Jeff Bezos in Disagreement With A Major Publisher, Pulls All Their Works’ “Buy Buttons” Off Amazon
Jan 30th, 2010 | 16 responses
So there! Bezos seems to be stamping his foot again.
It’s big news in books that Bezos today decides to ‘punish’ a major publisher for not agreeing with his idea of loss leader pricing. Some related to Amazon’s sudden and unannounced sucking of Orwell’s 1984 right out of people’s pricey Kindle boxes, saying much later it was an illegally uploaded edition… apparently pulling ‘buy’ buttons from authors’ works is Amazon’s idea of good business. It isnt the first time. It was done to another publisher at Amazon last year.
Interesting to see how it will play out.
From Publisher’s Lunch, which is a pay subscription site.
“As originally reported last night and many readers know by now, sometime yesterday evening the buy buttons for apparently all of Macmillan’s books–including bestsellers and top releases, and Kindle editions–were removed from Amazon’s site. Macmillan books remain listed but can be bought only through third-party Marketplace sellers, while Macmillan Kindle titles all lead to pages that read, “We’re sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site.”
“It is the first shot across the purchasing bow in big publishers’ efforts to reset ebook pricing above the loss-leader $9.99 price point and retake control over that pricing by moving from the wholesale selling model to an agency selling model (first reported exclusively in Lunch Deluxe on January 19), at least for ebooks published simultaneously with new hardcover releases. Kindle customers further reported on Amazon forums that any Macmillan books that were on their “wish lists” disappeared from those lists with no explanation, as apparently did Macmillan sample chapters that had been downloaded previously.
“Macmillan has commented by way of a paid message to authors, illustrators and agents, [trying to inform the authors as quickly as possible. ed note].
Amazon has declined to comment thus far, either to the media or directly to their customers.
16 Responses to “Jeff Bezos in Disagreement With A Major Publisher, Pulls All Their Works’ “Buy Buttons” Off Amazon”
Sounds like the old game of the way to make something scarce will incite or stimulate a need to have:
my intent is simple: these are worth not only reading, but owning. Buy them. Build your own library ,thus a must have at all costs
Amazon — phffft. The company, complete with shady “pro forma” accounting during the Bubble, is hyped.
The invisible hand at work lowering the costs of goods and services.
I'll take a double latte premium flavored Capitalismoccino please. Mmmmmwah!
It's not loss leader pricing. Amazon wants to sell e-books for something approaching a rational price. Macmillan wants to keep prices high in order to essentially protect the print-on-paper book business.
What Macmillan is attempting to do — and they are the aggressor here — is to set retail prices. This is quite likely illegal as well as long-term futile. They want e-books — which have a marginal distribution cost of zero dollars — to be more expensive than a paper book discounted at Costco. Ain't gonna work.
Just my .02 worth…
I dont know Michael, i think Amazon's history of strong-arming Hachette last year says more about Amazon's gyre. I think Steve Jobs is going to bury Kindle and its lack of cross-platform, and that RH will eventually sign with Jobs as will HC and Peng and others. I read the letter from Macmillan to their authors, sit on the board of the Authors Guild, and have to respectfully disagree that Amazon is merely rational. I know the inside percentages that Amazon has parlayed about with various, depending on who they are; the lack of responsiveness of Bezos to kindle self-publishers, and the entire host of other 'objections' Mr Bezos made to Google settlement because he wants to keep 'his prices' high to protect his proprietary business.
P2P easily gotten from Google book scans, as well as bit torrent already do and will continue to affect Bezos deeply. He has zero dollars in printing and storage but so do those far larger than Amazon. And each has the ability to cut Amazon out and go elsewhere as more gadgets pop up.
I think most publishers and authors would prefer selling to everyone. Costco, BAM and others all have their own moves yet to be seen.
Michael beat me to it. When you take out all of the costs inherent in producing and distributing paper books, $9.99 is not loss leader pricing. This is a false claim by McMillan.
I never believed Amazon cared about Kindle (the gadget) per se. If that was their play they wouldn't have made the Kindle app for iPhone — which will also work on iPad. (I'm from a devoted Mac fanboy family but the iPad isn't doing that much for me.) The Kindle was a gateway drug getting us hooked on e-books.
