I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but Amazon has stopped selling all of Macmillan's books. All of them, ebook version, paperback, hardcover, every single one. Why? There's a huge fight going on because Amazon wants a hard cap of $9.99 for ebooks and Macmillan wants a flexible pricing model.

This is probably the best post I've read about the entire situation. Why? Because it's pretty even handed, especially given that it's by an author who is directly affected by this.

My response is getting long so I'll tuck it below the fold. If nothing else, read the post at the link because it gets into the nitty gritty about the publishing business and profit margins. I found that very interesting.

UPDATE: In the interest of fairness, here is Amazon's response.

My response to that is wow is that self-serving.  If anything, I'm now less impressed by Amazon's response.  I certainly hope that this leads to the development of an alternative.  Competition is good. 
I don't know what I think about this situation. Let's start with this. Amazon has every right to sell what it wants and Macmillan has every right to control its own goods and to determine pricing how it wants. As an avid kindle reader and user (you don't even want to know my weekly book budget) and as a pretty hard core capitalist, I'm very concerned by this. Why? Because Amazon seems to be flying in the face of dynamic market pricing. There's absolutely nothing shocking that the prices of books fall. A brand new Stephen King gets a premium price the day it comes out, a few months later the initial 40% reduction is now a 65% reduction, then the paperback comes out and then you can buy a hardcover in the remainder section for $5.99.

From what is out there, Amazon wants to eliminate that initial uptick in price and set a hard cap on what an ebook costs. Again, Amazon totally has the right to do that. But a publisher does not have to deal with Amazon. That's where the second area of concern arises. Amazon created a closed universe, much like Apple software and the initial itunes offerings with DRM. I knew when I bought the kindle that the books had DRM. I went into that with my eyes open. Amazon is trying to use it's own DRM system as a club. Again, it can do that. I think that's stupid. There's a fundamental flaw in Amazon's thinking. I don't *have* to buy an ebook. I don't *have* to buy a physical book from Amazon. I can go to Borders, order from B&N, go to the local indie bookstore, get it from the library, etc. etc. Just because Amazon is the biggest game in town doesn't mean it's the only game in town.

From the flip side, publishers aren't precisely the white hats here. I know some published authors and I've heard the horror stories on getting accurate sales information about that author's own work. Macmillan wants to make as much money as it can. Good! Do it! But don't bitch when you want to play with the big boy and the big boy wants to do it on his terms. Of course that's how it's going to be. If you want to play with Amazon, you're going to be doing it on Amazon's terms. You don't like those terms? Don't sell through Amazon. As I noted, there are multiple other sources of distribution.

This does bring up one of the more interesting bits of consumer culture. Pricing on books, dvds, video games, etc. is fairly static. That means that the intangibles come into play when deciding where a consumer makes a purchase. I will pay a few dollars more to shop at Target or Wegman's because I am buying a better shopping experience. That's how I view it, I'm buying a nicer store, better selection and, yes, a better class of shoppers (I know I know I'm a snob) by doing so. That is my choice. The same thing here. I utterly support Amazon's right to throw its weight around on this. But I don't like it. There's something about it that grates, especially as I read more about the ramifications on pricing models. Don't tell me you're looking out for me when you're really looking out for you.

Is this enough to keep me from buying from Amazon or using my kindle? Well, maybe and maybe not. But I'm already looking at the next gen readers, particularly the Skiff, and I will take this into account.

So that's my long-winded take, I think both sides are within their rights, I think there's some bad behavior on both parts, I feel bad for the authors who are caught in the middle but if I have to assign blame, I blame Amazon more. 

Posted by: alexthechick at 01:42 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 825 words, total size 5 kb.