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Class-action Suit Filed Against Apple and 5 Book Publishers Over E-book Pricing
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Don't play a funeral march just yet. Some publishes will close down (dozens do every year), some will shrink, sure. But publishers will be around for a long, long time. As long as enough people believe they provide a worthwhile service. Yes, an individual can hire a graphic designer to do a cover, a layout artist to do the interior, a substantive editor to edit the book first, a copyeditor to go through it after that, and a proofreader to do a final pass. Sure, an individual can upload a book to many ebook sellers, even manage to get their book into physical stores if they are both persistent and lucky. They can hire a copywriter to make advertising copy. They can target and send review copies. They can call bookstores or other venues to try and arrange a book tour. They can do all these things plus the other services a publisher provides.
But only if they have the time and the money and the commitment. To launch a book by yourself can be overwhelming for even the most prepared people.
I don't think I'll change anyone's mind about publishers. But I want to point out that there's a crap ton more that goes into getting a book out than just writing the book. There are many layers and many integral parts. Does it always result in lots of sales? No. Does it always result in a better book? Usually, if the publisher is suitably focused on the author.
Can we please move away from the idea that publishers and authors and readers are all at war with each other? A publisher's goal should be to find a work that is both commercially and socially valuable, help refine that book, and find a way to get it into people's hands. Small publishers tend to be much better about this, and they get lost in the conversation. Look at what Press 53 does, or what Flatmancrooked did before they couldn't afford to publish any more (and what Nouvella Books is now sort of continuing), or look what Melville House is doing, or a hundred other great small presses who are committed to both authors and readers.
Don't leave them out of the conversation. They may not be big enough to get sued, but the decision on this case will affect them, because they'll simply have to drop their prices accordingly, which means less money going to authors.
The ebooks I want is higher than the paper variety
One would expect that ebooks would be cheaper but some of the books I want have a higher price than the paper variety. Amazon stated in more than one case that they were required to charge that price but they are able to set their prices on paper copy books. If goes in line with what the article states. Do some checking just don't assume.
One would expect that ebooks would be cheaper but some of the books I want have a higher price than the paper variety. Amazon stated in more than one case that they were required to charge that price but they are able to set their prices on paper copy books. If goes in line with what the article states. Do some checking just don't assume.
OK, help me figure this out
In the beginning, Amazon owned the market. I could purchase a bestseller for $9.99.
Then Apple enters the market, and that same book was now $14.99. Wait, Apple entered the market and prices....INCREASED? I thought competition resulted in LOWER prices? Oh, not when there's price fixing it doesn't.
In fact, I wrote about this issue in this very forum when Jobs first made his statement. I said it was illegal then, and I still say it's illegal now. Apple colluded with the publishers, as alleged, so they could get their 30% cut, and also to stop the rise in popularity of the Kindle.
Amazon was selling below cost to increase Kindle sales, which is totally legal. Apple (as is typical) broke the law to gain a competitive advantage. Just as they did when they killed lifetime support for Macs in the 90s, just as they did when they undercut all their dealers with their own stores, and just as they do when their "Geniuses" claim something is software and not hardware so they don't have to cover it under AppleCare.
You Apple lovers need to face the facts: Apple is better than most companies, but like any corporation, they're willing to break the law so long as it's cheaper to break the law and get caught than it is to abide by the law. Apple couldn't beat Amazon at its own game, so they just cheated.
In the beginning, Amazon owned the market. I could purchase a bestseller for $9.99.
Then Apple enters the market, and that same book was now $14.99. Wait, Apple entered the market and prices....INCREASED? I thought competition resulted in LOWER prices? Oh, not when there's price fixing it doesn't.
In fact, I wrote about this issue in this very forum when Jobs first made his statement. I said it was illegal then, and I still say it's illegal now. Apple colluded with the publishers, as alleged, so they could get their 30% cut, and also to stop the rise in popularity of the Kindle.
Amazon was selling below cost to increase Kindle sales, which is totally legal. Apple (as is typical) broke the law to gain a competitive advantage. Just as they did when they killed lifetime support for Macs in the 90s, just as they did when they undercut all their dealers with their own stores, and just as they do when their "Geniuses" claim something is software and not hardware so they don't have to cover it under AppleCare.
