Author’s Guild backs Macmillan in feud with Amazon
So far I’ve been silent about the recent feud between Amazon and the publisher Macmillan because there have been so many articles, blog posts, forum comments and other coverage, that I didn’t want to contribute to all the ‘noise.’ However, there is a slightly new development in this story that I do feel it’s worth writing about.
Today the Author’s Guild released a statement that pretty much supports Macmillan in the feud. There’s really nothing surprising about that since the Guild usually supports the large publishers and higher ebook prices. The Author’s Guild believes that if Macmillan succeeds in having more control over ebook prices, it will be good for the industry as a whole:
Yet if Macmillan prevails, the eventual payoff for its authors (and all authors, if a successful result ripples through the industry) is likely to be significant and lasting.
It has been well-documented (on this blog and others) that what Macmillan seeks, and what the Guild supports, simply does not work. Authors don’t make more in royalties because higher ebook prices turn off a lot of consumers, leading to more piracy. Publishers still have a long way to go in learning about the economics of ebooks.
Macmillan wants to set higher ebook prices
Bad idea. The demand for ebooks dictate the consumers are unlikely to pay much more than $9.99 for ebooks (the price Amazon uses as a standard). Macmillan’s reasoning is that higher ebook prices will increase author royalties and not “devalue” the books sold on Amazon.
However, as I said before, it has been shown that just the opposite is true – lower ebook prices equals more sales and more revenue for the author and publisher. A great example of this is author Joe Konrath, who has been published through traditional routes, and self-publishes his novels as ebooks on the Amazon Kindle. His blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing chronicles his experience. He makes more money selling his ebooks at low prices than he does in royalties from his traditional publisher. Other authors have had similar experiences.
Use of “Windowing” as a tactic to increase print sales
“Windowing” is the practice of waiting until a particular edition of a new book has been on the market for a while before making cheaper editions available.
The Author’s Guild statement continues:
Windowing e-books is similarly believed to help protect a publisher’s sales channels for physical books. The risk with windowing is that some owners of e-book devices are angered that low-priced e-book editions aren’t available as soon as books are released in hardcover form.
The risk of delaying the release of the ebook version is more than just “angering” ebook device owners. The real risk is piracy. In fact most of the book piracy is scanning print books and converting them to ebooks. This is often done when the ebook is not available due to windowing or because the author/publisher refuses the ebook option. I wrote a recent post What can we learn from a book pirate that details this from one who actually pirates books.
The irony, of course, is that authors/publishers trying to prevent piracy through such tactics only encourage the practice.
Amazon also to blame
While it’s easy to demonize Macmillan for their demands, Amazon is by no means in the clear either. The largest online retailer has been criticized all around for everything from DRM, high ebook prices (a lot of consumers, myself included, think even $9.99 is too much for most ebooks), to prices not being high enough (from publishers), remotely deleting titles off the Kindle, forcing POD publishers to use Amazon’s own service, and the list goes on. So I’m not giving Amazon a free pass here. There is plenty of criticism to go around.
The ebook industry is still in its infancy and there are no ‘industry standards’ in place yet. Amazon is trying to set those standards and publishers still think ebooks should be sold and priced like print books. I hope that publishers don’t repeat what happened to record labels (who continue to self-destruct).
What do you think of this Amazon-Macmillan feud? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
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- Why are some publishers raising ebook prices?
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This is such an informative review of the issues between Macmillan and Amazon. It reminds me of the feud between iTunes and NBC a few years back where NBC wanted preferential treatment in the form of charging consumers a higher price for their TV shows, despite the fact that iTunes has a simple across-the-board price model.
We also see the same thing in the music industry with execs (and oddly, some artists) speaking out against piracy even though the artists actually make little from record sales and earn most revenue through touring, merchandise, sponsorships, etc.
If one artist says “I don’t mind if you share my art,” the industry gets up in arms. But the truth is, what’s best for the artist is to get their work out there so they can make money through indirect means.
Yikes, I’ve gone off on a tangent. Thought-provoking post, Brad. Eventually, we’ll figure out the new model for electronic media.
Melissa Donovan´s last blog ..February News and Announcements
Seriously, the publishers just want more profit obviously. However, it is never clear whether they are going to channel that extra profit to the authors or not. Besides, e-book is better for the environment because we are using less paper to print all of it. Why can’t the publishers see this?
Putting DRM in the e-books actually jack up their sales because consumers will have to purchase each copy of the book (no borrowing as if with hard copy book).
Increasing the prices of e-book is only going to hurt their sales anyway. Besides, there are many renting places or borrowing from friends and families before buying an actual hard copy book that only collecting dust on my bookshelf.
Publishers should have realized that lower prices meaning more sales and attracting more consumers since it is more affordable.
I wish textbook also being offered into e-book version instead of silly 6 month subscription to “view” the e-textbook for similar price as if I purchase the hard copy textbook.
Who wants to read heavy textbook anyway? It is nicer to get it into e-book format and inside an e-book reader device.