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[outunderthestars]

Hey eBook sellers! Want me to buy your eBooks? Let me buy it once, then redownload it as many times as I want (as I might change my eReader of choice over the years, but not in a pirating sense either) and you damn well better be making it worth my while, since you're cutting out some honestly great features of a book (namely the ability to hold the book, touch the pages, ect), so let's get those prices in line! Seriously, an 8.99$ book on the shelves should NOT be 7.99$ for an ebook directly from you. Cut the shit.

Alot of indie authors do offer drm free e-books's directly to the consumer.

Back on topic though, I love my Kindle, but understand the industry's desire to maintain a competitive balance in the marketplace. I think it will eventually settle in Apple, B&N, and Amazon sharing roughly equal portions of the market, with Google picking up 10% or so as well.

 

[faceless007]

I don't know why anyone would welcome a world in which there is literally only one publisher of books, and only line of devices on which to read them. There are certainly problems with the current publishing industry, but e-readers are simply not a good substitute for all books and no one should cheer on a future in which the only books that are published are the ones that fit the format. Picture-heavy and books with complex formatting (like technical books) are crap on e-readers. For those who do research, it's much harder to take notes, annotate and do research with books by typing them on a limited keyboard than it is to just draw in the margins and use post-its. Furthermore, I don't like the idea that reading should have a barrier of entry of buying a consumer electronics product. Reading should be as accessible as possible to people of all income classes, not something we make more expensive and limited.

Note that I'm not defending the current publishing model. I'm simply saying that there should be a way for paper books to co-exist with e-readers, but people's zeal to see Big Corporate overthrown seems to get in the way of recognizing that.

 

[faceless007]

Hey eBook sellers! Want me to buy your eBooks? Let me buy it once, then redownload it as many times as I want (as I might change my eReader of choice over the years, but not in a pirating sense either)

If you want to blame someone for device lock-in, blame the device makers. Amazon doesn't want you to switch to a nook later on.

 

[outunderthestars]

I don't know why anyone would welcome a world in which there is literally only one publisher of books, and only line of devices on which to read them. There are certainly problems with the current publishing industry, but e-readers are simply not a good substitute for all books and no one should cheer on a future in which the only books that are published are the ones that fit the format. Picture-heavy and books with complex formatting (like technical books) are crap on e-readers. For those who do research, it's much harder to take notes, annotate and do research with books by typing them on a limited keyboard than it is to just draw in the margins and use post-its. Furthermore, I don't like the idea that reading should have a barrier of entry of buying a consumer electronics product. Reading should be as accessible as possible to people of all income classes, not something we make more expensive and limited.

Note that I'm not defending the current publishing model. I'm simply saying that there should be a way for paper books to co-exist with e-readers, but people's zeal to see Big Corporate overthrown seems to get in the way of recognizing that.

I think most people are just frustrated with the current business model and are enjoying seeing a disruptive product shake up the landscape in ways that benefit the consumer. I don't think anyone is arguing that a monopoly or the death of physical books are good things.

 

[Wiktor]

Alot of indie authors do offer drm free e-books's directly to the consumer.

Back on topic though, I love my Kindle, but understand the industry's desire to maintain a competitive balance in the marketplace. I think it will eventually settle in Apple, B&N, and Amazon sharing roughly equal portions of the market, with Google picking up 10% or so as well.

Realistically there's very little chances Apple will be one of top players in that market. By bet would be 40-50% Amazon, 20% BN and the rest between Apple and Google

 

[faceless007]

I don't think anyone is arguing that a monopoly or the death of physical books are good things.

Well people are saying the traditional publishers should die. Without publishers, where will paper books come from?

 

[Phoenix]

Realistically there's very little chances Apple will be one of top players in that market. By bet would be 40-50% Amazon, 20% BN and the rest between Apple and Google

I would wait until the end of 2012 to make that prediction. Apples iBook Publisher and the moves in education are an extremely disruptive action within the space that could see them gain a substantial number of indie authors and publishing houses. Apple doesn't want to do all that Amazon does, or I should say they don't outwardly aspire to, so they actually become the lesser evil in a lot of ways.

 

[Meier]

The article talks about marketing.. uhh, what marketing? I've never seen a TV ad for a book, I've never heard a commercial and I don't even think I've seen a magazine ad. The only "marketing" for books is maybe in-store. Books sell via word of mouth.

