Amazon vs. Macmillan: FIGHT!
Feb. 1st, 2010 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperI spent most of this weekend at the filk convention Conflikt, and that was great fun, but even as a bunch of geeky music was going on I kept an eye on the kerfuffle that exploded between Amazon and Macmillan. The issue at hand appears to be the pricing of ebooks, and as an ebook author, this is of course Relevant to My Interests.
The issue as I understand it is that Amazon and Macmillan are having a huge dispute about how much ebooks ought to cost. Macmillan is aiming for a variable pricing structure from $14.99 down to as low as $5.99, whereas Amazon is standing adamant about $9.99 as a price point. (Side note: since a lot of the ebooks I buy tend to run lower than even $9.99, even when purchased on Amazon, the nuances of the ebook pricing structure are still a mystery to me. But I digress.) They couldn’t reach an agreement, and so Amazon up and pulled all Macmillan titles out of its database, not only the ebooks, but the print titles as well.
To wit, whoa.
Amazon has since capitulated but as of this morning, Macmillan authors are still reporting that new copies of their works are still not available for purchase on Amazon. And the agents I’m seeing chime in on the matter are pretty sure this isn’t over yet by a long shot. I’m still thinking hard about what I want to do about this, if anything. I’ve seen a lot of people asserting that this has been the last straw for them, and that they will cease doing any further business with Amazon; I’ve seen several authors now go and pull all links to Amazon’s pages for their works off their sites.
It’s just one great big mess, and I’m hoping it’ll settle itself out soon. ‘Cause again, Relevant to My Interests. Drollerie is tiny enough that I can’t exactly tell people not to buy Faerie Blood or Defiance on Amazon, if that’s where they want to buy it–especially given that neither of these titles have shown up on Barnes and Noble’s site yet, and Fictionwise doesn’t have Defiance, either. But man, it’s making me inclined more and more just to point folks directly at Drollerie’s own store. Where we don’t have any DRM anyway!
Link roundup, for those of you who want to see more on the matter:
- Agent Nathan Bransford has a good summation here
- John Scalzi is less than pleased
- Tobias Buckell goes into the differences between what print books cost and what ebooks cost, which is good reading if you want a handle on why ebooks might not necessarily be as cheap as you think they should be
- Charles Stross is also less than pleased, but attempts to provide an outsider’s guide to the fight
- And agent Kristin Nelson does a quick overview of what exactly Amazon and Macmillan have themselves said on the matter
- ETA: Agent Jennifer Jackson chimes in with her own link roundup and reactions
- ETA: And a kerfuffle of this magnitude just wouldn’t be complete without a word (or many!) from Fandom Wank!
- ETA: Scott Westerfeld has a good summation, and I think that by and large I agree with his analysis
- ETA: An interesting counterargument suggests that even if Amazon is the one who had to capitulate here, they’re still going to win this fight
Again, whoa. This is me over here in the corner, munching popcorn and waiting to see how this all plays out.
Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 07:36 pm (UTC)But I'm not completely unsympathetic to Amazon in this fight, mostly because I don't think it's a coincidence that the timing occurred after Apple announced that their ebooks for the iPad would cost more than Amazon's for the Kindle.
I want publishers to make a fair profit off their books; I also think that the publishers should set the prices, not the stores. But I feel like a lot of this has to do with publishers still seeing profit mostly in traditional terms of the number of physical copies sold -- particularly hardbacks.
One report I saw this morning said that at least some of the big publishers (Simon & Schuster, for one) are thinking of delaying ebook versions of books released in hardback so they'll still get all their sales from the hardback versions first.
That makes me really, really angry. I'm fine with paying more for an ebook copy of something in hardback than something in paperback. That's fair. I'm not fine with paying the same amount for an ebook version because I know it doesn't cost nearly as much to format them for ebook as to print hard back versions.
And to try and force me to the version I don't want really sets me off. I normally buy books by favorite authors the day they come out. But given a choice between print and ebook, I'd rather the latter because if it's a favorite author I'm going to keep it, and want it available to me for re-reading. (i.e., ebook format.) And given that most of my books are in storage off-site now, space is a huge issue.
