Amazon Fires Missile At Book Industry, Launches 70% Kindle Royalty Option

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-amazon-fires-torpedo-at-book-industry-launches-70-kindle-royalty-option-2010-1

by icey • 17 years ago

75 31 17 years ago

businessinsider.com

Mark_B• 17 years ago

This is a totally exciting and great idea, but the down side the cynic inside of me sees coming is the spam/ads saying "Work from home as an author and make $$$" and junk Kindle-only books flooding Amazon.

potatolicious• 17 years ago

> "and junk Kindle-only books flooding Amazon"

I actually think this would be a great idea - so long as it does better than the App Store in terms of filtering for the best. Amazon's recommendation/review system has always been pretty strong, though.

Democratization of publishing, of content distribution and production, is one of the chief reasons why the internet has been the most important invention in recent memory.

ShabbyDoo• 17 years ago

So, am I correct to assume that authors mainly need publishers for printing, distribution, and marketing? Will we see more self-publishing as a result of the Kindle/Nook/etc?

travisp• 17 years ago

We'll probably see more self-publishing, but marketing will still be extremely important for authors.

vaksel• 17 years ago

i think they need them more for editing. All the kindle-only books I've read, had a ton of spelling errors.

aaronblohowiak3• 17 years ago

Freelance editors are pretty cheap. I don't know about their quality, however.

brc• 17 years ago

Publishers are yet another industry where much of the value chain is locked up within the one organization. This is historical because of the economies of scale needed to turn a profit in the area.

With more free markets in all areas, and lower costs of distribution, many of those reasons do not necessarily apply anymore. What you may see is the devolution of the publishing business into smaller parts, and each part completed by a different business/individual.

For example, I might write a book, find an editor on a freelance site, then find an artist, and a PR agent. I could even perhaps hire a manager who co-ordinated the whole process for me. I might then either self-publish (LuLu) or put it straight to Kindle. In the past these were all handled in-house, and the publisher had high overheads for all the staff and accompanying infrastructure.

I think the internet will continue to break up these value chains into smaller compononents with more competition at each step. Publishers will only go with big-selling authors, and probably only after that Author finds success independently - kind of like a band signing a deal after releasing their own EP and making a go of it.

msg2• 17 years ago

The main benefit I receive from publishers is filtering. Even the worst publisher printing unbelievable shlock is light years ahead of the garbage in the publishing anteroom, the slush pile.

With that, the greatest blog post on publishing of all time, "Slushkiller":

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html

tjic• 17 years ago

> The main benefit I receive from publishers is filtering.

The main benefit I receive from my friends is filtering.

Now, the question is: do publishers or my friends do that job better?

andrewcooke• 17 years ago

that's true for me (using publishers as filters) when i'm in a bookstore. but i don't think i've looked at who the publisher of a book is when buying from amazon for ages - typically i read amazon's comments and then google around for what other people are saying.

sjunkin• 17 years ago

This is brilliant. Anything which streamlines distribution has always helped the consumers and producers while increasing overall efficiency. Redfin is a good example, this looks like it will be another.

cnunciato2• 17 years ago

Not always. Redfin, maybe, since the middleman in that case is really more like an obstruction between buyers and sellers. Publishers aren't an obstruction in that sense. Sure, some of them could probably run leaner operations and give more money to their authors, but the publishing industry as a whole serves a very valuable purpose we don't necessarily recognize, because we're so used to it.

runevault5• 17 years ago

Depends, there is some use like content filtration. However the user ratings could fill in for a lot of that on amazon.

Also, as came up in another branch of the article's discussion, this could cause certain things like freelance editing to get a real boost from potential increased customers.

greyman• 17 years ago

The article suggest that the Kindle business is a big money-loser so far? That surprised me. Why it should be a money-loser, when the Kindle itself is rather expensive and the e-book copies cost virtually nothing(?)

gchucky• 17 years ago

There was an article a few months back that stated that Amazon loses $2 for each book sold on Kindle. Publishers won't sell e-books for less than the publishing price.

http://www.tbiresearch.com/e-readers-should-drive-profits-fo... is the original document, as far as I can find right now.

etherael• 17 years ago

Is this genuinely a case of "We have commercial control of a lot of physical book manufacturing commodities and in order to leverage the value of these commodities we want to artificially inflate the price of the competition"?

That... seems... well, it doesn't taste good, let's put it that way.

cnunciato2• 17 years ago

Personally I love the idea of authors earning more for their efforts, I think that's great, but there are so many unintended (by consumers, anyway) costs of Amazon using its reach for this kind of thing -- publishers get squeezed, so they produce fewer books, bookstores get squeezed, so more of them close up shop, commerce flows ever more directly to Amazon, choice gets limited... I just don't like it. I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon, but I'm starting to think maybe that's such a great thing anymore, in the long run.

iron_ball• 17 years ago

Your comment was gray when I saw it, so I restored it to >0, but I disagree. This move makes it easier for authors to get their product into readers' hands, gives them a better cut than the publishing industry generally did, and provides better value for the user. Amazon can't cause "less choice," because for one thing, they have effectively unlimited inventory; and for another, if there's an untapped demand, a competitor will arise.

Sure, nobody else can publish to Kindle, but the next few generations of smartphones, netbooks, and possibly tablets are very likely to make that a nonissue.

petercooper• 17 years ago

Sure, nobody else can publish to Kindle

That's not true, is it? I'm sure I've seen publishers like Pragmatic Programmers selling Kindle stuff that doesn't go through Amazon. I don't have a Kindle though, so I'm not going to state this with 100% confidence ;-)

xcombinator• 17 years ago

:-D I'm waiting for the Apple tablet info the 27 of January. It seems too much coincidence that Amazon changes her policy now just at the same fees that Apple Apps Store charges.

They must know something that we don't and want to be first...

runevault5• 17 years ago

There have been rumors/leaks that Apple is making content deals with various forms of publishing including book, which if true this does make more sense.

j_baker• 17 years ago

While I sympathize with the Publishers, they're beginning to sound a lot like the RIAA. For capitalism to work, dinosaurs have to die. And it's beginning to look like the publishers are turning into dinosaurs.

Personally, if I were to publish a book, I'd be tempted to just cut out the middle man and forego the big advance (which I hear usually isn't that big anyway).

Amazon Fires Missile At Book Industry, Launches 70% Kindle Royalty Option

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