
Please, don't buy my book on Amazon - pmtarantino
http://pleasedontbuymybookonamazon.com/
======
JackFr
This argument makes no sense.

Small presses fail because they generate the bulk of their sales from Amazon,
but the margins are too thin when they sell on Amazon. Presumably if they
don't sell on Amazon the margins would be healthier, but sales would drop
precipitously. So if you can't make money with Amazon and you can't make money
without Amazon it seems to me Amazon isn't the problem.

It's true Amazon took the fat margins, but it gave them to consumers. I
suppose this guy is just asking nicely to get them back to support his
sclerotic business model. But in the long run it's unlikely that people are
going to pay more for a worse product.

(On the other hand maybe he could sell the book at the locally-grown organic
farm stand.)

~~~
dsr_
Amazon isn't the whole problem, it's just that Amazon was the winner.

It used to be that most towns had a bookstore, and larger towns or cities had
several. Eventually they were displaced by chains: Waldenbooks and B. Dalton,
Borders and Barnes & Noble. First the chains chased out the independent
bookstores by being able to cut costs and order more efficiently; then the
chains ate each other at the same time that Amazon was cutting costs even
further. Now there's one limping chain, B&N, and some specialized chains --
mostly religious, secondhand or otherwise discount -- and Amazon.

Efficiency is best served by a single distribution system with maximum
economies of scale. That isn't actually a desirable outcome for customers or
producers, though.

~~~
polarix
Why is this not a desirable outcome for customers?

~~~
grey-area
Because once a company obtains a monopoly, their interests and those of the
customer diverge, and there's no longer any control imposed by the market,
because there is no market - just one initially efficient supplier with no
incentive to remain efficient and every incentive to boost their margins at
the expense of producers and customers.

This is why we have a regulated market, and rules about monopolies.

~~~
EGreg
That assumes that a company can maintain the monopoly while gradually making
its service worse and worse. Other companies can spring up which take
advantage of its margins (as Jeff Bezos may have said, "my margin is your
opportunity").

What Amazon would have to do to maintain a monopoly is to continuously locate
and destroy startups which try to compete with it, by using its scale. You're
saying that, while it's doing this, it may make things worse for the consumer.
Perhaps, but that's REALLY tough to do (until someone writes software to do
it).

One thing is for sure though - regardless of how good the service is to
consumers, the demand for human labor will erode further and the comparative
advantage of local economies will erode all over the world - not just for
books but tons of products and services. As a result, we will need an ever
greater welfare state so that many out-of-work people can be paid to be
consumers and send price signals back into the economy, even if they are
unable to make much money themselves (because presumably robots would be
employed instead).

~~~
sousousou
This reminds me of one of Russell's essays, "In Praise of Idleness". Despite
the fact that collectively, we would be extremely comfortable working very
little if we all worked the same amount, in reality some of us work extremely
hard while others work not at all. So an innovation that makes work less
necessary is seen as an evil (reduces the number of jobs), where it could
instead reduce work for everyone uniformly in principle (assuming massive job
training and education opportunities). I think it's an interesting argument.

[http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html)

~~~
EGreg
Yeah. I think most people in HN don't view automation as a bad force. But we
do have to note there's no guarantee that jobs will come back for EVERYONE and
that over time the demand for human labor won't decrease. Most people already
don't concern themselves with growing/hunting food, obtaining water,
warming/cooling themselves, etc. We've moved on to other things, freed up by
advances in technology. Perhaps the current "busywork" of blogging,
accountants, lawyers etc. is the future. But ultimately, outside the engineers
that build and take care of the technology, there are tons of people whose
jobs are being disrupted. There should be a way to make sure these people
remain consumers and don't starve.

------
joelgrus
"Amazon's discounting policies" are the same as every other bookstore, they
pay the publisher ~45% of the cover price for each book. Generally speaking,
the publisher gets the same $$ whether you buy the book from Amazon or from
Quirky-Bookstore-Full-of-Cats or from wherever.