 

[outunderthestars]

Realistically there's very little chances Apple will be one of top players in that market. By bet would be 40-50% Amazon, 20% BN and the rest between Apple and Google

I was factoring in Apple's current drive to be used a textbook device. I see alot of growth in that market and in niche publishing areas like fitness, diet, nature, etc where having a larger color screen would be a benefit.

 

[EviLore]

Well people are saying the traditional publishers should die. Without publishers, where will paper books come from?

Could always offer an on-demand printing option ebook store-wide.

 

[Gotchaye]

Personally, I've found it to be pretty easy to get quality indie books on Amazon, and they've made self-publishing much, much easier and better for authors. The cost of doing business as an e-book publisher/storefront is tiny compared to a print publisher/storefront, so I'm not even worried about Amazon getting a monopoly and then raising prices and lowering what it pays authors. It simply wouldn't take much money for someone else to set up an online store with customer review functionality and then attract all the authors/readers that are getting screwed by Amazon's monopolistic pricing.

There are kinds of books for which the print version is still better, but of course e-book readers are improving faster than print. It's easy to see how /some/ device and /some/ format would make even the most technical reference book of textbook superior in e-form. The ability to ctrl-f alone is worth a lot. Probably there are a bunch of people who like physical books enough such that there will always be a market for them, but prices probably will go up as e-books take over. I don't think paper books will disappear for best-selling titles.

 

[Phoenix]

Well people are saying the traditional publishers should die. Without publishers, where will paper books come from?

There are print houses that print books on demand. That's where they'd come from. You just wouldnt see many if any on store shelves. In fact I would venture that digital publishers would offer the ebook while giving the option for the print book for a fee. See it a lot in the tech book space (print books aren't practical there as the technology will change before the book is out and again while it's on the shelf), and it is the better model.

Bookstores need to change from being "Blockbuster bookstores" to something more moderate. If they don't they will suffer the same fate as all the other media stores. When you no longer require physical storage, if that's all you provide your stores are just a boat anchor in the bottom line. Even Best Buy is starting to see this and look to be more of a solution provider than just a product pickup location.

 

[Phoenix]

The article talks about marketing.. uhh, what marketing? I've never seen a TV ad for a book, I've never heard a commercial and I don't even think I've seen a magazine ad. The only "marketing" for books is maybe in-store. Books sell via word of mouth.

They spend money to get the book stores to take the books, do book tours, and give away books as promotions, etc.

 

[faceless007]

The article talks about marketing.. uhh, what marketing? I've never seen a TV ad for a book, I've never heard a commercial and I don't even think I've seen a magazine ad. The only "marketing" for books is maybe in-store. Books sell via word of mouth.

I saw a commercial for a James Patterson book just the other day. I hear radio ads for books on NPR all the time.

 

[faceless007]

Could always offer an on-demand printing option ebook store-wide.

Which would probably be more expensive and not formatted well.

 

[brotkasten]

How's the situation of retailers (against Amazon) in countries with fixed book pricing? I know it's mostly an European thing, but I'd like to know if they're in a better situation because of it.

 

[entremet]

The whole media industry seems fucked because they've relied on traditional retail to sell their goods.

As traditional retail is challenge, they are forced to accept the terms of big players in the DD market, Apple with music, Amazon with books and ebooks. Interesting seeing this sea change in front of our eyes.

I'd be sad if traditional bookstores go away.

 

[EviLore]

Which would probably be more expensive and not formatted well.

Maybe. Clearly better to embrace the digital future, regardless.

 

[Phoenix]

Which would probably be more expensive and not formatted well.

If it isn't formatted well you're doing it wrong or never intended for it to be printed. Your print version almost always comes from the format-for-print ready digital version.

 

[outunderthestars]

The article talks about marketing.. uhh, what marketing? I've never seen a TV ad for a book, I've never heard a commercial and I don't even think I've seen a magazine ad. The only "marketing" for books is maybe in-store. Books sell via word of mouth.

Not true at all. Ever listen to NPR, watch a talk show like The Daily Show? Ever notice how many authors appear across a wide range of shows? Speaking tours, book signings, endcap placement, etc. These are all marketing driven things.

