, shipping fees, cover art, binding."
This means that publishers are becoming obsolete then. Once Kindle (and similar devices) become widespread, publishing companies will be removed from their position -- authors would just pay someone to transform their novel into electronic form, and then they'd make a deal directly with Amazon. No publishers necessary.
Eventually, that is.
I'm surprised on one thing though -- even today when Kindle isn't yet widepsread, I'd imagine that OSC would have enough bargaining power of the "No new books with you if you don't agree to my terms" variety, that he could negotiate with his publishing company for far better terms in receiving Kindle profits.
Posts: 676 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Aris Katsaris: I'm surprised on one thing though -- even today when Kindle isn't yet widespread, I'd imagine that OSC would have enough bargaining power of the "No new books with you if you don't agree to my terms" variety, that he could negotiate with his publishing company for far better terms in receiving Kindle profits.
You're assuming his contract gives him the right to make such demands in the first place. He may have already signed on for a number of books or a term, with language indicating that his publisher has the rights to distribute his books in new media, regardless of the profit margin. Or he may have a better deal and just isn't telling us about it. I mean, it took the Hollywood writers a lengthy strike to receive only a small portion of the profits from their works in the digital domain- and that was all because of sloppy contracts and a lack of forward thinking many years ago. For all we know, OSC is in the same boat, or he did it right a long time ago and doesn't have to worry.
Still, I doubt that his position with TOR is so ad-hoc as to allow him to announce "no more books until." Maybe it is, but if so: wow! I want his job.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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