You Apple lovers need to face the facts: Apple is better than most companies, but like any corporation, they're willing to break the law so long as it's cheaper to break the law and get caught than it is to abide by the law. Apple couldn't beat Amazon at its own game, so they just cheated.
I don't disagree with this. I am saying that as time goes on, publishing companies become less important. Big ones will need to shrink and fulfill a different, smaller role in book maker. Smaller publishing companies will have a better chance against bigger publishing companies that in the past was able to use their clout in promoting their books. The authors will have more power in the equation too. Ultimately, the change to digital should be good for everyone except big publishing companies. So it confuses me when we the consumer, don't see the benefit from it.
I was going to publish an ebook on amazon but I found out that you can't publish a free book (you have to charge at least $1). So I bought a macbook air and when it gets here I'll publish my free book on ibooks. Imo free is the best way to get your name out there.
You hit the nail on the head. It's been extremely fishy from the beginning, and it's about time Apple was caught.
So they object to content owners pricing their exclusively owned product. Hmmm.
I suppose they would prefer to be the distributor but for a network access fee to eliminate all those silly fees authors and publishers charge for content. I bet they could reduce the cost of books by 60-90% pretty easily. For a while till the market dried up.
Rocketman
I suppose they would prefer to be the distributor but for a network access fee to eliminate all those silly fees authors and publishers charge for content. I bet they could reduce the cost of books by 60-90% pretty easily. For a while till the market dried up.
Rocketman
It's not really the Publisher that become less important. They'll still have a market to find and foster talent, then use their brand reputation to get the work into the hands of readers, then build on the buzz created to recover costs and make a profit.
What has changed for books like most content publishing industries is the infrastructure they need to service that market has reduce. Which doesn't reduce the value and seem like the biggest impact on costs seem to be the risk involved. Hopefully will see publishers use this to take more risk on the content.
I know I'd be happy to pay the same price but see a broader range of content making the eStores.
I totally agree that Amazon is trying to promote their kindle, therefore they have to promote digital books in general with lower costs. That's always been their market strategy. Capture market share with lower price. That's Capitalism. And I see no monopolistic signs from them that should make us worry. Amazon owns the online sales market now, and they do that with lower price. I tend to worry more when Apple gains market share of anything.
Of all the stupid lawsuits this year, this is one of them.
THis is price fixing, plain and simple. There really is no reason an ebok should cost more than the paperback edition.
It's one thing if a company decides to sell a product at a high price. Some one else will offer it cheaper but what Apple did was convince most of the sellers to keep the prices high. And yes $9.99 is very high for something that costs noting to make
Not at all. I think Authors get about $1 per unit sold. There would be even MORE books fit they sold for $4 each and the author got half. In other words there is enough room to cut both cut the price in half AND double the money paid to authors. in the current system the middle men get 90% of the money
You are right in that ebooks are cheaper to produce. In addition, there is no shipping costs, no damaged copies, and the publisher does not have to buy back unsold inventory. This does not, however, automatically lead to a lower resale price.
Printed books are like a can of peas in that they can be sold at any price the seller desires. They fit right into the old model. If a seller wants to lose money; fine. If a seller wants to buy books at a significant discount that are returns from other book stores; fine. They can mark them up as they wish.
However, ebooks are like large flatscreen TVs. The ADVERTISED price is set by the supplier. This is to keep one discounter from destroying the market for the brand. So you open up your Sunday paper and see an ad for a Sony TV and the ad says you need to come into the store to get the price because the price is lower than the manufacturer allows. So, while the store can set their own prices, they cannot advertise a price lower then the manufacturer sets.
This is where Apple and Amazon enter the picture. There is no way of enticing the customer to buy the ebook without advertising it at the manufacturers/publishers price. They both can get around this by offering a special price for a limited time, or having you look in your cart, after you put it there, to see the price you will pay. They can offer a promotional code that you can apple at check out, or any one of a number of ways to sweeten the deal, but they cannot just blow the price out on day-to-day pricing.
Ultimately, the ebooks will come down in price to better match the actual costs involved, but this is a transitional period in the market. Stay tuned for more to happen.
I consider this suit has merit. Anytime you have competitors getting together in a price fixing scheme, it is illegal. However, I don't know if there is case history for this medium. Going to be a fun one!