Some standardization of ebook prices is needed, something fair to the readers (hello, remember us?), the publishers (and therefore the authors), and the stores. But Apple starting price wars between Amazon and the publishers for their own benefit, or publishers holding ebook versions hostage to an antiquated view of the publishing industry doesn't accomplish anything except make a bigger mess of things.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 07:45 pm (UTC)This isn't necessarily true. Check out Tobias Buckell's link on the matter; he explains in great depth why ebooks may not cost as little to produce as you think they do. You do still need to pay for the cover art, and assuming you're not a small operation like Drollerie Press, you'll also need to pay for someone to do the layout and design of the novel in general. Just because it's an ebook doesn't necessarily mean you don't still have to do layout work on it.
Also: there are additional headaches involved with putting the ebook out, stuff that I've learned about now that I'm an ebook author myself. If you want to work with more than one store at once, you have to go through all the hoops of formatting the book for those stories. For example, Drollerie has to reformat a book several times just so it'll have a version available for sale on Amazon and another one on Barnes and Noble, and several more available for Fictionwise, and such. And again, if you're not a small operation like Drollerie, someone still has to be paid to do the work of doing all that reformatting.
And if you're going to do all that reformatting, you'll also have to have somebody doublecheck that the file still works and that you didn't inadvertantly pooch large swaths of the content.
So yeah. Ebooks may not cost anything to actually ship, but there are absolutely still production costs involved.
But for the rest of what you've got to say: absolutely.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 08:35 pm (UTC)Oh, definitely. With a background in tech, I'm quite aware of the work involved with electronic files, and your points about the different formats is valid. (Though even there, there aren't as many formats as people might think, with Kindle using Mobipocket and the nook (and maybe Sony's reader) using the ereader format. Still, something must be added to make it impossible to open a regular Mobipocket book on a Kindle.)
But I'm still not convinced it's exactly the same investment to make an ebook as a paper one, and therefore I expect *some* kind of price break.
For starters, ebooks don't have any cost at all involved with reprints. (And that, of course, is a separate matter for authors from a contract point of view. If a book is out-of-print in the physical sense but still available in ebook form, where does that leave the author in terms of contract?)
The publisher benefits from still being able to sell the book in electronic format long after the print versions are gone because they don't have to re-invest anything to continue making sales. (Well, beyond the cost of maintaining the servers where the files are. That's not insignificant, actually, but surely can't compete with the cost of ordering another print run, with attendant costs of paper, shipping and staffing?)
Quite honestly? I think part of the problem is that publishers have relied on markups to make a profit, and that's harder to do in ebook format because so many people assume ebooks are free to produce. An average hardback's MSRP is $26, but they're usually available for 30-40% off that at the store of your choice. Presumably, the stores and publishers still manage to make some sort of profit in spite of that reduction, so how much does it cost, really, to print and ship those books?
Another factor with ebooks, whether the publishers want to admit it or not, is that someone buying a paper version of the book may well re-sell it to a used shop where someone else buys it (with no profit at all to the publisher and author), or may simply give it away to a friend. So every paper version of the book may be read by two or more consumers. Ebooks, on the other hand, represent one sale, one reader. Publishers can pretend that reselling and lending don't happen, but doing so doesn't make it true, meaning they benefit in that way from ebooks as well. (At least DRM books.)
All of which is a long winded way of saying that I don't expect ebooks to be free. In fact, I thought Amazon's $9.99 price for hardbacks to be very low. On the other hand, if I regularly get a 30-40% discount off hardbacks, what *is* a fair price for an electronic version that doesn't have to be reformatted for paperback distribution and which I can neither re-sell nor lend to someone else?
If a new hardback costs $26, and Borders sells it for 30% off, that's $18.20. I don't know how much profit Borders makes at that price point, nor how much the publisher gets. But if they're all content to make $18 from a hardback edition, it makes me wonder how much it did cost to make the book, and how that compares with the cost of making an electronic version, and what a reasonable price for an ebook would be.
