You have to remember that Amazon barely makes a profit, everything they bring in they spend as soon as they get it.
100% agree. Itâs a too-glib response to an issue thatâs not remotely as simple as jlw states. Itâs exactly the kind of âdisintermediate everything!â âkill all gatekeepers!â knee-jerk response that crops up all too often in this debate.
Howey may be a sweet guy and best friend, but I personally find him shrill in his adoration of self-publishing and despise the frequent characterization of self-pub as The One True Way or, worse, the Way Of The Future. Technology and the resulting closeness between creator and consumer have been great for many industries, but I see no clear evidence it is a categorical improvement here, nor that eviscerating the publishers in order to feed Amazon specifically is to the ultimate benefit of the reader (or, to Amazon, the Book Consumer, who cares only about price).
Amazon, in other words, isnât the Rebel Alliance. Theyâre not plucky guerrillas fighting the Big Bad Empire of Publishers. Theyâre a ruthless sales outlet with a bent for skinning profit margins to the ostensible (by which I mean, short term) benefit of consumers. In some cases this is fine and to our benefit. I donât see it that way when it comes to books, e- or otherwise. Amazonâs a widget seller, and theyâve got far less economic (or aesthetic, to whatever extent that still matters) incentive to care about this particular component of their larger business. I think thatâs to the ultimate detriment of the art of fiction, should they succeed in being the only game in town (or effectively so).
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Actually, you kinda can; Amazon pays for RV parks for their seasonal employees; http://m.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204058404577108821485438232?mobile=y
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I disagree with your premise that publishers âdo great thingsâ. You can certainly have an editor without going through a major publisher.
I like the idea of publishing devolving down to the writers themselves. We need more Hugh Howeys. Although itâs my fervent wish that Amazon gets cut out of the mix as well and we all purchase our ebooks directly from the author. It could happen.
Ah, but publishers do more than edit. They also curate (to use the current popular language). Of course, they do it for financial reasons - historically they couldnât publish every book that was sent to them and they had to pick only the best, most likely to sell well. They still do that, though they have become much more focused on sales than quality, which is why theyâve sorta dug their own grave. If Hachette were known, say, as the most fantastic curator of literary fiction then maybe theyâd have a brand to stand on. But theyâre not, nor are most publishers. Theyâre just out to make a buck off any author they think will sell well, which is why nobody cares if they get disintermediated.
I for one am a fan of Amazon and what theyâve done to transform reading and publishing. Iâm not a fan of their strong arm tactics, but neither am I under the illusion that the same tactics werenât used by Barnes & Noble or other major book chains. We are in a rough patch for publishers, but Iâm sure we will make it through, and Iâm pretty sure that Amazons bad behavior will be punished by the market - these days itâs so easy to start a company that can compete with the established ones that there is sure to be more market disruption in the future. And I look forward to it.
Yes, they definitely curate - and I have to agree with you that curation for maximum sales is the main problem.
Like Amazon, I see publishers as just one more middleman getting between authors and their audience. I dream of a future where we all buy our favourite ebooks directly from our favourite authors. As far as curation goes, recommendation and review web sites do a much better, unbiased job than an entity with a vested stake in selling you the book.
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Cool but then Iâd have to work for them. Iâm just a prime customer.
I really liked the first collection but was disappointed by the sequels, for what itâs worth.
I will gladly stop buying books from Amazon and buy DRM-free ebooks from the publishers instead. I have done so for Tor books. So, your move, publishers.
Oh, whatâs that? You insist on DRM? Kindle it is then.
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You are right, they are really simply both middlemen, and thatâs why Iâm not really defending Hachette either. Amazon and Hachette are both middlemen. Middlemen are useful when they expand the size of the market-- which, to be fair, Amazon has done. The barriers to entry by unknown writers are much lower now than they used to be; and, itâs easier to slurp some of the long tail than it used to be if youâre a consumer. However, once the market can get together on its own, the middle man simply becomes a parasite, which is when they become the problem themselves. Amazon, to all intents and purposes, OWNS the online marketplace. Theyâre now rentiers, extracting rent from the people meeting in the market, be they producers, other outdated middlemen (Hachette), or consumers. Once the outdated middlemen are eliminated, theyâll start going after the other producers (using their monopsony power; does Howey REALLY get to decide what price Amazon pays him for each copy ordered, or does he have to take what they offer, which is pretty good right now? Will it still be good when there are no competing buyers?) or consumers, using the more familiar monopoly power to raise prices.