If you buy directly from the publisher, _then_ the publisher does get 100% of
the price. And if they donate 50% of that to your local bookstore, they're
still making more money than if you'd bought the book _from_ that local
bookstore. None of this has anything to do with Amazon.

I get that Amazon is bad for _small independent bookstores_ (and for large
chain bookstores too!), and I notice that the author just happens to own a
small independent bookstore, so take his other complaints with a large grain
of salt.

~~~
xauronx
"and I notice that the author just happens to own a small independent
bookstore"

This should probably be the top comment.

~~~
josefresco
From the post:

"co-owner of Newtonville Books, an independent bookstore in Boston"

------
oh_sigh
I'd like to see a reference for this statement: "For many small publishers
like Roundabout, Amazon accounts for a large portion of sales, but the
publisher realizes very little of the purchase price owing to Amazon’s
discounting policies."

I was under the impression that amazon could discount a book as much as they
wanted, but this did not affect the fixed dollar amount that the publisher
received per sale.

~~~
retube
Yeah right. Presumably the publisher can sell the book to Amazon for whatever
it wants. I guess tho that Amazon say - "we wont stock your book unless you
let us have it for some price OR some specified (low) commission."

~~~
polarix
Seems like that'd solve the problem in this case better than having some
nonsensical webpage pleading with customers to be inefficient.

~~~
kamjam
But it makes for a bit of heart warming and noble PR on the writers part...

------
seszett
I want to talk about something that has nothing to do with books or Amazon but
CSS, and this website is a good example.

CSS transitions are a great feature, _however_ , using them to make hyperlinks
fade slowly over 500ms on hover is a really bad idea.

It is both distracting and not helpful, as a casual pass over a link with the
mouse won't actually reveal it.

So please, please, by all means use CSS transitions for nice graphic effects,
or to make the colour transition smoother over 50, or 100ms, but too much is
not better.

I have the feeling CSS transitions are quickly becoming a kind of modern
standard of amateur design, discreet and appealing yet annoying and
distracting, like coloured scrollbars and animated mouse cursors once were.

~~~
teh_klev
I wish folks would just make links look like links - blue underlined text that
turns purple if visited, just like the good old days - instead of making me
scan through the text with my mouse just in case I miss something.

------
jstalin
I buy almost all my books used on Amazon now, supporting local booksellers and
getting them for much cheaper than retail price. Sorry, but this plea to not
use Amazon is falling on deaf ears. I'm sorry that your business model doesn't
work. Amazon's does.

~~~
yesplorer
Amazon's business model doesn't really work either. They just have enough
runway to make sure that everyone gets out of the market then theirs will
start making sense.

~~~
the_watcher
Amazon's business model could start working essentially overnight if they
moved out of land grab mode into monetization mode. Increase the price of
Kindle books by 10% across the board, increase the Prime subscription rate (or
tier out Prime levels), and increase their fees for fulfillment and
transaction processing. You are correct that their runway lets them operate in
perpetual land grab (as well as allowed them to get to the point that they
could increase all these prices and not lose all their customers), but that
doesn't mean if Wall Street started seriously complaining they wouldn't be
able to massively increase profits.

------
mcv
> For many small publishers like Roundabout, Amazon accounts for a large
> portion of sales, but the publisher realizes very little of the purchase
> price owing to Amazon’s discounting policies.

This I don't understand. How is it possible that Amazon's discounts reduce the
publisher's margin? Doesn't the publisher simply sell it to Amazon for what
the publisher thinks is a fair wholesale price? Amazon can screw small
bookstores by reducing their own margins to almost nothing, but surely they
can't reduce the publisher's margins? If Amazon wants to pay less for the
book, then surely the publisher can simply not sell through Amazon?

