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 04:09 pm (UTC)Anyways, I think you miss the point here. The publishing industry has had to be dragged into this kicking and screaming. Unlike the music industry, they don't have the threat of "file sharing". In fact, that is what makes them slow to enter the industry. They also know that there isn't a strong movement to go away from paper books. There is also a strong desire from them to protect the profits they make from hardback editions.
You talk about price advantage like Apple can get a different result from what Amazon was trying to do. Fact is, publishers want to charge MORE for eBooks than what Amazon draws the line there. I don't think Apple is going to have much special magic there, and I don't think they are going to make a big deal about it. (Steve Jobs has been quoted in the past about not really being all that interested in eBooks.)
BTW, Amazon does still have an advantage from that you can actually buy books on the device from anywhere. That is something that the iPad won't give you. (To get that, you'd need the 3G version and have to pay data rates for it.)
Personally, I think the real winner in the eBook retail war is going to be the retailer that finally convinces the publishers that DRM is holding them back and that we have a store that can sell to anyone no matter what the device. I don't see that happening any time soon, tho.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 04:52 pm (UTC)DRM isn't really the hold-up - the absolute incompatibility of the formats is. its not like they're all embracing docbook or pdf the way that everybody embraced mp3. even after DRM is gone and books can "go anywhere", they won't because it'll still take some agreement on a middle format AND the willingness of the customer base to convert to that.
i convert my purchased itunes files to mp3, but i'm pretty sure i'm in the rarity for that.
then there's the "why go to X if you have to convert it to put it on Y" - why go to iTunes to buy a book if the same book is at amazon and i already have the kindle? if the price difference isn't there (and the publishers don't want there to be one), then again - the device decides the store and the store decides the device, and again, amazon is somewhat at the loss.
but just taking out DRM means nothing because the devices are too new for people to have "my old one died" complaints yet (except the geeks that have already been there with their ipods). this isn't like music or movies where you have 5 different things to use it on - this is one person with one dedicated device, so transfer isn't the issue.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 05:48 pm (UTC)Not THAT ubiquitous. Given that I've been using my N900 without a data plan, it has sometimes been a struggle to find free wifi. Hell, I can't always get free wifi at Starbucks. I was only able to use the wifi at BWI because they were running a free holiday special.
DRM isn't really the hold-up - the absolute incompatibility of the formats is. its not like they're all embracing docbook or pdf the way that everybody embraced mp3. even after DRM is gone and books can "go anywhere", they won't because it'll still take some agreement on a middle format AND the willingness of the customer base to convert to that.
Now you are showing your ignorance. Converting eBooks is trivial with Calibre. As for a "middle format", there is one now: Adobe EPUB. Just about every eBook reader is working to support it. Sony recently moved all of their secure books from their proprietary format to EPUB, and my understanding is that BN is going to be doing the same thing. Both support DRM-free EPUB.
The only outlier right now is Amazon, which is sticking to their modified MobiPocket format. The irony is that their treatment of the format has effectively killed MobiPocket as a reader. They are trying too hard to sell Kindles that they missed out on trying to make the MobiPocket format ubiquitous.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:19 pm (UTC)why should the typical user be forced to install yet another piece of software to read a book? asking the end-users to deal with file conversion is asking to be put out of business. it is bad enough the insane variety of codecs people have to deal with just to watch a movie these days. people will generally pick the platform that fits the store they go to and that's that.
I note that apple itself has never directly provided video conversion software to put DRM-free, non-m4v movies into their iPod, and doesn't consider iPod or iTunes sales to be down because of it.
thus my original point: the store front is the key to EVERYTHING, and if you give users a reason to go to another store front to populate your device, you've pretty much lost. So I think that Amazon's p.o.v. was that had they pushed MobiPocket as a file format, they could have raked in behind-the-scenes cash as a patent holder, but might have lost the chance for the storefront monopoly. In this I think they were wrong, and the fact that they're the top-selling mp3 market in the game because they support every format out there kinda supports that.
It seems Amazon's #1 problem in the larger picture was in trying to win a monopoly before the rules were even clear, forgetting that Steve Jobs makes up the rules as he goes.
EPUB (news to me, yes ;-) ) is great for initially free content (public domain books) and probably will be the literary "podcast" format - google will likely be the one to embrace that by having google reader able to translate blogs and news articles into it to assemble a "newspaper" for you of your fav readings (which, of course, scares the crap out of the news websites out there).
just because readers can read it doesn't mean it will be the preferred format of the store fronts. Apple's iTunes are DRM-free, but that in no way made Apple suddently decide to push mp3s instead of AAC files.
They are trying too hard to sell Kindles that they missed out on trying to make the MobiPocket format ubiquitous.
this sort of thing has been going on for years.
