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Humorous: Gear Diary Exclusive: The Rough Draft of Macmillan’s Letter to Their Authors
Scary New eBook Prices Ahead; How Do We Fight Back?
Macmillan's publishing buddies (three of the Gang of Six) joined in blackmailing Amazon. It's only a matter of time before the rest smell blood in the water and sign on. Now the consumer is screwed - just like we used to be when we went to record stores, and all the new albums were all the same inflated price.
Oh, but it's isn't price fixing, you all assured me, it's just a different business model, "agency" and it's just one publisher. It's legal and fair and right, Amazon's just being a petulant bully. BULLSHIT!
Forcing a retailer to accept an agency model for content to read on a device that they invested the time and money in is fucking blackmail. The fact that the Gang of Six are planning on doing it to all ereader vendors/retailers just makes it worse.
More Links
The real agenda of Apple’s ebook partners: death to ebooks by Aaron Pressman
Hey, John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan Books, Screw You!
Is There a Dark Side to the iPad?
Amazon Folds Like A Lawn Chair to Macmillan eBook Pricing Demands
Stop thinking only of the authors, people! If the public can't afford the books, the authors are screwed. If I can buy a book club edition in hardcover for $10.50, or a paperback for $7.99, I'm not going to cough up $14.99 for a DRM contaminated ebook.
These stupid publishers are doing to themselves what the music labels did, and are still whining about. The artists got fucked over worst of all in that deal, and the authors here will get done too, as the publishers see their sales going south. Jacking up the price on ebooks won't help hardback sales, it'll just decrease overall sales, and screw over the midlist authors worst because they won't be able to earn out their advances.
But people would rather listen to the authors whine over their short term sales, and not realize that Amazon is trying to save their business model and an entire market segment from a bunch of wanna-be oligopolists.
Why I Care
I don't even own a fucking Kindle - I can't afford it. But I was there when it was developed - the company shared a building with the company I worked for at the time. I was supposed to be on the beta list, but the brass got first crack, and I got left out. I wanted that thing to exist, I had followed the entire ebook market for years, and knew why previous readers and distribution had failed. I had coffee machine conversations about it with the developers, and they understood too. As long as I worked there, I never said a word about it due to the NDA. I still won't discuss details. I also haven't talked to those guys in over a year.
So it really galls the living shit out of me when some know-nothing starts making pronouncements about the Kindle and what it was built for, and what it can and can't do or read. Yes, the thing doesn't natively read PDFs, IIRC. Last I knew they were still working on that, and probably getting no love out of Adobe, who OWNS the PDF format (and keeps changing it.) Yes, I think some of the ways that corporate wanted to make it "easy" to use are a little hokey. No, the publishers would not sell ebooks without DRM contamination, that wasn't Amazon's idea.
EDIT
More Links:
When Publishers Set Prices (with pictures!)
Agency, Pricing and the Seven Things Publishers Need to Remember
Scary New eBook Prices Ahead; How Do We Fight Back?
Macmillan's publishing buddies (three of the Gang of Six) joined in blackmailing Amazon. It's only a matter of time before the rest smell blood in the water and sign on. Now the consumer is screwed - just like we used to be when we went to record stores, and all the new albums were all the same inflated price.
Oh, but it's isn't price fixing, you all assured me, it's just a different business model, "agency" and it's just one publisher. It's legal and fair and right, Amazon's just being a petulant bully. BULLSHIT!
Forcing a retailer to accept an agency model for content to read on a device that they invested the time and money in is fucking blackmail. The fact that the Gang of Six are planning on doing it to all ereader vendors/retailers just makes it worse.
More Links
The real agenda of Apple’s ebook partners: death to ebooks by Aaron Pressman
Hey, John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan Books, Screw You!
Is There a Dark Side to the iPad?
Amazon Folds Like A Lawn Chair to Macmillan eBook Pricing Demands
Stop thinking only of the authors, people! If the public can't afford the books, the authors are screwed. If I can buy a book club edition in hardcover for $10.50, or a paperback for $7.99, I'm not going to cough up $14.99 for a DRM contaminated ebook.
These stupid publishers are doing to themselves what the music labels did, and are still whining about. The artists got fucked over worst of all in that deal, and the authors here will get done too, as the publishers see their sales going south. Jacking up the price on ebooks won't help hardback sales, it'll just decrease overall sales, and screw over the midlist authors worst because they won't be able to earn out their advances.
But people would rather listen to the authors whine over their short term sales, and not realize that Amazon is trying to save their business model and an entire market segment from a bunch of wanna-be oligopolists.
Why I Care
I don't even own a fucking Kindle - I can't afford it. But I was there when it was developed - the company shared a building with the company I worked for at the time. I was supposed to be on the beta list, but the brass got first crack, and I got left out. I wanted that thing to exist, I had followed the entire ebook market for years, and knew why previous readers and distribution had failed. I had coffee machine conversations about it with the developers, and they understood too. As long as I worked there, I never said a word about it due to the NDA. I still won't discuss details. I also haven't talked to those guys in over a year.
So it really galls the living shit out of me when some know-nothing starts making pronouncements about the Kindle and what it was built for, and what it can and can't do or read. Yes, the thing doesn't natively read PDFs, IIRC. Last I knew they were still working on that, and probably getting no love out of Adobe, who OWNS the PDF format (and keeps changing it.) Yes, I think some of the ways that corporate wanted to make it "easy" to use are a little hokey. No, the publishers would not sell ebooks without DRM contamination, that wasn't Amazon's idea.
EDIT
More Links:
When Publishers Set Prices (with pictures!)
Agency, Pricing and the Seven Things Publishers Need to Remember
