Comment by marsavar
1 year ago
As someone who worked for the world's largest trade book publisher a decade ago, let me tell you that dealing with Amazon is the worst. They squeeze publishers' profit margins to the absolute minimum, and they aggressively force them to accept terrible deals because they have the upper hand.
Amazon has been horrible for the book industry. Please buy your books elsewhere!
Can I take this opportunity to recommend the lovely http://bookshop.org and http://uk.bookshop.org
https://www.hive.co.uk/
An online retailer that allows you to send a cut of the profits to a local independent bookshop of your choosing.
No connection. Just a satisfied customer.
I got my hopes up, but hive says
> Please note: eBooks can only be purchased with a UK issued credit card and all our eBooks (ePub and PDF) are DRM protected.
Bloomsbury OTOH sells DRM-free e-books.
I was about to suggest the same. They sell books, ebooks, music, films.
And while I’m at it:
https://libro.fm/
for audiobooks.
Book industry or just the publishers? Show me a single author who loves publishers
Don't worry, Amazon screws authors directly too when they self-publish, by using the cudgel of Kindle Unlimited to choke possible competition in ebook sales.
https://bsky.app/profile/glynnstewart.com/post/3leu7lzvy622g
KU is amazing.
There's entire genres like litrpg, progression fantasy and cozy fantasy that likely would either not exist or be a fraction of their current size without it.
And authors can make a living, there's plenty in those genres (not to mention romance) who via a combination of patreon + KU + Audible are doing just fine.
I too wish there was someone who could compete with amazon, but the thing is nobody seems to actually even try? I feel like the entire book industry would be quite happy if things had remained stuck in time circa 1990, on their own they would never have invented something like KU.
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It does rather feel like the shoe is on the other foot now. Go back a few decades and publishers were the ones rinsing bookshops for all they were worth. Two wrongs don't make a right of course...
This could be summarised as "companies leverage their power" which is unsurprising.
If you were to list occasions where entities acted intentionally against their best interests then that would be more noteworthy!
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The real lesson is if you let a person or organisation get into a position where they can squeeze, they will squeeze. They won't even be doing it because they are "evil" because the hedonic treadmill makes everyone feel entitled to more. The problem is systemic. We know our failures but don't do anything about it.
Amazon has been more than just generically horrible - they use blatantly anti-competitive contracts (as if their near-monopsony position wasn't bad enough):
"Amazon fixed online retail prices through contract provisions and policies" that "prevent third-party sellers that offer products on Amazon.com from offering their products at lower prices or on better terms on any other online platform, including their own websites,"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/amazon-sued-over...
Frugal is the business term :-)