Sony has, the second Apple entered the market, already lost. BN still has a chance in the market (though their product isn't a big enough improvement over Amazons yet). But while Sony may have good technology, the storefront is the key and the lack of a storefront brand puts Sony increasingly dependent on the storefronts that can actually compete, and now that all 3 have their own devices, Sony is out of the game.
Jobs may not want to be in the ebook business, but really it is an easy win for Apple so others are doing it in his name. They're going at it backwards, and the world may follow. Where Amazon wanted the kindle to drive ebook sales, Apple's people are letting ebooks drive ipad sales by promoting the iTunes store ease-of-use and the fact that ebooks are just one of many things you can do with an ipad. Once the iPad has ubiquity, they can look at the market from the other direction again.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:27 pm (UTC)You are ignoring my point in that converting formats is trivial and is a minor issue in comparison to DRM (which, unless you remove it, you can't convert it to another format.)
just because readers can read it doesn't mean it will be the preferred format of the store fronts. Apple's iTunes are DRM-free, but that in no way made Apple suddently decide to push mp3s instead of AAC files.
But, because it is DRM-free, you actually have the ability to convert it to MP3 (course, the issue from converting from one lossy format to another is a reason why I prefer to buy my MP3s at Amazon, when I do buy them. Course, this is much less of an issue with eBooks.)
Sony has, the second Apple entered the market, already lost. BN still has a chance in the market (though their product isn't a big enough improvement over Amazons yet). But while Sony may have good technology, the storefront is the key and the lack of a storefront brand puts Sony increasingly dependent on the storefronts that can actually compete, and now that all 3 have their own devices, Sony is out of the game.
Sony DOES have a storefront. I also think that Sony's product IS better than Amazon's. I find the Kindle too big and clunky looking. Sony's is more elegant.
I also disagree that Apple has a device, any more than they had a device with the iPod Touch or the iPhone. While all three can read eBooks, they are not eBook readers. The issues with non-eInk devices will remain on this (Eyestrain due to LCD screens, battery life)
The only real effect I could see this having is possibly on the large screen readers (Kindle DX, Sony Reader Daily Edition) and only for casual readers. It certainly will help with the proliferation of eBooks, but Apple isn't going to own the market on this.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:43 pm (UTC)I agree with you on this, even to the point of thinking Apple isn't even going to have the majority.
I see this falling out just like the console games trend - 30,30,30, and everybody else scrapping for the last 10.
30 = Amazon, unless the bad press of the last week hurts them over a longer term
30 = Apple, because there are those who find multiple uses for their ipad of which the ebook reader is one of them. apple may also be using this as a market platform to researching alternative screen technologies that solve the LCD problem. Everything subsequent to the iPod has used an advantage gained by the previous product. iPod begat iTunes, iTunes begat iPhone, iPhone begat iTouch, iTouch begat iPad - the iPad has that initial advantage of so many iTouch-compatible apps already out there, some of which may be even more useful at decent screen resolution. one killer-app for "normal people" and the ebook stuff will follow.
Apple also has the advantage of being MUCH easier to update, since it is all software stored in flash-memory, rather than EPROM. Apple can come up with a 2nd generation reader interface and not have to make people get new devices to upgrade to it, where-as the kindle will eventually get hit by the lack of memory to support such an upgrade.
30 = BN or Sony, though I'm inclined to go with BN unless Borders throws its weight somewhere - right now they're pushing Sony (just looked i up) since Sony is the only one not directly competing with them in markets other than ebooks.
google's another odd-man-out in this, and may be waiting to produce the 3rd generation reader system (if we consider apple's platform as one that makes a 2nd generation even possible) once some of the standards are established. google's approach will be the opposite of the proprietary/download approach of the other readers: assume the network, centralize the books on a server (with device-side caching of chapters), and you get it on any machine anywhere (a-la Safari for O'Reilly). With sync-ups happening automatically when you get back to a live network port.
such a google approach would have the advantage of bookmarking without taking it with you - read it on your pad at home, then when you get to your computer, just pick up what you bookmarked right on your desktop.
THAT is the ideal world, the real future of all of this (in a way that makes Apple's approach meaningless)...and google can take its time to make it happen.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 08:07 pm (UTC)Authors also have self-published stuff for a while too. I know Piers Anthony was one of the early ones, even investing in some eBook companies. There are plenty of authors who own the eBook rights to many of their stories and often find their own way to publish them.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 07:37 pm (UTC)http://blogs.adobe.com/digitaleditions/2010/01/epub_ipad_and_content_interope.html
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:39 pm (UTC)Starbucks has many of its stores still under exclusive contracts with T-Mobile, and can't switch to a free service until those expire.