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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Germany Keeps Amazon at Bay and Literary Culture Alive
Discounting has upended traditional publishing in the United States. Independent bookstores usually operate on a shoestring and have never been able to afford negative profit margins on bestsellers. During the 1990s, as the major chains expanded and bookstores—and booksellers—emerged on the Web, many independents were ruined by the downward pressure on the price of bestsellers. By discounting these books, the big chains and Amazon did to the independents what Walmart has done to mom-and-pop Main Street retailers: crush them by running a race to the bottom...
What I learned at Holt... is that publishing and selling books in the United States was, and remains, a very different and far rougher business than in my home country of Germany, where since the late nineteenth century a fixed-price agreement between publishers and bookstores has defined a less competitive and highly regulated publishing market. The participants in this voluntary price cartel signed a mutual agreement: publishers set the prices on books, and bookstores abided by them...
The agreement was deeply engrained in Germany, and in 2002 it became the law. Publishers list new books, prices included, in a database that currently contains around 1.2 million titles....In Germany, approximately 90,000 new books are published each year, which per capita is about four times as many as in the United States. Among the new books of 2010 were 11,349 translations, including 6,993 English-language titles. Additionally, average book prices in Germany are the lowest in Europe, with the possible exception of Iceland and Finland. This ignominious “cartel” seems to be working to the advantage of readers, publishers, bookstores and authors...
The cultural advantage of this arrangement is obvious. Bestsellers—whether by Stephen King or Günter Grass—sell at the same price anywhere, guaranteeing the survival of independent booksellers. The small profit margin on bestsellers allows bookstores to keep in stock high-quality, low-selling titles. They can also write off on their income tax up to 90 percent of unsold books kept in stock for no more than three years. Without this tax advantage, which costs the German version of the IRS billions of euros, at least a third of Germany’s independent bookstores would disappear within twelve months.
By turning the fixed-price agreement into law, Germany meant to send a signal to the Eurocrats in Brussels: the entire Bundestag stands behind this national practice, so attack it at your peril. Even so, since 2002, the EU has continued its assault on fixed-price, lobbied no doubt by Amazon and the German book chains...
http://www.thenation.com/article/168124/how-germany-keeps-amazon-bay-and-literary-culture-alive#
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Confusious
(8,317 posts)books are going the same way.
I can have an entire library on my 'pad.
the tactile experience of a book doesn't do anything for me.
now this:
"30 million trees are cut down every year in the united states alone for books. Energy is used to make them and ship them to bookstores."
not with an eReader.
that means something to me. The ideas that the words creates means something to me.
The book? Just a medium to get it to me.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)
The article wasn't about physical books so much as about marketing channels and how they effect the economy.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)They've got wireless.You can buy a book anywhere.
You're first going to go to the bookstore so you can get online to buy the book?
Seems redundant to me.
those "channels," it seems to me, are about bound books, not eBooks. That's why the Spiel on bound books.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Perhaps they see the book merchant's employees spending money in their own place of work, stranger things have happened.
I basically can't because I don't have a local bookstore.
Hmm.. I wonder if the policies discussed in the article have anything to do with that?
Confusious
(8,317 posts)concidered price fixing in the United States and illegal.
When the banks collude to set interest rates, people around here scream bloody murder.
Do we have a book seller exception? Any other exceptions I need to be informed about?
As far as "support your local merchant" that's a "buggy whip" argument.
PS There will always be a niche market for used books, but I'd be surprised if in 10 years they are still printing books. Comic books, on the othe hand, will always be around, since the people who buy those collect them. The paper is just as important as the story.
So you might have comic book/ used book stores in 10 years.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)
I guess they might as well throw those old Gutenberg Bibles in the recycling, no one will want to collect them since they're not comics.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)Taking it to the ridiculous huh? When I said PRININTING BOOKS, I thought it implied new titles.
As far as I know, the last printing of the gutenberg bible was 500 years ago or so.
The Gutenberg bible could be considered an extremely used book, if you want to get into the ridiculous.
You're not defending the buggy whip very well.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)There is far more on Amazon in the way of used books than can be found in my local used bookstore and yet I still go to the bookstore and I look at the used books when I go to thrift stores, yard sales or flea markets..