Amazon is a monopsony.
Monopsonies, like monopolies, are instances of market failure.
All but the most dogmatic and ignorant students of economics agree that regulatory intervention is both appropriate and effective in cases of market failure (when done correctly; e.g., look at how air pollution has been dramatically reduced in the US).
Ergo, this situation needs government intervention. Not necessarily to preserve Hachette, but also not to the advantage of Amazon, either; but to social advantage. It is not simply a case of a farmer and a local shop owner arguing over the price of a pineapple, and trying to cast it as such is disengenious.
For instance-- itâs clear that online selling of books works. Itâs not easy to set up a competitor, because the network effects of the site create a huge barrier to entry (think Google+). Realistically, your only hope is to compete on price, because to compete on value you have to have that reputation to start with (network effects again). No one has that kind of visibility, so that creates a huge barrier to entry. So, you compete on price, and the race to the bottom is on, assuming you can build up a large enough network quickly enough. Amazon has simply taken that step preemptively, effectively eliminating all possibility of real competition.
So, what should happen? Nationalize Amazon. There is a market failure, and there is a public good in creating an inclusive marketplace. Free markets do not produce public goods, and they donât fix market failures (if they did, the market wouldnât have failed in the first place). Today, something like Amazon should not be a source of profit for any individuals, but rather a socially-supported open marketplace. The producer should receive 100% of the amount paid by the consumer less specific identifiable transaction costs in their exact amount (e.g., credit card fees, which is also something that should be nationalized, but I digressâŚ, and variable costs). The actual fixed platform costs would be born by the government, paid for by taxes, as a public good, much as the vast majority of roads are.
Note that pretty much all these arguments apply to the internet itself.
And before you start to argue about how crappy the government is at running such things, note that most examples are where the government tries to cooperate with private industry. They did a pretty decent job of running the internet for a long time, and have done a pretty good job with the military too (modulo high costs, due to cooperation with private industryâŚ). I know itâs not perfect, but itâs better than Bezos getting rich by extracting rents from both authors and readers for a product he had nothing to do with other than introduce the one to the other.
(SOMEONE is WRONG on the INTERNET!!!) Thus, this will be my last reply on this topic.
Of course you can. You can also have a cover artist, a cover designer, and a layout professional, all without going through a major publisher. Except youâre now not just responsible for writing the book, but for also fronting all the costs associated with producing it. $20,000 should about cover it.
Donât forget you need a leather wrapper for the handle of that buggy whip!
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Glad to hear you have all the necessary skills to write, produce, and promote your own books, and are equally good at all of these. The rest of us, well⌠Guess weâll stick to using buggies.
Do let me know when you discover division of labour, though. I hear itâs all the rage nowadays.
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Iâve never been moved to post on BoingBoing before, but I have to say that this post strikes me as ridiculousâespecially the apparent reasoning from âH. Howey is my personal friendâ to âSalon must be bad for criticizing him.â I was pleased to see that nonetheless itâs sparked a substantive discussion. So far as the business end of things goes, I think than hnwombat is right; Amazon is getting into position to make the market nonfunctional by crowding out all competitors. And so far as the literary end of things goesâwell, suffice it to say that if you think (as Mr. Weisberger does) that Hugh Howey is âan incredible authorâ, then youâre in luck; the future probably will offer you much more writing of the sort he produces, just one click to buy. Personally, I am not looking forward to that.
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Cover artists and designers are artifacts of physical books, so they can be eliminated.
Layout pros are being automated away as hard as Adobe and co. can manage it.
Editors are helpful, but their field is being commoditized like every other freelancer style job so their price point is always in danger of falling through the floor.
Marketing is tough, and it will get near impossible as authors inevitably flood through once the gatekeepers are gone.
This will be a brave new world where people who want to write can. Itâs just going to be impossible for anyone to make significant money off of it without some sort of culture changing event.
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[quote=âjlw, post:29, topic:43407, full:trueâ]
Cool but then Iâd have to work for them. [/quote]
And you definitely wouldnât want to do that.
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