So what use is it to tell people not to buy from Amazon? Maybe I just don't
get how the book industry works.

~~~
blumkvist
saw this brought up by another member. Can anyone clarify please?

------
spongle
So I should keep funding my local bookshop which I have to walk to, has no
titles other than the paperback chart full of trash like fifty shades, takes
weeks to get an order in (which I have to go and collect) and costs more?

I should also keep funding my publisher which does it's best to top slice
cash, screws libraries with license agreements for texts, force DRM where
possible?

I think people resent amazon in this market because it's stamped on their
little castles they all built. That's business, regardless of what you sell or
create.

------
viraptor
> but the publisher realizes very little of the purchase price owing to
> Amazon’s discounting policies.

And yet, I can't find any way to download his book as an ebook right now. I
would love to buy from authors directly... but help me help you. You can also
save lots on the production and distribution costs.

~~~
scrabble
The authors concerns seemed more around making sure his publisher was paid
than it was making sure he was paid.

Otherwise, I agree. It would be great if more publishers offered up eBooks
directly from them. Even at a highly discounted price, they'd make more per
sale than through other channels. (But if it was their only distribution
channel, likely less overall.)

~~~
eddieroger
I actually think his main point was to save a bookseller, and not the
publisher or himself - except, he owns the bookstore in this case, so it comes
full circle, supporting his position to buy a physical book from not-Amazon.

------
kiisupai
On a related subject, Quartz just ran an article on how membership at the
American Booksellers Association has "gone up every year for the past four
years, from 1,401 in 2009 to 1,567 in 2012".

[http://qz.com/127861/its-time-to-kill-the-idea-that-
amazon-i...](http://qz.com/127861/its-time-to-kill-the-idea-that-amazon-is-
killing-independent-bookstores/)

Amazon seems to be killing its medium-sized competitors more than its smaller
ones. But the article does not touch on the subject of publishers.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Plenty of small bookstores _use_ amazon, by putting their inventory online as
"used books". I'd be curious how much revenue from amazon actually supports
small bookstores these days.

------
jhspaybar
Why I Buy All My Books On Amazon

* They have it, always(and the newest printing of it)

* They usually have it digital, I start reading it within 60 seconds

* If it's not digital it is often available used($200 textbooks for $5? Yes, please, my "local" bookstore can keep their copies at $150 used).

* Prime shipping

* Oh, I also need new batteries, and a box of diapers? Might as well throw those in to the order and get back to things I would rather be doing than driving through town wasting my time.

~~~
makomk
"They have it, always(and the newest printing of it)"

The trouble is, Amazon knows that consumers think this way - so whenever they
want to extort publishers into giving them a bigger discount they just make
all that publishers' books unavailable on Amazon, knowing that everyone will
just assume the books are out of print and not bother looking elsewhere.

~~~
ISL
If there's another Amazon-efficient middleman that offers superior rates to
publishers/manufacturers at equal price/service to consumers, Amazon is as
dead as Books-A-Million.

Amazon's retail key is its unmatched distribution network. If someone can
duplicate it, they'll eventually have half of the market.

~~~
the_watcher
Luckily for Amazon, matching their distribution and logistics power is a
billion dollar investment that will take someone like Bezos (willing to spend
whatever it takes to hit his goal).

------
Shivetya
buy my book, oh you haven't heard of it, let me put Amazon in the url and then
make up some wonderfully confused reason why buying it there was wrong, but
you still must buy it.

really? this comes off more like, here's my book, you haven't heard of it, but
if I say something bad about Amazon I have an excuse to tell you of it.