Publishers are not the problem. It's retailer's like Apple who take a 30% cut and the others who take a 50% cut. Yes editors do make a book better but you can rent a good editor for $5,000. It's a one-time cost.
If you want to see where the money goes look at who's rich and who's not.
No one's mentioned the cost of proofreading and editing work, either, which are viable expense no matter the published medium. I don't agree that what are typically $30-$50 technical (printed) books, for example, or scientific texts, should be selling for $1 each via e-distribution, but by the same token, how many publishers are doing significantly less book promotion ($) for the 'average books' available via e-distribution? Should they keep their percentages high when they're doing editing work and no promotion in those cases?
Self-publishing is where it's eventually going to wind up unless Publishers and distributors (Amazon, Apple, etc.) both get their acts together. 70% Amazon profit - operating costs for Amazons digital sales and distribution is *way* high, especially when it comes to the authors. The industry could be working towards a nice future state, but where are cases like buy the printed version, and pick up the e-book version for an additional 20%? Answer - they don't exist, greed comes in. Why not take some 'free extra money' for sales like that, that would appeal to many consumers? Why not make up in volume and less work on the publishers side to bring e-books into realistic pricing of ~50% of printed price? It's all about greed, and sadly, until self-publishing approaches more of the norm, it's likely to continue, whether it's Amazon doing it, Apple, the publishers, and/or all of the above.
Let me get this straight.... Apple allowed the owners of the content to set whatever price they wanted and charged them if they wanted to sell that content in their ibook store... and Amazon decided to sell books, at a loss, regardless of the price they bought the books at to popularize their service.
What part of this is anti-competitive?
What part of this is anti-competitive?
What the lawsuit claims is true. Apple did conspire with publishers to raise the prices, leading to a situation where many of new books are priced the same and often even more expensive in ebook format than in hardcover.
The question is: can they be successfuly sued for that? I doubt that very much. Especially since the only people who got screwed up were the consumers. Even Amazon is propably glad that this situation developed as it did. It turned out they didn't need to sell at loss to dominate the market. Plus the high prices of many books did help self-published authors in gathering interest of readers.
The question is: can they be successfuly sued for that? I doubt that very much. Especially since the only people who got screwed up were the consumers. Even Amazon is propably glad that this situation developed as it did. It turned out they didn't need to sell at loss to dominate the market. Plus the high prices of many books did help self-published authors in gathering interest of readers.
And also A&R in Australia (under the Borders banner) also pretty much shutting down.
And so what if the E-book costs more? New technology always cost more initially. Eventually the prices will come down. This lawsuit is totally bogus.
How can letting the publishers set their own prices be ever considered bad? Apple was upfront about their 30% so they know what price they can set to make profits.
And if Apple did talk to the publishers for higher prices? That's a goods thing right? More profits keeps them in business. With the publishers there'd be no more books, aper or electronic.
And yes the e-books cost more then the Paper books. But paper books have:
Shipping to get to you (or the store you purchase from)
Bought in a brick store you need to get to the store (and costs involved there)
A paper book can sell out.
Not very green
Time to ship to you if bought online
Takes up space in your house.
etc etc
The e-book is convenient. You download it right away. No waiting. You can read it soon after purchasing. It's new technology so you pay for it. Plus with the rate Physical book stores are shutting down, this might be the only option in the future.
So yeah I'm all for the e-book. And hope this bogus lawsuit is shot down in flames.
It's been a long time but I remember when I was in college new books were pretty much the same price anywhere. If there is price fixing then they should have been suing a long time ago.
+1 that's what I was thinking.... it's called free market.... the publisher gets to set the price and reap the profit or lack thereof if the market can't bear the price that they set.
if anything is anti-competative its DRM that locks you to one store/device
They require all other local businesses to charge the same prices?
Except Apple used its huge market presence to coerce publishers to set identical prices for all retailers, causing prices to go up. A free market would allow publishers to determine their own pricing model and appropriate prices for each retailer without coercion, as they had done with Amazon.
Think of it this way: Apple bullied the publishers into changing their pre-exisiting pricing model with Amazon, thus decreasing Amazon's sales.
I wouldn't disagree there.
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