 

[Wiktor]

I was factoring in Apple's current drive to be used a textbook device. I see alot of growth in that market and in niche publishing areas like fitness, diet, nature, etc where having a larger color screen would be a benefit.

Might be, but untill they open up their store to other devices there's no chance of them becoming anything besides 2nd tier.

 

[Phoenix]

The whole media industry seems fucked because they've relied on traditional retail to sell their goods.

As traditional retail is challenge, they are forced to accept the terms of big players in the DD market, Apple with music, Amazon with books and ebooks. Interesting seeing this sea change in front of our eyes.

I'd be sad if traditional bookstores go away.

The problem was always the people at the top. They believed the retail world was the channel the consumer trusted and the only one that they needed to focus on. As a result they made half-assed attempts to do things in te digital space and did the see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil thing while the world changed around them. They are screwed because of their lack of vision and when the young guys would come to them with the new vision, they coddled the old business model like a baby to breast and sucked at the tit saying "well all my money comes from this channel, I have time to address that when it becomes a threat" not realizing that they had just sealed their fate because the amoun of stuff that had to be done to compete was more than just building a website.

Yeah, in some ways I'm bitter

 

[Blackhead]

I would wait until the end of 2012 to make that prediction. Apples iBook Publisher and the moves in education are an extremely disruptive action within the space that could see them gain a substantial number of indie authors and publishing houses. Apple doesn't want to do all that Amazon does, or I should say they don't outwardly aspire to, so they actually become the lesser evil in a lot of ways.

Apple's iBook Publisher is only good for textbooks and perhaps a few other similar types of books, like cookbooks. indie authors and publishing houses aren't going to invest in the production costs to create those ibooks especially considering the restrictions that Apple has placed on it. Amazon is gearing up with their own format and once they release a 10" kindle fire tablet it'll be very attractive to anyone considering going the iBooks route.

 

[Meier]

I saw a commercial for a James Patterson book just the other day. I hear radio ads for books on NPR all the time.

That makes sense. Most people don't listen to NPR though. I certainly don't.

Good call on book tours though as that's obviously marketing for it. I equate that to word-of-mouth advertising though as that is clearly done to create buzz among a small local community. Why would e-book sales prevent this sort of thing though? You can still get a signature from someone and you sell a download code instead. I'd prefer it that way because maybe it'd drive down the exorbitant costs on books that are sold at signings.

 

[1-D_FTW]

Cutting out the middle man sounds good. Let the market decide.

Bingo. Fuck the publishers. They're middlemen from a bygone era. Sooner they're obsolete, the better it is for customers and authors.

EDIT: Referring to the old print guys. A divide between Amazon, Apple, B&N, and google will offer enough competition to keep things honest.

 

[adamsappel]

Publishing needs to become the province for introducing new authors, and they need to start taking on more risks. Established writers could easily go e-book or print-on-demand and actually make far more money. JK Rowling will probably make a billion dollars when her books go electronic. Authors of that stature don't need or want what publishers offer (advances, publicity, editors) as much as less established writers. And publishers should be embracing ways to cut down on ancillary costs.

 

[outunderthestars]

Apple's iBook Publisher is only good for textbooks and perhaps a few other similar types of books, like cookbooks. indie authors and publishing houses aren't going to invest in the production costs to create those ibooks especially considering the restrictions that Apple has placed on it. Amazon is gearing up with their own format and once they release a 10" kindle fire tablet it'll be very attractive to anyone considering going the iBooks route.

Most publishers already have the Adobe software required to make interactive books, so the ibooks publisher restriction won't apply to them. They will want to be on a device that has a 60 million unit install base and is growing at an incredible rate.

 

[Phoenix]

Apple's iBook Publisher is only good for textbooks and perhaps a few other similar types of books, like cookbooks. indie authors and publishing houses aren't going to invest in the production costs to create those ibooks especially considering the restrictions that Apple has placed on it. Amazon is gearing up with their own format and once they release a 10" kindle fire tablet it'll be very attractive to anyone considering going the iBooks route.

We will have to disagree on that point. While yes you can add all sorts of complex media and quizzes and such to Apples books - you have no requirement to do so. IBooks publisher is first and foremost a good layout engine that supposed HTML5 for complex interaction. You can do a lot of very traditional publish with that by just importing your doc from Word and formatting it for publishing.