I was even part of a used paperback trading system that cost me nothing but postage for books I swapped one for one over the mail with millions available.. I dropped it because the choice was too big, just making a decision what to get became more effort than it was worth..
http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php
Confusious
(8,317 posts)I'm sure there will be people who collect Books. That's why I think there will still be used book stores.
The majority of people will turn to eReaders, and the publishers will print fewer and fewer titles on paper.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Middlemen that prevent the independent self-published authors at bay. What's amusing is that I swear I never saw this argument used for iTunes for some reason. I suppose some corporations are better than others.
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)One of the points of Trotsky is that all the media should be government owned, with publication based on the public support of a position.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/08/ame.htm
~ snip ~
For Soviet America will not imitate the monopoly of the press by the heads of Soviet Russia’s bureaucracy. While Soviet America would nationalize all printing plants, paper mills and means of distribution, this would be a purely negative measure. It would simply mean that private capital will no longer be allowed to decide what publications should be established, whether they should be progressive or reactionary, “wet” or “dry,” puritanical or pornographic. Soviet America will have to find a new solution for the question of how the power of the press is to function in a socialist regime. It might be done on the basis of proportional representation for the votes in each soviet election.
Thus the right of each group of citizens to use the power of the press would depend on their numerical strength – the same principle being applied to the use of meeting halls, allotment of time on the air and so forth.
Thus the management and policy of publications would be decided not by individual checkbooks but by group ideas. This may take little account of numerically small but important groups, but it simply means that each new idea will be compelled, as throughout history, to prove its right to existence.
~ snip ~
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the United States goes that route, perhaps the bookstores can sell books and periodicals at cost of production, and the feds could subsidize the store expenses and wages of the employees.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)If your argument is likening Germany's program to defending the buggy whip, then in that analogy the buggy whip is cheaper. Which means it's gonna win.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)No wonder the OP's article doesn't make any sense and contradicts itself at the end (it notes that ebooks are on the rise, even in "price controlled" Germany).
Yes, the fixed book agreements are useful for independent book shops, but they also benefit publishers as well, and hurt the price structure of independents since the best sellers get to sell at higher rates. Publishers gain the most from such a structure, imo.
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)We don't allow that shit here.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)But instead of being public, formalized and above board it's all done by collusion on the sly and the public kept in the dark.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Oh wait...
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Confusious
(8,317 posts)Germany, 90,000 books, pop 81 million
united States 328,000 books pop 311 million
both are around 1 book per million people
But I guess a little fudging (4times) is OK when it suits the point.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)It's about the same.
It's possible that one source leaves out electronic publications. Which would necessarily inflate Germany's stats over ours.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)United States (2010) 328,259 (new titles and editions) [3]
Germany (2009) 93,124 (new titles)
and the citation for the us figure is:
^ Publishing Market Shows Steady Title Growth in 2011 Fueled Largely by Self-Publishing Sector and A table of new book titles and editions, 2002-2011
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)Only those books that come out of large professional book publications are worth reading?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)that in an earlier day would have been done on a xerox machine and distributed to family & friends, i.e. mom's books of recipes, grandma's family history, dad's book of poems.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)whereas the relatively monolithic and aristocratic old system that puts the power of publishing in the hands of the elites is good because it keeps out the riff raff.
Right?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)been an option; not sure why you call it "democratization". there's been no democratization, just a change in the kind of elites running the show.
4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)Last edited Thu Jul 12, 2012, 11:50 AM - Edit history (1)
and it hasn't always been an option on this scale before.
Just like anyone could write a book before the printing press . . . . but it wasn't all that likely.
I'm sure that invention pissed off a lot of mom and pop (well monk and pope) operations by destroying an age old industry and putting writing in the hands of the hoi polloi.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)joshcryer
(62,536 posts)They may in fact be small indy publishers here or there but even when you look at say, far left wing media the print medium is being doled out to corporations (see, say, some of CrimetInc's stuff).
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)ology.
Bowker employed a new methodology for 2006 to report the annual title output statistics. The older methodology had focused on books with prices and with subject classifications
to report on trends in average price and in market segments.
To obtain a more accurate picture of total title output, the following enhancements were made for the 2006 statistics:
--The total count now includes ISBNs that have not been assigned a subject (Unclassified items).