If I can get the hardback for $18, is it fair to charge me Apple's $14 for an ebook version that I can't lend to someone else nor re-sell? Is there really that little difference in manufacturing cost between a hardback version (paper, typesetting, storage, shipping) and an ebook version (formatting, server storage?) -- particularly given the benefits to the publisher of ebooks? (Can't be resold or given away, can be sold after print copies are long gone?)
I guess it comes down to this: I believe it costs something to make an electronic version, and they should be priced accordingly. But does it really cost the same as it does to print and ship paper versions? That I'm not yet convinced of.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 08:42 pm (UTC)Lack of ability to return an ebook or sell it to a used bookstore doesn't necessarily bother me, from my own personal perspective as a reader; the vast majority of books I buy, I intend to keep, and the main reason I take books to the nearest used bookstore anyway is because I only have so much space in my house to keep print copies. ;)
Ultimately I think where I'd like this to go is to settle on a nice pricing structure that would allow all parties involved to still make money. As a writer, I do want my shiny shiny royalties. As a reader, I feel like I'm willing to put down the same amount of money for the electronic edition that I am for the print--since I'm paying for the story as well as the convenience of not having to carry the physical object around. But then, the vast majority of print books I buy are mass market paperbacks, and to a lesser degree, trades. I only go hardcover for the authors I love the most. And I'm only willing to put down hardcover prices for an ebook if Fictionwise gets frisky with the rebates involved, and lets me spend those to buy several more shiny ebooks.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 09:06 pm (UTC)Absolutely.
I guess for me the convenience of carrying my beloved books with me everywhere I go is mitigated somewhat by not being able to lend them out, nor re-sell them if I decide they're not keepers, after all. Given that I feel like the publisher benefits from those restrictions, I think it's reasonable to expect price reduction for ebook formats, in line with whatever the actual difference is in making an ebook vs. a paper book. If it really does cost a publisher the same amount to do ebooks and print books, I think they should be advertising that fact, loudly.
(Though how much good it will do, I don't know. If there's no price break at all for ebooks, some people might well decide they'd rather the freedom of reselling the book if they don't like it and go the paper route, while others will grumble and continue to buy.)
I tend to think that it is cheaper to make electronic versions, particularly when all the angles are considered, but that it's not as inexpensive as most people believe.
Me, I just want a fair price.
And I'm only willing to put down hardcover prices for an ebook if Fictionwise gets frisky with the rebates involved, and lets me spend those to buy several more shiny ebooks."
Ditto. I sort of view Fictionwise's rebates the way I used to the used paperback store: I'd turn in new books I'd bought, read and decided weren't keepers in exchange for new authors. If I liked the author enough to read them again, I'd buy them new.
It's not quite the same, but I use the rebate program in the same way, tending to use what's in my rebate account for new authors I want to try but may not like. That way, I don't feel like I've spent 'real' money for something I can't then trade away to the used store. ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 08:51 pm (UTC)I don't believe it's Amazon's place to demand how much something can or can't be sold for.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 08:20 am (UTC)Books here are already expensive. The RRP of a mass paperback book over here is around the AU$18-19 mark. (That's around $16 US dollars). So from my point of view paying $15 US dollars for an eARC isn't that bad. Paying $7-8 USD for a book that's been out a while, in ebook format so I don't have to pay shipping and it becomes a very nice option.
I am however not buying at amazon because I want to buy my books, not lease them. Plus I've already got a phone that can do the ebook reading so not feeling like shelling out for a Kindle.
The ipad looks pretty, but a bit large (It's bigger than my Eee and thus will not fit in my current handbag)
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 03:16 pm (UTC)The whole question of DRM is a different one entirely than the one Amazon and Macmillan are fighting over, but yeah. I'd prefer to be DRM-free myself, and I do try to buy DRM-free when I have that option. A lot of small presses like Drollerie do go DRM-free. The major ones don't though. So the best compromise I've found for myself is to try to buy formats that can be read on as many of my devices as possible.