Authors Guild vs. Amazon

[robotecture]

http://mhpbooks.com/50171/authors-guild-joins-list-of-major-players-drawing-a-line-in-the-sand-again...

[patgolfneb]

I wonder in this age if consumers are really aware or truly understand what a free market entails. My experience recently is that many are defining it in terms of personal freedom and choice or government regulation. The government seems to be blamed twice, once for failing to prevent business excesses and a second time for any attempt to respond to them. The businesses seem immune to any broad based   criticism. I believe companies recognize this and feel that instead of an ethical code they can act in any way that is to their advantage until an outside agency intervenes, with almost no risk and minor penalties if caught. In this environment Amazon probably sees no reason to act in a fair manner.

[doncr]

Bah.  Amazon is trying to make things better for consumers - just like Wal-Mart does, and that's fine by me.  Lower prices are better for all.  

Those whiny, colluding Agency 6 publishers need to wake up and give consumers what they want, or they'll end up going the same direction as the recording industry.  The only entity capable of changing the publishers' mindset is apparently Amazon.

[roustabout]

It's worth looking at the original Authors' Guild blog post rather than the secondary comments

http://blog.authorsguild.org/2012/02/16/amazon-innovation-and-the-rewards-of-the-free-market/ 

I gather that many in the senior levels of the Author's Guild are bestselling authors - folks who benefitted greatly from the transformation of book retailing undertaken by the publishers and BN at the expense of independent sellers.  (eg http://authorsguild.org/about/board.html) 

It raises one of the first real points I've seen made that Amazon may have engaged in anticompetitive (in the legal sense) tactics:  at one point, Macmillan and Amazon were in a dispute around ebook pricing, and Amazon decided to stop selling Macmillan DTBs as well.  

I'm not sure I agree that it qualifies as anticompetitive, but I've seen many folks post about Amazon selling books cheaply as if that was, in and of itself, unfair.  The decision to simply stop selling Macmillan across both the ebook and DTB markets is more interesting, as the anticompetition laws behave differently once more than one market is involved.  

Much of the umbrage, though - the AG writer comes back to it again and again - is taken with Amazon having the audacity and ability to actually understand its market, meaning, to actually work with their marketing data.   

"no retailer in American history has had anything approaching Amazon’s database of deep, detailed, real-time market knowledge"

Guess what, peeps:  going forward, those with that knowledge and the ability to use it, win.  

My favorite line, answered by an AG member with some numbers in the comments, is this:

"Barnes & Noble is book publishing’s sole remaining substantial firewall. Without it, browsing in a bookstore would become a thing of the past "

Browsing Roulette is not a marketing strategy, it is suicide and has been responsible for a staggering failure rate among novelists. As of I think 2007, 93% of books (both traditionally and non-traditionally published) sold less than 1000 copies. This is a 93% FAILURE RATE.

I don't care for monopolies and Amazon is a whole other bag of beetles, but to protect B&N out of some noble sentiment to help new artists get discovered? That is hogwash and we are not buying it anymore.

Placement in bookstores is negotiated by an agent. For newbies? Forget the airport. Not gonna happen. Oh, and the front of the B&N, uh that is for VIPs only (people they already KNOW will sell lots of books, btw). Tables? Maybe, but really don't count on it...really. So for new authors, the best we can expect is to be spine-out on a shelf, and we better hope that our last name puts us at eye-level.

(posted by Kristen in the comments.)   

[patgolfneb]

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doncr wrote:

Bah.  Amazon is trying to make things better for consumers - just like Wal-Mart does, and that's fine by me.  Lower prices are better for all.  

Those whiny, colluding Agency 6 publishers need to wake up and give consumers what they want, or they'll end up going the same direction as the recording industry.  The only entity capable of changing the publishers' mindset is apparently Amazon.

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So the end result of lower costs jusifies any action? I agree publishers need to find a model which recognizes the changes in book delivery and which should result in cost savings to consumers. So far I cannot identify that Amazons model encourages a equitable competitive process any more than the publishers. Please enlighten us how this process should be changed to be fair to all, cosumers, authors, publishers and retailers.

[bklvr896]

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Placement in bookstores is negotiated by an agent. For newbies? Forget the airport. Not gonna happen. Oh, and the front of the B&N, uh that is for VIPs only (people they already KNOW will sell lots of books, btw). Tables? Maybe, but really don't count on it...really. So for new authors, the best we can expect is to be spine-out on a shelf, and we better hope that our last name puts us at eye-level.

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I had an acquaintence who had her first book published a couple of years ago.  Her placement was negotiated by her agent, and it was more than spine out on a shelf, it was on one of the displays of new releases.  So it does happen.  Maybe she had a really good agent.