--The counts now include ISBNs without prices.
--A number of additional book bindings were added to the counts. For example, Stapled and Laminated.
To provide comparable prior year data, the numbers for 2002-2005 data were restated using the new methodology.
*Non-traditional consists largely of reprints, often public domain, and other titles printed on-demand. The number also includes records received too late to recieve subject classification.
http://www.bowker.com/assets/downloads/products/isbn_output_2002-2011.pdf
Johonny
(26,179 posts)I think a lot of self published titles are authors that simply have no place to publish a book. Smaller independent book sellers have gotten hit hard by the ebook craze. Try finding a publisher to your book. It is nearly impossible unless you are famous, already sold a book or are an insider in the industry. The result is more and more authors self-publishing. The knock on self publishing is the quality varies greatly and without a publisher to support the works, a lot of good self published books go to die. IT use to be hard to publish a book, now it is almost impossible, unless you do it yourself. At least from what I read.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)That was part of what I read. I makes it even harder in the US to publish a book, well at least a book with a publisher behind it. They made it easier to publish overall, but self-publish book dealers make their money selling 100 copies of 10000 online books, not 1000000 of a well produced book market to a whole audience. It has changed book publishing in the US dramatically. I did not appreciate it until I wanted to try to publish something. I agree Amazon and these places have changed publishing dramatically. I just wanted to point out, pretty much everyone has to start out self publishing these days because the small press is so hurting these days. I think it supports your overall point.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Unsurprising. 
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Paper books are falling to the wayside:
This is bad news for the publishing industry.
Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts) 4th law of robotics
(6,801 posts)This seems just like protectionism for a dying and outdated industry.
The horrible crimes they are preventing are cheaper and easier access to books, lower carbon footprint, and reduced land usage.
Marooned
(79 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)the homogenization of culture & the increasing concentration of wealth.
good democratic values.
Freddie Stubbs
(29,853 posts)It's a lot cheaper than from a bookstore, and Amazon has pretty much everything.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)& the homogenization of culture.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Fair Trade Laws allow the manufacturer of a product to set a minimum price that all retailers must observe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_law
I think that Switzerland does this at least for some kinds of goods. It was great, since you could buy something in a small, convenient store and not be concerned that you were being ripped off for not traveling to some large discount store.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)They were largely impractical, and not enforced.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)The large retailers mustered the consumers, who wanted to buy cheaper products, and won the political battle.
Other countries can apparently enforce their laws.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)Not only would you have to pay the price of the object, you'd have to pay taxes to make sure the prices were enforced adding to the cost of the object.
1911 - supreme court finds that such price fixing violates the Sherman antitrust act.
So which do you prefer? trusts or small book sellers.
The law should apply to all equally. If you want to have such a scheme, you can't have anti-trust.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)You don't want to run afoul of the law in Switzerland.
IIRC, the main enforcement in the US was that the manufacturer could withhold the product from any distributor who distributed to retailers that sold off price.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)It's illegal, according to the Sherman anti-trust act.
and almost no other country does it. Except for Germany. And I doubt switzerland does it ether. A quick look at google shows they fined companies that did it.
Besides which, it also illegal under the European union competition law.
I have no interest in protecting buggy whip makers.
Selatius
(20,441 posts)This is why the Federal Trade Commission punished the RIAA because they had a similar agreement with music distributors as far as pricing schemes go. Brand new albums that used to retail for 12 or 13 dollars in the 1990s were inflated to well over 20 dollars in many cases when the price fixing mechanism was put into place.
Germany did this likely to protect its domestic book chain stores. I favor competition like anybody else; it makes things more efficient and keeps prices close to the reality of supply and demand, but I also mourn the destruction of mom-and-pop operations as well. It's the reason why Walmart is a monopoly in everything but name, and because of that, nobody is going to bring down the anti-trust hammer on them. They have too many politicians in their back pocket.
apocalypsehow
(12,751 posts)And that's not even to mention the ones I've downloaded on my Kindle Fire.
Sorry, but change happens. Just ask the makers of the rotary telephone and dial-up AOL users.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)apocalypsehow
(12,751 posts)In the meantime, I'll have to decline.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)apocalypsehow
(12,751 posts)to think so - that self-righteousness just radiates smugness and other-directed contempt - you go right ahead.
