sick of authors blogging from ignorance...
Feb. 3rd, 2010 08:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearThose ranting against amazon's price-fixing (not the dropping of the macmillan titles, which was stupid, but the $9.99 price point that amazon wanted rather than letting the publishers have full control over the prices) are totally missing one key point: if amazon can't offer a cost difference between what they offer and what iTunes offers, then the fight between kindle and ipad will be strictly on the technology, and THEY WILL LOSE.
As PotC clearly stated:
"You know, I could beat you in a fair fight."
"Well, then, that doesn't exactly give me an incentive to fight fair."
Amazon has money, and some good developers, but if technically its device is behind the ipad, then it can only compete by lowering prices on the whole user experience. If the kindle and the ipad and all these others were ubiquitous, that would be one thing, but at this early stage, just like moving console game machines, until there is a killer title that sets the REAL price point, then controlling the costs of the games and keeping them low was how you entered the market until you had a comparable share, then you let the publishers go back to the standard price point.
the publishing industry is looking only at their books and making price models comparable to paper. this is *backwards thinking*. This ignores the hardware itself which is too much of both the user experience, and more importantly, the company's ability to even move the titles in the first place. the publishers in the bigger picture don't care about ebooks because they still have a market without them.
but to amazon, bn, and apple, they are having to play this out just like atari, coleco, mattell (intellivision), the zillions of 6502 platforms of the 80s, and the modern console world of xbox, ps2/3, and wii. until you have a killer app, a killer title, or some serious value-add, you don't move consoles where other consoles already exist if your total user experience price point (for the first year or so) is comparable to what is already in the market.
so amazon is competing against paper and it is competing against the ipad which has SERIOUS value-add: color, a 2 year history of 3rd party apps, and The Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field. they only way to compete against that platform is to show a lower price for the user experience, and given that the kindle itself still has a minimum price point to make up for the r&d, that means cheaper titles.
this is what the publishing world, "the authors" don't get. They look at this like xbox/wii/ps3 AFTER the 3 years of competition and undercutting and who's got the killer app fights that got to this 30-30-30 world we have today, that got to the point of ubiquity. they think an ebook is an ebook because to them, it is. they see a game title run at the same price on all 3 platforms and think that's how they should control it.
they totally are ignoring history. the platform wars for ebooks are *just starting*. the devices aren't done, the market isn't anywhere close to having a set of ubiquitous platforms. controlling the prices is one key form of competition, especially where unlike SEGA in the early years, you can't really get away with exclusivity licensing contracts because the publisher always has that other outlet: paper.
authors know words. publishers know editing, books, and paper.
neither of them know a damn thing about the e-gadget world, and i'm getting sick of their rantings from ignorance.
As PotC clearly stated:
"You know, I could beat you in a fair fight."
"Well, then, that doesn't exactly give me an incentive to fight fair."
Amazon has money, and some good developers, but if technically its device is behind the ipad, then it can only compete by lowering prices on the whole user experience. If the kindle and the ipad and all these others were ubiquitous, that would be one thing, but at this early stage, just like moving console game machines, until there is a killer title that sets the REAL price point, then controlling the costs of the games and keeping them low was how you entered the market until you had a comparable share, then you let the publishers go back to the standard price point.
the publishing industry is looking only at their books and making price models comparable to paper. this is *backwards thinking*. This ignores the hardware itself which is too much of both the user experience, and more importantly, the company's ability to even move the titles in the first place. the publishers in the bigger picture don't care about ebooks because they still have a market without them.
but to amazon, bn, and apple, they are having to play this out just like atari, coleco, mattell (intellivision), the zillions of 6502 platforms of the 80s, and the modern console world of xbox, ps2/3, and wii. until you have a killer app, a killer title, or some serious value-add, you don't move consoles where other consoles already exist if your total user experience price point (for the first year or so) is comparable to what is already in the market.
so amazon is competing against paper and it is competing against the ipad which has SERIOUS value-add: color, a 2 year history of 3rd party apps, and The Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field. they only way to compete against that platform is to show a lower price for the user experience, and given that the kindle itself still has a minimum price point to make up for the r&d, that means cheaper titles.
this is what the publishing world, "the authors" don't get. They look at this like xbox/wii/ps3 AFTER the 3 years of competition and undercutting and who's got the killer app fights that got to this 30-30-30 world we have today, that got to the point of ubiquity. they think an ebook is an ebook because to them, it is. they see a game title run at the same price on all 3 platforms and think that's how they should control it.
they totally are ignoring history. the platform wars for ebooks are *just starting*. the devices aren't done, the market isn't anywhere close to having a set of ubiquitous platforms. controlling the prices is one key form of competition, especially where unlike SEGA in the early years, you can't really get away with exclusivity licensing contracts because the publisher always has that other outlet: paper.
authors know words. publishers know editing, books, and paper.
neither of them know a damn thing about the e-gadget world, and i'm getting sick of their rantings from ignorance.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 03:02 pm (UTC)AND it means less trees getting clobbered up front printing books that never sell, and less gas getting wasted shipping them, and less warehouse space, etc etc.
of course, it also means the end of bn and borders, as they both have already gutted their media section to make way for more paper, so if suddenly there's less paper books being printed, they will look depressingly emptier and emptier...
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 03:20 pm (UTC)Besides, what about libraries? Are we going to be able to rent ebooks? What about the equipment?
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 04:12 pm (UTC)http://ebooks.nypl.org/
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:15 pm (UTC)Currently many libraries do "check out" ebooks, with readers (Kindles are probably the most popular at the moment), but there is less user demand than one might think, notably compared with audiobooks (huge market for listening to books while working, driving, commuting, etc.)
The big issue is the licensing agreements: How many people can use the same thing at the same time? Often the deal allows only one person at a time to use a subscribed item, regardless of the technology. Once the industry comes to an agreement, the likelihood that the user will have a reader increases. (cf. what happened once cassette tapes, and later CDs were common--libraries no longer had to check out hardware, and nearly all libraries got into audiobooks).
And, while all the stuff discussed here is happening, there is also movement in the book-making machine (download the book, print on the spot in one step for a reasonable price). So, it may be possible to get the electronic book in print form if you want. And that opens up the question of, in that environment, what is the difference between libraries and bookstores? But that's another discussion.
(PS: At present, the quality of graphics in a high quality book is still generally better than that on most readers, including most computers. That will probably change at some point).