In the end this is a battle between dinosaurs — Amazon and the legacy publishers. The mammal in the room is the IP creator/rights owner. I can write a book, place it on Amazon in Kindle format and collect 70% while massively undercutting the legacy publisher's price. I can presumably do the same with iTunes. And I can sell direct from my own site. The legacies want to set high e-book prices to defend the price of dead-tree books. It won't work. E-book prices will come way down.
This isn't the Big 6 vs. Amazon. It's the Big 6 vs. Amazon vs. writers. The dinos don't know it yet, but we have the reins.
how do you see dealing with the massive ebook piracy for writers. I wonder, is the day of the writer earning a living over. Dont know how many ebooks one would have to sell at 1-2$ profit before taxes (not counting work hours to make it all happen) to offset for free pirating..
Thanks
Piracy: one guy buys a copy and lets 50 other people read it. How is that different than what a library does?
There will be piracy. There will. But if the price is rational and the purchase is easy, it decreases the incentive. There are some fairly simple impediments to piracy, the kind of countermeasures that won't stop a determined hacker but will defeat the casual thief.
Usually if the price of a commodity drops consumption rises, right? If gas were a dollar a gallon we'd all drive SUVs. At, say, 4.99, an e-book becomes an impulse buy, something like an iPhone app, or a latte. Net sales should rise. And that may (or may not) offset piracy.
If the writer is clearing 70% of that 4.99 that's 3.50 a book. Beats hell out of 10% of cover on a 15.99 YA hardcover. (I write YA.) And don't overlook some other advantages: there's no tick-tock on e-books, no up or out like with bookstores. You have the time to build a readership, not the 6 weeks B&N may give you.
One other thing to consider: a self-pubbed e-book becomes available in every market in the world. Want to sell books in India or China? You can.
Thanks Michael, that was interesting. And there's a special place in heaven for those who write YA … for our readers who may not know, that means Young Adult genre.
I liked your thought about the six week luge at B and N; i'm afraid its too true for many many books. 4.99 seems a reasoned price for an ebook IF the pub is cut. If it's through a mainstream pub, the royalty after agent 15% and whatever Uncle Sugar takes, hmmm dont know what that would amount to.
Are you selling your YA on Amazon etc? Please feel free to leave links, if so.
what would be the fairly simple impediment to piracy, I am wondering… you mentioned? Most things I've heard about sound like ten pounds of steel chastity belts taht would make ebooks clank when they walk. lol
Thanks Michael, that was interesting. And there's a special place in heaven for those who write YA … for our readers who may not know, that means Young Adult genre.
I liked your thought about the six week luge at B and N; i'm afraid its too true for many many books. 4.99 seems a reasoned price for an ebook IF the pub is cut. If it's through a mainstream pub, the royalty after agent 15% and whatever Uncle Sugar takes, hmmm dont know what that would amount to.
Are you selling your YA on Amazon etc? Please feel free to leave links, if so.
what would be the fairly simple impediment to piracy, I am wondering… you mentioned? Most things I've heard about sound like ten pounds of steel chastity belts taht would make ebooks clank when they walk. lol
I was afraid you'd ask me about countermeasures. My son is a computer prodigy and if he were up he could explain. Any attempt on my part would be roughly as effective as asking my Labrador Retriever to explain calculus.
Agent? No need if you're using the “agency model” they're talking about for Amazon. It's a flat deal: name your price, pay Amazon 30%, end of story. Although if you had a good property you could then sell dead-tree rights to a legacy publisher and you'd want some representation for that.
I sell my books under a pseudonym — Michael Grant. (Not the Michael Grant who writes for TMV.) I'm pretty well established with HarperCollins which publishes my GONE series as well as the upcoming MAGNIFICENT 12 series. So for me all this is a bit theoretical. However I've been a proponent of enhanced books for quite a hile now, and warned often that the business was going this direction, so I get to play the prophet and irritate my editors.
As someone who loves to read books, I've enjoyed this insider discussion!
Thanks George, happy to open a little door to the 'often weirdess' of publishing. For you, here is an update… Today, Amazon caved and put MacMillan's 'buy' buttons back up. My bet is you would also like Stross's blog (he's a Tor writer) which is listed at this link. http://www.slashgear.com/macmillan-confirm-amaz…
At the link you can also read Bezos' letter from today… which seems to be positioning for future, I believe, not necessarily what it appears to be on its face.
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Amazon STILL hasn't restored the titles.