I don't hold it against you: in fact, I pity you to some slight extent. 
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)town destroying, culture-destroying amazon.
rationalize it as you will.
Many people know Amazon.com through the convenient and affordable services it provides.
But if you investigate its record, you’ll find that Amazon.com is a bad corporate citizen. It’s time for those of us who are sick of how corporations like Amazon.com are running roughshod over our democracy—crushing unions, driving mom-and-pop shops out of business, evading taxes, and selling its customers’ private information to other companies— to take our money elsewhere.
Reason #2: Amazon.com is a World-Class Tax-Dodger
Reason #3: Amazon.com is Anti-Union
http://blog.seattlepi.com/trevorgriffey/2011/04/03/top-10-reasons-to-avoid-amazon-com/
apocalypsehow
(12,751 posts)accusing a fellow DU'er of being a "union-busting, worker-grinding, small-business and small
town destroying, culture-destroying" villain, all because you don't like the fact that he doesn't agree with you that ordering books from an internet retailer is the end of Western literature and culture as you perceive it.
Some self-reflection on those accusations vs. the reality might be in order here, if you're capable of it.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)apocalypsehow
(12,751 posts) HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)apocalypsehow
(12,751 posts)for anything other than buying books from Amazon. If you slow down long enough to start thinking real hard again, this may occur to you.
Or not.
apocalypsehow
(12,751 posts)Well, I sorta was, actually: that "North Korea is a paradise" stuff did get tiresome though, and you were given fair warning.
But it's nevertheless good to see you back, even if you're still pimping for absurd causes and picked right back up where you left off, to wit, spewing hyperbolic outrage over minutia all over the place.
Edit: revision & extension of remarks, + a typo.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)And yeah, the poster's commentary ever since they joined here has certainly rang a Bell.
apocalypsehow
(12,751 posts)
It is that burning anger at the slightest deviation from her beliefs over even very trivial and minor matters as, say, buying books on Amazon, that is most telling. I once had the DU2 "Hannah" compare me to an SS officer because I once went on a cruise to South America with my family.
The logic behind that accusation? It was "cultural imperialism at its worst" or some such tripe to tour ports in countries whose GDP was so much less than the United States. I know, I know how it sounds: it was batty stuff.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)This lawsuit results from Defendant Harlequin Enterprises Limited, the world’s leading publisher of romance fiction, depriving Plaintiffs and the other authors in the class, of e-book royalties due to them under publishing agreements entered into between 1990 and 2004. Harlequin required the authors to enter into those agreements with a Swiss entity that it created for tax purposes, and that it dominates and controls. However, Harlequin, before and after the signing of these agreements, performed all the publishing functions related to the agreements, including exercising, selling, licensing, or sublicensing the e-book rights granted by the authors. Instead of paying the authors a royalty of 50% of its net receipts as required by the agreements, an intercompany license was created by Harlequin with its Swiss entity resulting in authors receiving 3% to 4% of the e-books' cover price as their 50% share instead of 50% of Harlequin Enterprises' receipts.
What this means to the authors can be illustrated by an e-book with a hypothetical cover price of $8.00. The “net receipts” made by Harlequin Enterprises Limited from the exercise, sale or license of e-book rights would be at least $4.00, of which authors would be entitled to $2.00 based on their 50% royalty. Computing the “net receipts” based on the “license” between Harlequin's Swiss entity and Harlequin Enterprises, Plaintiffs’ 50% royalty amounts to only 24 to 32 cents.
http://www.harlequinlawsuit.com/
It's a kind of neo-Stalin-Luddism, imo. To actually argue for the status quo under the guise of protecting literary culture against technological innovation is just mind numbingly fucked up. As far as I'm concerned we should care first and foremost about the authors themselves if we're going to pretend to care about literary culture.
Ironically, I do think "cultural imperialism" as a concept exists, but I think it can't be stopped nor is it a bad thing. I consider it rather cultural diversification. The term "imperialism" has become so loaded it's become meaningless and it's certainly never used consistently by those who throw it around so much (ie, US economic imperialism = bad, Chinese economic imperialism = crickets).