[doncr]

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patgolfneb wrote:
So the end result of lower costs jusifies any action? I agree publishers need to find a model which recognizes the changes in book delivery and which should result in cost savings to consumers. So far I cannot identify that Amazons model encourages a equitable competitive process any more than the publishers. Please enlighten us how this process should be changed to be fair to all, cosumers, authors, publishers and retailers.

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Well, for starters they could treat eBooks like they were DTBs, allowing resellers to price them as they wish and consumers to resell or lend them freely.  I don't know what Amazon is up to, but at least their actions are starting the discussion about eBook pricing and control instilled by the Agency 6.

[patgolfneb]

Roustabout, as far as seling cheaply court precedents are all over the place. Multiple factors can be considered. Market share, if Apple with a 62 percent market share started selling a significant share of its tablets below cost that might be enough. Toshiba, could do it and it is a non issue. Discounting for short periods or for defined business reason, close outs, end of year, end disontinued model, no problem. Targeted discounting, selling below cost only in markets shared with a competitor a clear no. Asian firms have been cited for this repeatedly. Any instance where it is reasonable that the goal is to harm a competitor. BN was clearly guilty of this in the 80s and early 90s. I would suggest Amazons market share in e books and actions could meet least two of these criteria. Limitations on auto dealers, local furniture stores and such are much less since they rarely have any kind of market dominance.

[Schwa]

I believe that the dam will break around the same time that ebooks sales start to outpace DTB sales.  The wave is growing but it is still a much smaller market.  The same thing happened in the music industry, the production companies resisted dropping prices for downlaods until they could resist no longer. 

Slightly off topic:  The music industry pricing standard of 99c per song and $10 per album was pretty much set with the Apple iTunes store.  How is this different from the pricing set with Apple yet again, this time for ebooks?  I'm sure there is a difference, I'm just not sure what it is...

[flyingtoastr Inspired Wordsmith]

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doncr wrote:

Well, for starters they could treat eBooks like they were DTBs, allowing resellers to price them as they wish and consumers to resell or lend them freely.  I don't know what Amazon is up to, but at least their actions are starting the discussion about eBook pricing and control instilled by the Agency 6.

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They did that, and Amazon priced everyone else out of the market.

[robotecture]

The issue is giving too much power to one company. If Barnes and Noble went away, it would give way too much power to the one company that put other large booksellers out of business... In case you don't believe Amazon has huge leverage over authors, just look at today's news: http://www.bizjournals.com/mobile/seattle/news/2012/02/22/amazon-pulls-thousands-of-e-books-from.htm... Imagine what kind of leverage they would have if Barnes and Noble and other bricks and mortar booksellers disappeared...

[robotecture]

Here is my view: publishers have their role, whether it is independent publishers or large publishers. These companies *do not* make a killing. Margins are low. Most books lose money, and publishers bank on the occasional best seller to float alot of other quality works which may not have mass appeal. If you know somebody who works for a publisher, you will know that it is not an easy business... How is it that starving out publishers is good for authors, or readers for that matter? Or the literary growth and consumer culture of society? Without physical book stores, I'm sorry to say there would be fewer opportunities for serendipitous discovery of content, the book store experience, and the browsing experience, cannot be met by an online catalogue... It's not the same thing, and consumer life would kind of be a little bit poorer without book stores IMHO...

[robotecture]

The thing about this is, I'm not saying bookstores need to stay the same... Clearly there is a need to evolve in response to a different environment... What is the next evolution of the bricks and mortar book store experience within the digital age? That's what I'm interested in... And right now Barnes and Noble has the potential I think to take us there... It's not easy but kind of a cool challenge, to redefine the book store experience. As a consumer, that's my choice, to get behind the underdog...

[patgolfneb]

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doncr wrote:

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patgolfneb wrote:
So the end result of lower costs jusifies any action? I agree publishers need to find a model which recognizes the changes in book delivery and which should result in cost savings to consumers. So far I cannot identify that Amazons model encourages a equitable competitive process any more than the publishers. Please enlighten us how this process should be changed to be fair to all, cosumers, authors, publishers and retailers.

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Well, for starters they could treat eBooks like they were DTBs, allowing resellers to price them as they wish and consumers to resell or lend them freely.  I don't know what Amazon is up to, but at least their actions are starting the discussion about eBook pricing and control instilled by the Agency 6.

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Although I agree a process creating a secondary market is warranted and reselling book license is reasonable, some restriction is warranted. E books can be transferred very easily. Authors could find their work is practically valuless. So I feel a transfer fee paid by the buyer which is shared should be part of the process. Limiting borrowing to a certain number of times per year by libraries and owners is reasonable. To decide what is fair I would need to know how many times the aveage paper book is borrowed. My guess would be 10-15 times a year. Libraries and publishers should be either be negotiaing total times an e book can be borrowed or an annual limit maybe. That is my point your first post only considered cosumer cost. Ifvwevwant authors to keep writing the process has to consider their need to profit from theirvwork also.