The ease at which it can be done is going to attract a large audience of indie publishers.

 

[faceless007]

If it isn't formatted well you're doing it wrong or never intended for it to be printed. Your print version almost always comes from the format-for-print ready digital version.

I'm thinking of books with complex page layouts or picture-heavy books, which the dynamic screen and small size of e-readers would screw with. The on-demand print version would probably just be a quick output of the raw epub at a fixed size.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Well, I was in BN today (researching cooking for beginners books so that I could go home and buy it on Amazon), and I did have a thought that if BN didn't exist, A LOT of those books would be virtually invisible.

There are literally like a billion books about cooking. On Amazon only the biggest ones would get any mindshare. I mean, usually people only look at the top relevant results or number of reviews or stars and that's it. I flipped through some books that weren't recommended or mentioned in my other thread.

Interesting; reading the article I was thinking the opposite. When being seen on the shelf is so important, that's pretty helpful--to the small minority of books that are still on shelves. Everything that's been shuffled off (if it ever made it there in the first place) is pretty boned.

 

[outunderthestars]

That makes sense. Most people don't listen to NPR though. I certainly don't.

Good call on book tours though as that's obviously marketing for it. I equate that to word-of-mouth advertising though as that is clearly done to create buzz among a small local community. Why would e-book sales prevent this sort of thing though? You can still get a signature from someone and you sell a download code instead. I'd prefer it that way because maybe it'd drive down the exorbitant costs on books that are sold at signings.

NPR has close to 33 million active listeners every week. They have incredible power when it comes to the success of a book. Outside of Oprah and Glen Beck, I can't think of any other outlet that carries such power.

oh, and I'm not saying that e-book authors can't do these things on their own or hire their own publicist. They certainly can. I was just mentioning that there are alot of marketing efforts that go into a major book launch.

 

[Phoenix]

Publishing needs to become the province for introducing new authors, and they need to start taking on more risks. Established writers could easily go e-book or print-on-demand and actually make far more money. JK Rowling will probably make a billion dollars when her books go electronic. Authors of that stature don't need or want what publishers offer (advances, publicity, editors) as much as less established writers. And publishers should be embracing ways to cut down on ancillary costs.

On that front I don't agree. It's like producing a song or game - without a strong publisher that understands how to move content your title could get lost in te shuffle of thousands of other similar titles. Where the big boys provide benefit is that they can get product placement that will move your content more efficiently.

I liken it to boy bands. Without a major label they wouldn't stand half a chance in the market. Major labels can position them and package them in a way that overcomes the fact that they suck and make a shitload of money.

 

[NihonTiger90]

The whole media industry seems fucked because they've relied on traditional retail to sell their goods.

As traditional retail is challenge, they are forced to accept the terms of big players in the DD market, Apple with music, Amazon with books and ebooks. Interesting seeing this sea change in front of our eyes.

I'd be sad if traditional bookstores go away.

Pretty much, and the bigger guys will go first. Odd as it sounds, but it's true. In my segment of the media industry, the big chains are the ones making massive cuts year after year, the ones who have been centralizing production at first, then closing those shops and sending the work to independent third parties.

Some people think that they'll be OK because TV and the Internet will just pick up the slack ... without realizing that 80-90 percent of what they put on their blogs and 11 p.m. broadcasts that's local is derived from our work.

 

[spwolf]

Bingo. Fuck the publishers. They're middlemen from a bygone era. Sooner they're obsolete, the better it is for customers and authors.

EDIT: Referring to the old print guys. A divide between Amazon, Apple, B&N, and google will offer enough competition to keep things honest.

why is that exactly? Once again, authors can and could for quite a while, self publish. Many of them do... and all of them want to secure long term contracts with publishers.

there are also on-demand book publishing places where you can easily get low runs.

I remember you could list your works on fictionwise for instance 6-7 years ago.

 

[RurouniZel]

Almost as soon as Amazon's Kindle took off, customers have been asking for print/ebook bundles of the same book. Publishers need to get their heads out of their asses and listen to their customers. People are willing to pay a bit more for both. Why not sell the print copy/ebook bundle at a price just a little above full retail price of the print book. If the book is that good, I would pay the $25 print price and maybe and extra $3-5 for that digital copy that doesn't cost them much to produce. In this fashion, not only is everyone making more money, but the sales numbers go up.