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)
sfpcjock
(1,936 posts)
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Pass a law that everything must be sold at the MSRP. Everything in Wal-Mart and K-mart would be exactly the same price as at the little mom and pop store. No more discounts, no more sales.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)imo.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)They had to serve small towns, also had specific areas of service. It was almost impossible to start a new carrier.
Considering the past 30 years, deregulation of the airlines has been mostly a failure. I would be for more regulation like in the past.
for books?
Not so much.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)when deregulation came in to the airlines, everything looked groovy. all these new carriers, all these cheap fares...
we're in the end game now -- fewer carriers, routes dropped, fares increasing, much worse flight conditions, personnel working for peanuts, lower safety standards.
amazon et al will do the same to books and what's left of literary culture. give it 20 years.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)Or rock and roll caused the death of music?
Nature always finds a way. The way you get the information may change, but it will still be there.
It's a common theme throughout history and the nature of people.
PS I don't know if you heard, but there's this thing called the Internet, and you can get anything you want from pretty much anywhere in the world. And then there are these things called eReaders, where you can read a book on them. And you can pretty much find free software to convert any book into an electronic version for the eReader.
Sooo...
Your "death of literary culture" is, well, bullshit.( Maybe the death of "snobby literary culture." )
It's just the end of "paper" books, not the end of books, words or ideas, as much as you want to believe it is.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)But they can adapt if they are smart and aren't fixated on archaic technology.
I wrote in my journal a thing I'd like to see: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=554222
And it's slowly happening with maker community centers popping up here and there.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)If they have used books, they'll be fine.
We have a big bookstore that has multiple outlets in town. They do used books, and they're doing just fine.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Even if it's not immediately felt it will be eventually. The ever moving march of progress.
But it will only have a positive effect on literary culture. The "independent stores" and "publishers" don't drive that.
What drives it is human diversity and willingness to share.
And the internet is pushing that far better than some state sanctioned price controls that actually benefit publishers the most.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)have you seen "iron sky," "star wreck: in the pirkinnning," "pioneer," "L5"? It's already happening.
TYT started out as a web only show.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Even if you have to include the creepy Overly Attached Girlfriend in the movement, it's still off to a great start. I'm looking quite forward to Project London. I'm hoping Tether gets picked up.
Media, entertainment, and technology is changing so rapidly it's almost pointless to sit around defending these corporations and their soon to be short lived experiments with new media. For me it's about defending the content creators, so I'm not too bummed out about the middlemen being marginalized (the publishing houses, the stores).
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)compare best-selling books over time; the change is noticeable.
same with film.
and no, fast food didn't cause the death of good food; it caused a die-off of small low-end restaurants. compare the options in a 1960 phone book to today's. i've done that in my home town & the variety available has shrunk significantly.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)People wrote all the time in the past. They had no hope of a "best seller" but they still wrote, and now we consider them classics.
A "best seller" does not a good book make. Look at Stephen king. Half his stuff is shit. but they still make the "best seller" category.
I repeat, snobbery.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)were writing for the love, weren't. they were writing for money or the admiration of their peers, within an aristocratic leisure culture.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)I was thinking a little further back, to the Romans.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)along with the bread and circuses and slavery for the masses.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Confusious
(8,317 posts)The masses have access to publishers to get their literature out to the public? Who knew?
I'm really starting to think there's no point to your argument.
Mine I made pretty clear. I agree with josh cryer. The Internet will give access to everyone to the power of publishing. Far from destroying "literary culture" it will probably reinvigorate the medium, much as the the lack of middle men in the renaissance gave us of massive amounts of art in every field.
It's happening right now. How many bloggers do they have on TV. How many new bands have access they never would have had before. I've see movies written and produced outside of the big production houses. Books are just another medium.
The gatekeepers are falling. It's a good thing.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)the internet will give people access, but not to eyes or money. just to the internet.
gate keepers may be falling, but just to different, more concentrated gatekeepers.
bezos was a hedge fund guy and bankster (VP Bankers Trust) before he started amazon. that's the culture he came out of, and those are his friends.
it's no accident that amazon got exemptions from state sales tax at start-up.
ps: i have the person you refer to on ignore, so i am not reading his fake populist droppings.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)but he still is part of a privileged few. not many have made as much money as he has. nor have they had as much luck.(forgot to add: He phoned in half his shit)
I doubt many people could get a book deal these days, unless it appealed to the lowest common denominator, just like everything else in the media people decry.
