Why Writers Are Mad at Amazon Today
Tobias Buckell has a great recap of the business aspects of the dispute between Amazon and Macmillan that made Amazon remove Macmillan books from the site. Cory Doctorow discusses it well at Boing Boing, too.
The problem, for me, is that writers seem to be on Macmillan’s side of the brouhaha (perhaps a small part of that is the above two writers write for imprints of Macmillan…perhaps, I can’t imagine how angry I’ll be if S&S does the same thing and my books take the hit).
I’m favoring Amazon here. As a writer, I think it doesn’t make sense to side with Macmillan. But, then, I’m really mad that publishers didn’t have a game plan ready to put into action when a viable e-book reader hit the market and e-book sales reached 20% (which they are reputed to have done recently). I tend to trust a little too blindly, and believe that those in positions of responsibility are covering their bases in the event of change. Why I do this is not clear to me, as I have had repeated reminders that this is simply not so. People in positions of responsibility are as blind to change as the rest of us (see Who Moved My Cheese for an excellent discussion of this very thing).
Take publishers. For a decade, the e-book market has been growing, just waiting for the perfect e-reader to take it viral. Enter Kindle. See the pub biz change. See the pub biz change fast.
If you’re an avid Kindle (or Sony e-reader, or etc.) user, you want the next line to read: Go e-pub biz, go.
If you’re a publisher, apparently you want the next line to read: Stop e-pub biz, stop.
Readers are ready for a more convenient, and often cheaper, way to get their book fix.
Publishers? Not so much. They’re not ready to accept Amazon’s decade of customer data (which makes Amazon want to set a $9.99 cap on most e-books). They want to experiment, and they want to force Amazon to participate in their experimentation. Which is why I side with Amazon (I do so hate to side with a virtual monopoly, though).
Amazon has done the research, crunched the data, and done the hard work for a decade. Publishers have twiddled thumbs, denied the possibility of an e-heavy future, and in every other way tried to ignore the coming e-pocalypse. Now that they have to figure e-book sales into the bottom line, and the bottom line looks even leaner because of it, they want to go back to square one and start testing what price the e-book market will bear. And they want Amazon to toss out a decade of market data without a peep of protest.
I don’t know who will win the current battle. But I would put my bet on Amazon having the pulse of the e-book marketplace. I’m guessing $9.99 will be the cap price for most e-books, as soon as the publishers finally get on board for the e-ride. I’m hoping they hop on soon, though, because it’s going to be hellish to be a writer while they’re all still duking it out.
Update: Amazon says will have to accept Macmillan’s terms eventually (wonder what eventually is? tomorrow? Next week?). Interesting. Now we get to see who was right — will $14.99 hold, or will readers say no way? I’ll be curious to see how it shakes out. So, one year from today I’ll try to remember to check and see what the top e-books are selling for (only non-augmented versions, though, I’m not factoring in the fancy stuff publishers will test out to see what they can charge more for).
Kelly