Publishers need to stop fighting the inevitable. They need to change their business model to compete with it.

I completely agree with this, especially the bolded.

 

[lupin23rd]

There's really not much of a difference between iBooks and the Kindle app.

Functionality wise, they all seem more or less the same, but ive always found the Kindle app UI to be ugly as sin. And what the hell is a location? I want to see page numbers.

Currently using the kobo app for my first ebook.

 

[bloodydrake]

How's the situation of retailers (against Amazon) in countries with fixed book pricing? I know it's mostly an European thing, but I'd like to know if they're in a better situation because of it.

Well the Justice Departments in both the UK and the US are investigating apple and 5 major publishers for price fixing.

The Whole Agency model is price-fixing, this whole thing strikes me as a desperate attempt to mislead the public from the fact that those 6 have been in collusion, to force the price of Ebooks to be higher then print itself to try and extend the life of print.

Some Legacy authors have comeout publicly against the agency model since they can see the sales of their work under the agency model is selling less then their own self published works but the publishers don't care since now they get a bigger cut of sale price.

Its the same shit the music industry tried in the 90's and they were caught and found guilty of it as well.

 

[bloodydrake]

Functionality wise, they all seem more or less the same, but ive always found the Kindle app UI to be ugly as sin. And what the hell is a location? I want to see page numbers.

With the ability to change space sizing word spacing and font size per page..page number wasn't seen as important since its all relative. If i have small font and min spacing my page 456 would be different than someone using a large font with max line spacing.

I believe they've added page display back into new ebooks as an option for those that miss it..

 

[Meier]

Almost as soon as Amazon's Kindle took off, customers have been asking for print/ebook bundles of the same book. Publishers need to get their heads out of their asses and listen to their customers.

This, this, this. It's insane to me that physical books are not sold with download codes in this day and age. I bought Simon Pegg's newest book and Ready Player One at book signings here and Pegg's book was over $30 (RPO was about $25). That's too much money to not include a digital version.

Vinyl records come with mp3 download codes now. Book publishers need to wake up.

 

[faceless007]

With the ability to change space sizing word spacing and font size per page..page number wasn't seen as important since its all relative. If i have small font and min spacing my page 456 would be different than someone using a large font with max line spacing.

I believe they've added page display back into new ebooks as an option for those that miss it..

Nook books use "real" page numbers that match the physical equivalent.

Back to my point about research, using consistent page numbers is important to be able to cite books.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Cutting out the middle man sounds good. Let the market decide.

Yep, it will be better for writers, same thing happened with the music industry. It will be easier to get published, and we'll get more quality stuff that would have never managed to reach as many people.

On that front I don't agree. It's like producing a song or game - without a strong publisher that understands how to move content your title could get lost in te shuffle of thousands of other similar titles. Where the big boys provide benefit is that they can get product placement that will move your content more efficiently.

I liken it to boy bands. Without a major label they wouldn't stand half a chance in the market. Major labels can position them and package them in a way that overcomes the fact that they suck and make a shitload of money.

I strongly disagree. Times have changed, nowadays people who have similar taste will let one another know about books they liked. Most of what I discover I discover it through friends, facebook, forums, etc.

 

[Sleepy]

This, this, this. It's insane to me that physical books are not sold with download codes in this day and age.
Vinyl records come with mp3 download codes now. Book publishers need to wake up.

And movies come Blu/DVD/Digital. Only makes sense now.

 

[Blackhead]

Most publishers already have the Adobe software required to make interactive books, so the ibooks publisher restriction won't apply to them. They will want to be on a device that has a 60 million unit install base and is growing at an incredible rate.

They already do that by selling through the Kindle store which runs on everything including the 60 million iPads. Why limit yourself to only that number when you can target more? By the say, the Adobe software cant make interative iBooks. The publishers will still have to use Apple's tool and all the restrictions that comes with it.

We will have to disagree on that point. While yes you can add all sorts of complex media and quizzes and such to Apples books - you have no requirement to do so. IBooks publisher is first and foremost a good layout engine that supposed HTML5 for complex interaction. You can do a lot of very traditional publish with that by just importing your doc from Word and formatting it for publishing.

