
They Own the System: Amazon Rewrites Book Industry by Marching into Publishing - marvindanig
https://news.bubblin.io/s/lwzvsr/they_own_system_amazon_rewrites_book
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chrismeller
So their example is a book that got rejected by mainstream NYC publishers and
was bought by Amazon for “low five figures”, which is actually damned good if
you’re not a name brand (and if you are you’d rather the royalties anyway).

They’ve also offered self publishing that, while obviously not offering
anything near that in advances or royalties, is an out for everyone else with
potentially unlimited upward mobility.

So yes, they have the retail market. If they choose to publish and market the
hell out of an unknown title it absolutely could be an overwhelming success.
Is that really different than any other publishing house, though?

You could argue that their barrier to entry is a bit lower because they own
two arms of the chain and can more quickly cut their losses if it doesn’t work
out, but really wouldn’t it have been the same if Penguin, Simon, or Harper
had picked it up? They’d have marketed the hell out of it just like Amazon.

I guess my point is that, just like any industry, there are times where a
potential winner isn’t picked up by a major league team and then wins big for
an underdog. I just don’t see how Amazon being the “underdog” is relevant here
other than being Amazon.

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ams6110
Amazon can advertise for free though on their own platform, unlike other
publishers. Since Amazon is basically the only place anyone buys books
anymore, that's huge.

Barnes & Noble just closed here. There's no dedicated book store within 50
miles of me now. I suspect many who don't live in major cities are in a
similar situation and probably have been for some time now.

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cordite
Is it really free for them if such displaces promotions by others?

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evanmoran
It's not free, but it's much cheaper than the cost a normal publisher would
spend to get the same exposure.

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throwaway98121
How is it cheaper? If Amazon has to decide to promote item A instead of the
next Kindle reader or some other product, there’s certainly an opportunity
cost. To blanketly state it absolutely costs less is too naive and merely an
assumption.

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jawns
Nonfiction author here.

Some potential advantages Amazon may have over other traditional publishers:

Massive amount of data and high-powered data science. Can help inform
decisions about what to buy, how much of an advance to pay, etc.

Large coffers. Can take more risks in what to buy and make competitive bids.

Priority of placement. Amazon the retailer gets a cut of every sale. Amazon
the publisher gets another. Clearly, it makes sense to prioritize Amazon's own
titles against similar titles from other publishers, unless sales of the non-
Amazon title are expected to be substantially higher.

A couple of disadvantages:

Agents are wary. They know that cooperating with Amazon is going to threaten
the health of every other publisher.

At least in the short term, authors are going to perceive having Amazon as a
publisher as having less cachet. It's largely known for its self-publishing
arm, and authors aren't going to want their books to be misperceived as having
been self-published, where quality is pretty abysmal.

Don't expect your book to end up in brick-and-mortar bookstores.

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drwl
Why is this a link to another Reddit/HN looking site than the article itself?

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marvindanig
I run that site: it’s focused on books—a hacker news of books sorts. Of course
HN is a much bigger assembly...

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mmanfrin
Original question still stands, why is that the url linked and not the actual
article? The fact that you run the site makes it worse, as this is blatant
self promotion masquerading as a real post.

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marvindanig
The discussion on this thread started due to the discussion on the link that
is shared. I could have added this fact on my response earlier, but I thought
it was obvious.

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ddebernardy
Perhaps this is because I've only ever heard about Amazon's march into
publishing through interviews of authors and competitors, but the narrative
I've picked up seems to revolve around Amazon actually being a terrible
publisher. By which I mean you basically never know what you're buying if
you're a reader, and they aren't spending a dime to edit or promote you if
you're an author. (Not that publishers do those two things much either of
late, but that's a different story.)

I suppose that's fine when you've a track record as an author. It probably
isn't if you're a new author.

Any odds there are some authors around who can chime in?

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jjeaff
Are they paying advances? If not, and they are not promoting you either, why
would anyone sign with them? You could just self publish and if you don't have
the money to have a bunch of books printed, you could just use one of the many
print in demand services (including the one offered by Amazon).

Edit: It seems that they are paying authors for their books, which for many
authors, is a good enough reason to use them as a publisher. Who cares what
the other big publishers could/would do for you if none of them will pick up
your book.

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angstrom
Good, now maybe they can fix the textbook industry which is woefully inept.

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marvindanig
Not that there is an incentive for Amazon’s to be or remain efficient though!

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legatus
The real link would be this one: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/they-own-the-
system-amazon-rewr...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/they-own-the-system-
amazon-rewrites-book-industry-by-turning-into-a-publisher-11547655267)

Here is the outline'd version:
[https://outline.com/Km9vL4](https://outline.com/Km9vL4)

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lordnacho
Was thinking there would be more about using their data.

They could make some predictions of the form {author, subject, language, etc}
-> likely sales.

From there they could make a sensible guess as to the advance to offer the
author.

And of course authors could throw their proposals in the machine and get an
offer.

I suppose something like this must already exist?

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yesenadam
Reminds me of a cartoon I once saw (in the window of Gleebooks in Sydney) - a
publisher in an extravagant office saying to a humble author "Give me a novel
of 200,000 words that oversteps the bounds of common decency." (something like
that, can't find it online now)

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airocker
They always supported self publishing with CreateSpace. Not sure what changed?
Did they start doing Marketing/sales for the books? Article is not readable
without login it seems.

