Ah! Thank you very much ma'am. It is an interesting debate now that I know what's going on, lol.
Amazon and book industry
- Thread starter Rrty
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1) When Steve received that phone call about the paperback rights sale of Carrie, he slid down the wall, phone in hand, till he was sitting on the floor. What he did next was go out and buy Tabby a blow dryer, 'cause that's what someone does when they are 'rich', right? He was in shock and it's all he could think of to buy. There was a time when King was ridiculed for taking huge advances (he deserved them all!) and he quieted things down by accepting one dollar for a couple of them (Talisman comes to mind). Other writers said there wasn't any money left for them when they wanted advances or money to promote their books. King heard and responded. How many other authors would do the same? What these other writers failed to realize is that the profits made by the publishers of King's books were used to help promote their books and give them advances (smaller than what they wanted, I guess) for their books.
2) I purchased 'Hard Listening' in e-book form for my Kindle that's on my pc as I don't own an actual Kindle months ago and still haven't even read 30 pages of it. Why? Because I keep forgetting that's it's 'there'. I really don't like the e-book format. That's just me and my opinion. I realize that there are millions who love their e-reders, etc. but I just don't like them.
3) The question of the publishers having film rights to books was brought up. Disney owns alot of different companies outside of the Disney name (ABC television is just one). It seems anytime that there is a Disney movie (or one from their other studios like Touchstone) when the press junket time comes around all of the stars only go on shows like Good Morning America or Kelly And Michael, etc. i.e. the ones that are under the Disney 'umbrella'. It's just seems like they only promote their own products. My point being that if someone only watches shows on CBS then how are they going to know about these other shows/movies that are only being promoted on a different network? Seems like an awful lot of 'in-breeding' going on. So, if Amazon has its own film studio they would end up only promoting their own movies/product tie-ins, etc. This is becoming a slippery slope with the 'in-house self-promotion' thing. Amazon has too much power as it is, they don't need to have any more.
2) I purchased 'Hard Listening' in e-book form for my Kindle that's on my pc as I don't own an actual Kindle months ago and still haven't even read 30 pages of it. Why? Because I keep forgetting that's it's 'there'. I really don't like the e-book format. That's just me and my opinion. I realize that there are millions who love their e-reders, etc. but I just don't like them.
3) The question of the publishers having film rights to books was brought up. Disney owns alot of different companies outside of the Disney name (ABC television is just one). It seems anytime that there is a Disney movie (or one from their other studios like Touchstone) when the press junket time comes around all of the stars only go on shows like Good Morning America or Kelly And Michael, etc. i.e. the ones that are under the Disney 'umbrella'. It's just seems like they only promote their own products. My point being that if someone only watches shows on CBS then how are they going to know about these other shows/movies that are only being promoted on a different network? Seems like an awful lot of 'in-breeding' going on. So, if Amazon has its own film studio they would end up only promoting their own movies/product tie-ins, etc. This is becoming a slippery slope with the 'in-house self-promotion' thing. Amazon has too much power as it is, they don't need to have any more.
I have an e-reader with books on it I haven't read yet, because like you, I keep forgetting it's there. This doesn't mean I don't like e-readers. I do. I think that I just enjoy the physical book more.
I also have the Kindle for PC, but I really don't like reading a screen. Give me a paper book any time.
John
John
I've told the story about finding some Congressional Record(s) in the attic of this old house I purchased with the intent of a remodel and a sell...which I did do. The Record, from the 30s, had Congress debating the "chain store evil" and about the only thing of worth I saw was some proposal to make it easier for small groups to buy in bulk to compete so on so forth and it it went anywhere I do not know. The chain store evil of the day was Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, today it is Walmart, Amazon, Walter Oobleck...tomorrow it will be another. The market changes. If people didn't come to accept those changes we'd still be riding horses and making hay. But some people wouldn't recognize a deal if it walked up and bit them on the ass. And so it goes.
Yep...just like they did when they/their acquired imprints were part of the Net Book Agreement.
Net Book Agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I have to say, I think bookstores are gone. It's not a good idea but I can't see how you can stop it. Ebooks and e-readers have changed things, but even if your preference is solely for paper I guess it's easier to click, order and have it delivered to your door rather than go into town, even if taking the time to go to a store means you could have the thing sooner. But it's not just bookstores that are suffering, and it's not just because of Amazon. The ability to buy online has changed many parts of the retail industry, and has already seen many household brands or names go to the wall. Here, there have even been govt meetings to discuss the 'crisis on the High Street'. My town is particularly badly affected (iirc it's one of the 'top' 5 worst-affected towns), with something like 25-30% of all shops standing vacant, when even 5-10 years ago landlords were able to command high rents because demand far exceeded the supply. (That they've not lowered the rents again to kickstart demand would be a mystery, if it wasn't for the local council raising their demands in the hope/expectation of plugging a black hole at the heart of local govt finances. Landlords basically have to charge a certain amount so they can pay the council's rates...with the result that no one dares take the risk - iirc, you'd have to take in £4k per week just to meet overheads (minus wages).)
Back to bookstores, and where there used to be three independents and a chain (Ottakar's, then Waterstone's when Ottakar's was acquired and 'merged'). There was also WH Smith's, which was/is more or less a newsagent rather than a bookstore. Now, the indies are gone, Smith's has scaled down (downstairs used to be newspapers, magazines, stationary/office supplies, with the upstairs given over to books; now it's all downstairs), and Waterstone's is still there but only getting by (you can tell they're in trouble because, up to around 3 years ago, they'd always be advertising for extra staff at this time of year to meet Christmas demand; that went online-check only in 2011, and there've been no temp/seasonal vacancies at all in the last two years (2013 and now)).
You can find a lot more, obviously, on net than in a bookstore. But at least for me when i'm buying something on net that is because i know what i want to buy. When i go into a bookstore i never know whats gonna happen and which book/s i'm gonna buy in there. Therefore bookstores are magic, they are the unexpected. While buying on net is ordinary, you go there to get a certain book/s, you get them. No magic, nothing unexpected. I think there are place for both.
True and true. There's a greater range online (though in the UK, Amazon has the dominant position), but I struggle to walk into a bookstore and only buy the thing I went in for. 99% of the time I'll come out with 3-6 books and considerably lighter in the wallet - though, in terms of pounds-per-hour of enjoyment, books offer greater value for money than pretty much any other medium/art form.
I'm just not sure that bookstores can survive without changing to offer something different. What that something could be, I don't know, just as I don't know how the land lies elsewhere (for example, in Sweden). I'd hate to see a world - or just a country, especially the UK - where bookstores simply ceased to exist, and there will now always be a place for books alongside ebooks (and vice versa), but ultimately the markets and the money bods will decide.
I think the tendency is that the bookstores tend to go for the bestsellers in different fields of literature. Both in fact and fiction. If you are looking for variety go online and buy. But i think bookstores will survive because of people shopping buy books as gifts, they ask in the store what s/he would like. If they don't like it they can always exchange it for another book which the buyer of course counts on. A friend of mine had a birthday recently. She got at least a dozen books. I have noticed, at least here in sweden, that the amount of authors represented in the stores have lessened a little but that the most popular is doing fine. We have a few more specialized bookstores, like SF-bookstore that have a very good and wide selection on SF, Fantasy and horror. It is always filled up with people. Have a brother that lives in the states that says that they have a better range of authors in that area (SF etc i mean) than any store he encountered in the states. But that is an exception. The chains are not like that. I agree that a world without bookstores would be a dull world, a void world almost.