The ease at which it can be done is going to attract a large audience of indie publishers.

It's a good layout engine for textbooks perhaps but iBooks author doesn't even support basic flipping pages in portrait mode. It's not a good layout engine for regular books. Amazon has some good features for textbooks too that people seem to be ignoring like Popular highlights and that xray lookup. it's not clear cut that Apple is going to the best option out there

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

why is that exactly? Once again, authors can and could for quite a while, self publish. Many of them do... and all of them want to secure long term contracts with publishers.

Seems like a big reason a person would need a publisher is so they don't get crushed by people who have a publisher.

 

[Barrett2]

Buggy whip manufacturers look to carriage distributors to save them from Henry Ford

 

[faceless007]

On another note, I'm hopeful that B&N will actually be able to keep up viable competition against Amazon, because monopolies are bad. I just got a Nook Touch reader (contrary to what you might think, I'm not anti-ebook) and I think it's actually better than the Kindle Touch in some significant ways. It annoys me how readily Amazon has positioned themselves as the "default" e-book device that all others are playing second fiddle to.

 

[Phoenix]

Yep, it will be better for writers, same thing happened with the music industry. It will be easier to get published, and we'll get more quality stuff that would have never managed to reach as many people.



I strongly disagree. Times have changed, nowadays people who have similar taste will let one another know about books they liked. Most of what I discover I discover it through friends, facebook, forums, etc.

While that is true, the message reach greatly diminishes through word of mouth. The distance it carries is far less than publisher based works. A publisher can make something popular through sheer force of will (that's how branding wins),whereas an indie or small shop may have a better product that never reached the masses. Mass distribution success still required mass media marketing, that still hasn't changed.

Social media has created more organized and lucrative niches, but very rarely do they cross to the mainstream unless they are in the right place at the right time.

 

[JoseJX]

On another note, I'm hopeful that B&N will actually be able to keep up viable competition against Amazon, because monopolies are bad. I just got a Nook Touch reader (contrary to what you might think, I'm not anti-ebook) and I think it's actually better than the Kindle Touch in some significant ways. It annoys me how readily Amazon has positioned themselves as the "default" e-book device that all others are playing second fiddle to.

I totally agree, a monopoly would be good for no one except maybe Amazon.

I also have a Nook Touch, but largely use it for reading library books from Overdrive. I'd really recommend rooting the Touch though, since I also have the Kindle App on mine. This means I can read books from almost all of the retailers that matter (iBooks isn't there yet, sorry Apple people) on one device relatively painlessly. It feels like the future!

That said, the price is still too high for impulse purchases. Once someone figures out that Valve's model is better, we'll see a real change in the e-book markets. We'll probably be waiting for a while though...

 

[VistraNorrez]

Nook books use "real" page numbers that match the physical equivalent.

Back to my point about research, using consistent page numbers is important to be able to cite books.

So does Kindle, they did it first actually.

But locations are valid citation sources, they are quite a bit more specific than a page number too. A page number in a digital age doesn't make sense. We should get rid of them and move to something that fits every form and every edition. Whether that be paragraph numbers or whatever.

It's amazing to me how much people love aspects of books, the feel of paper, the smell of a book, and other things that have have nothing to do with the meat of the book, the story. A heavy hardback takes me out of the reading experience too often. I like my ereader because I can be far easier immersed into the book.

As far as book/ebook bundles go, I would never want one. The less things I have taking up physical space the better. It should happen, but I wonder if publishers are having a hard time figuring it out. How would they price them? Would they cut down sales? How do they distribute the digital copy with so many ebook stores and formats? I don't think it's that comparable to home video combos. A book is already portable and easy to transport. Most people would just want or use one of them. It's (usually) just text afterall so there aren't really quality issues. The movie digital copy is a very simple and easy solution to having a movie on the go and you can have your HD quality film at home. They fulfill different and very obvious needs.

The biggest issue with ebooks is DRM. Once that is killed, and it will be, things will be far better for the consumer.

 

[WowBaby]

It annoys me how readily Amazon has positioned themselves as the "default" e-book device that all others are playing second fiddle to.

Their customer base made puts Amazon at the top. Even BN admitted that they weren't selling enough Nook Touch devices.