Of you're good enough, you'll get the eyes. I'm sure you've heard of the rude pundit, daily KOS, or multiple other sites around here. If it's good enough, word gets around.
There are no privileged gatekeepers on the Internet. Anyone with a link has access. Someone can set up a site to sell their wares, or they can sell them through other sites. It doesn't take much. I can attest to that, as I have experience with it.
As far as he populist droppings, he's right, and you're wrong. I still don't know what you're arguing for, since on the one hand, you seem to not like the privileged elites, on the other you don't like the grungy masses.
Just one more thought. Linux. Made by the grungy masses. operating system of choice for 90% of super computers these days. Grungy masses produce quality.
Oh, and this:
http://www.amazon.com/Self-Published-Bestsellers/lm/R2UHB9O6LWN1QI
: "Many of the classics were originally self-published including works by William Blake, James Joyce, William Morris, Walt Whitman, and Virginia Woolf. A variety of contemporary authors are choosing to self-publish their books rather pursuing a contract with a traditional publisher.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)touts who've succeeded in coming to public attention.
amazon's talking points are as honest as its list of "self-published" authors; easy to "self-publish" when you own the publishing business:
william blake: owned a printing business.
james joyce: paid to have a political pamphlet printed as a student.
william morris: rich man who owned two magazies and a small press (kelmscott press)
walt whitman: founded his own newspaper, the Long Islander (still extant).
virginia woolf: owned a small press with her husband (hogarth press).
and that's *fake* populism, btw.
the kind of fake populism that touts even bigger global monopolists as "good for the people".
oh, & btw: a well-known blogger like the rude pundit makes less than a reporter used to & has double the expenses.
and no, quality won't necessarily get you eyes. what gets you eyes is mostly having friends in high places to talk you up in high-profile outlets and the magic of big money behind the scenes.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)quite a few of those people owned a printing press, but that's a far cry from having a publishing house with national reach.
And the rude pundit isn't his day job, it's his hobby. He works as a professor of English.
You still seem to fail to see how the Internet works. If you're good enough, the eyes will find you.
You seem to have some sort of mental block and can't see it, even though there are multiple examples. Either that, or like I said before, you just don't like the grimy masses.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Peter Norvig taught 100k students, it took the total effort of maybe a dozen people (not including of course internet infrastructure which is handled by millions, of course!) to teach 100k students.
You point this out and because he uses the word "flipping" you get a total flip out (pun intended) over all the teachers who would've been "potentially" put out of a job. That's 2,000 teachers that should've taught those people! Race to the bottom! They can't learn this way! Studies prove it!
Those who can't embrace new media are destined to be completely made irrelevant.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)stupid & pointless list; there's no comparison between what they did & modern "self-publishing".
more phony populism from the corporatists.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)I'm saying that self-publishing will make the corporate publishers and corporate middle men redundant.
You seem to be saying we should keep things the way they are.
Who's the corporatist?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)taking more of the cut & making labor do more of the work for a smaller share.
fake populists are funny.
jeff bezos, grew up on a 25,000 acre ranch (grandpa inherited it), grandpa a director of the atomic energy commission, stepdad a cuban emigre & exxon man, former hedge-funder, ex Bankers Trust VP, libertarian funder of education deform, Bilderberger -- he's down with the people!! Making it good for the little guy!!
Confusious
(8,317 posts)I'm pretty sure now you don't know anything about how the readers or the Internet works.
So sad.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)-11 How are royalties calculated?
If you select the 35 percent royalty option, your royalty will be 35 percent of your list price for each unit sold.
If you select the 70 percent royalty option, your royalty will be 70 percent of the list price (but if we sell at a lower price to match a competitor’s price for a digital or physical edition of the book or our price for a physical edition of the book, you will receive 70 percent of our sale price) for each book sold to customers in the Available Sales Territories, net delivery costs, and 35 percent of the list price for each unit sold to other customers. For full details, terms and conditions, see the Pricing Page and Terms and Conditions.