[doncr]

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flyingtoastr wrote:

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doncr wrote:

Well, for starters they could treat eBooks like they were DTBs, allowing resellers to price them as they wish and consumers to resell or lend them freely.  I don't know what Amazon is up to, but at least their actions are starting the discussion about eBook pricing and control instilled by the Agency 6.

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They did that, and Amazon priced everyone else out of the market.

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Or in other words, Amazon offered a better deal for consumers and the consumers jumped on it.  You'll have a hard time convincing me or most consumers that there's anything wrong with this.

The Agency 6 price-fixing model doesn't affect DTBs, so why is it that I can buy DTBs at different prices everywhere and those retailers aren't all out of business?

The eBook situation sucks.  I can't resell my eBooks.  I can't lend my eBooks.  My eBooks are tied to a particular hardware platform.  The eBook lending at the library is a PITA (and apparently is too efficient and needs more "friction").  Lending via subscription (Netflix) is forbidden by the publishers.  I'd be more tolerant of the retail price-fixing that BN and Agency 6 are doing if they would address these things so that eBooks are as consumer friendly as DTBs, but I'm not holding my breath.  These publishers are starting to make the RIAA look good.

[doncr]

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patgolfneb wrote:

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doncr wrote:

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patgolfneb wrote:
So the end result of lower costs jusifies any action? I agree publishers need to find a model which recognizes the changes in book delivery and which should result in cost savings to consumers. So far I cannot identify that Amazons model encourages a equitable competitive process any more than the publishers. Please enlighten us how this process should be changed to be fair to all, cosumers, authors, publishers and retailers.

---

Well, for starters they could treat eBooks like they were DTBs, allowing resellers to price them as they wish and consumers to resell or lend them freely.  I don't know what Amazon is up to, but at least their actions are starting the discussion about eBook pricing and control instilled by the Agency 6.

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Although I agree a process creating a secondary market is warranted and reselling book license is reasonable, some restriction is warranted. E books can be transferred very easily. Authors could find their work is practically valuless. So I feel a transfer fee paid by the buyer which is shared should be part of the process. Limiting borrowing to a certain number of times per year by libraries and owners is reasonable. To decide what is fair I would need to know how many times the aveage paper book is borrowed. My guess would be 10-15 times a year. Libraries and publishers should be either be negotiaing total times an e book can be borrowed or an annual limit maybe. That is my point your first post only considered cosumer cost. Ifvwevwant authors to keep writing the process has to consider their need to profit from theirvwork also.

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I don't agree about the transfer fee.  There's no transfer fee needed when reselling software, video games, CDs, DVDs, or DTBs.  Why should consumers have to pay this just for eBooks?

I have no problem with what you're proposing for libraries.  I'd be surprised if it's not that way already, and that would likely be the same way things would work with a subscription eBook model (a la Netflix).

[robotecture]

Roustabout: but your perspective is from that of a writer looking to break in... What about the perspective of the *reader*? Surely browsing is a great thing for the *reader*, and therefore the *consumer* experience... As someone who has worked with some authors looking to break in to the market, I am aware of the challenges, and I'm also aware that there is a ton of great content out there that doesn't get equal shelf visibility. That said, as a reader, I can browse deep into the stacks, I discover books all the time, stumble upon some random thing I knew nothing about... Whether at a Barnes and Noble or at Powell Books in Portland, or at a university book store... I know some authors with books at Barnes and Noble or Chapters/Indigo in Canada... Not much visibility, but they are there, so it can be done... An agent is valuable... And then there are ebooks. A library of well made ebooks, and with the ability to read in store for free, that is just one other layer to the bookstore browsing experience that could be capitalized on...maybe what is needed is a means for better searching the Nook store... An integrated ebook bricks and mortar back and forth browsing experience that fosters serendipitous discovery of content... That would be a killer combination for Barnes and Noble business... Since there are only so many New York Times best sellers that somebody will buy, but if you build on the book suggestion learning function of the book store, and turn the Nook store into almost a Pandora radio station for discovering other books that you might like, that would be something... It's sort of something that happens in store already. I go looking for one book and on that shelf I browse and pick up any number of other books along the way... Somebody make that nook app: an in store ebook pandora that combines the Barnes and Noble wish list, recommendations, and an ebook database search function built on book preference variables to help people discover new content... I don't mean just like a recommendations feature, I mean combine that kind of pandora player experience with the *free in store reading* experience on your nook... Then you can purchase if you like what you are reading...