1-12 Why are royalties displayed at a 35 percent rate in the sales report, when I had selected 70% royalty option for my book?
The 70 percent royalty program is only applicable for sales of your book to customers in the Available Sales Territories. For sales to other customers, royalties are calculated at 35 percent, and these transactions appear at a 35 percent rate in the sales report. For full details, terms and conditions, see the Pricing Page and Terms and Conditions.
1-13 How are royalties for the 70 percent option shown in the sales report?
If we sell you title at a price lower than the list price entered to match a competitor’s price for a digital or physical edition of the book or our price for a physical edition of the book, you will receive 70 percent of our sale price, net of delivery costs, and the sales report will show you the weighted average of our sales prices and the total royalty on those sales.
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A36BYK5S7AJ2NQ#1-12_why_35
Confusious
(8,317 posts)You have no idea how easy it is to set up your own web page and sell through it.
I'm sure, in time, there will be thousand of micro publishers who sell their work, and the work of others, through their own pages, bypassing amazon completely, and keeping most of the money themselves.
You don't seem to be able to see that.
Again, so sad.
PS Here's a hint. you don't have to go through amazon to put an eBook on a kindle.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Last edited Fri Jul 13, 2012, 03:03 AM - Edit history (1)
looks like bezos ancestors included the parchman family of "parchman farm" notoriety, btw. sold the land for the prison, first warden, etc.
texas confederates. down with the people!!!
that big ranch was in the family a long long time.
the op is about amazon. you think you can make a mint & sock it to the man by writing a book & putting it up for sale on your personal website, why you just go for it & bless your little heart.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)In 20 it won't even exist.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)As it stands now either you go through Paypal, Google Merchant, Amazon Accounts, or whatever B&N uses. You can, in theory, get a real merchant account, but it still takes 2% of your earnings. Still, far better than publishers which typically take 85% of your earnings.
The OP is just upset that a corporation mainstreamed ebooks. It didn't have to happen that way (in theory the open hardware community could've beat them), but that's life. For ebooks to become ubiquitous it requires it to be part of the psyche of consumer consumption. Look at smartphones. Yes, Blackberry was kind of first and so were a few others, but Apple did the first really popular phone, and volia, Google followed suit and now you have open source Android running on billions of phones.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Generally closer to 10% for most paper authors. It's ridiculous. In the end authors will not take the 70% royalty, they will demand 95% or higher.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)joshcryer
(62,536 posts)edit: I mean, seriously. Current publishers get 85-95% of the money that an author earns from selling their paper book, and somehow that is good, but if a corporation enables these same authors to sell their books but takes 30%, that's bad!
Seriously, this is so fucked up it's fucking disgusting.
And you get called a corporatist for pointing this out!
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Amazon has no control over who hits it. In fact, a thing completely unheard of in the publishing industry is simply giving away your books for free, initially. No fucking publisher would ever do that, it would kill their bottom line. Yet it's quite effective at 1) getting to the top 100 list at whatever store you're selling at (be it Google Books, B&N or Amazon or a plethora of others) and 2) opening up your works to people who couldn't afford them otherwise ($100 for an ebook reader and 99 cents a book, after 7-8 books which would've typically sold at $15 you've broken even).
And I don't care if I'm on ignore (which you are sure to note to people when you're unable to respond to my statements), I'm not going to allow this totally capitalist status quo line of reasoning stand. It's bullshit and it's simply not true.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)...for literary works, franchising restaurants were the middle men for food.
Getting rid of the franchise or the middle men is the greatest thing that will ever happen to literary works.
Contrary to the snobby belief system being portrayed here, publishers don't weed out the cruft, they make the cruft worse with their bullshit copy testing, their bullshit garbage spewed out by editors. Just look at what currently qualifies for best selling these days.
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)...but the last bookstore in my town closed two years ago anyway.
I use the library, and we have a very good one, fortunately. While the stability of price-fixing probably does have its advantages, I suspect that the changing markets here will lead to more availability and more books, albeit of the electronic variety.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)rent them.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Eventually we won't have big publishing houses anymore and we'll be all digital. It's the future whether we like it or not. Between the big publishers and Amazon, I'll side with Amazon as a necessary evil until we get an open source alternative.