If small publishers don't want to sell their books through Amazon then stay
out of the channels where Amazon buys books. How is that not possible?

~~~
webjprgm
He said the distributor that ships books to local bookstores would also have
to ship them to Amazon. So he can't both stay out of Amazon's channel and be
in the local bookseller's channel. Presumably he wants his book in local
bookstores.

------
clarky07
I recently self-published a book and I have a different gripe with Amazon. I
didn't realize (I'm sure most wouldn't know) that Amazon is basically forcing
people to price ebooks at 9.99. At prices < $10, Amazon gives 70%. At prices >
$10, Amazon gives 35%.

I had planned to initially offer my book at $9.99, and then raise the price to
$14.99. Unfortunately, I'd basically have to stop offering Amazon as a vendor,
or at the very least stop advertising it as one on my site. I may or may not
do that at some point, but it's frustrating to say the least that I don't have
control of the pricing of my product. I'm not willing to charge my customers
more and receive less.

Shameless plug for my book -
[http://buildanappbusiness.com/](http://buildanappbusiness.com/)

------
drharris
Might as well tell me not to buy your book at all, then.

------
ig1
The reason that small hard/paperback publishers are dying isn't Amazon. The
reason is that physical book sales are dying, ebooks have overtaken both
hardbacks and paperbacks in both total sales and revenues. Next year they'll
probably be the majority of the market, within a decade physical books will be
quaint.

Starting a physical book publisher in this day and age is like trying to start
a radio rental business in the 80s. Your business is going to be screwed by
market trends whatever you do.

------
dabernathy89
There is a relevant piece over at Techcrunch this morning; it argues that it
was Borders/B&N that hurt indie bookstores, not Amazon:

"Indie Bookstores Aren’t Dead Yet"

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/indie-bookstores-arent-
dead...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/indie-bookstores-arent-dead-yet/)

~~~
TBInman
Interesting. The end of the NetBook Agreement in the UK (1995) which opened up
the era of chain book stores and the discount supermarket book has definitely
had a massive, often overlooked impact. The book industry don't like or get
Amazon and that's why they grumble about it so much. But there are so many
other reasons as to why it's changing so rapidly.

------
wmeredith
Why is the author's book listed on Amazon if they do not wish it?

~~~
nonchalance
I think the answer is:

> You can’t yet order Vernon Downs directly from your local bookstore because
> the distributor that fills those orders would also have to fill orders to
> Amazon.

I'm guessing that there are no medium or large distributors that avoid amazon

------
R_Edward
Done. I will not buy your book on Amazon. Glad to help.

------
tlrobinson
I stopped reading at "As a bookstore owner"

------
davexunit
Don't buy any books from Amazon.

[http://www.stallman.org/amazon.html](http://www.stallman.org/amazon.html)

~~~
kamjam
Some of the least convincing arguments I've read for not buying from Amazon,
most of those could apply to any large corporate.

End of the day, mass consumers look at the bottom line, in this case cheap
prices and good service.

------
cyberpanther
Offer a DRM free ebook for download if you want to sell it yourself. Then let
your readers know, Google Play Books lets you upload e-books to any device you
have. Amazon Kindle has many restrictions when uploading books. This is how I
always buy my books if I can because it gives me more freedom and I'm not
locked into any eco-system.

------
laughfactory
Yeah, I'm a Kindle convert and don't read books on paper much these days...
And Amazon makes it ultra efficient for me to purchase, download, and read
books that way. Sorry small independent booksellers, but your time has come:
you're selling vinyl LPs in the age of iTunes.

~~~
TBInman
Yes, and it's undeniably nice to be able to buy books and CDs at what are
effectively wholesale prices. I'm less convinced that kindle and e-ink
e-readers in general are the future. Trends suggest that more and more people
are reading on tablet, as opposed to specialist reading devices, the usage of
which has plateaued. And I would definitely worry about what will happen to
books should the day come when they are primarily read on a platform on which
they must compete with other, noisier content (I'm looking at you, Angry
Birds).

------
cjoh
Left out of this argument is that The New York Times bestseller list has a
bias towards physical retailers and against Amazon. Methinks this is a smart
strategy towards getting on the bestseller list (which means enhanced speaker
fees), disguised as a strategy towards justice in retail.

------
triplesec
This post is lacking any supporting data regarding how amazon, other online
stores, retail chains, and independent booksellers' agreements are different,
and why amazon is particulary bad. As such, it's not really all that
compelling as a rhetoric.

------
fusiongyro
The plea to support my struggling local bookstore would be more efficacious if
I had one. As it happens my only real options are to order through Amazon or
take a 75 mile drive to pay more for the book in person at Barnes and Noble.

------
svantana
How is this argument any different from "please don't buy my books at a used
book shop"? Apart from the fact that everyone loves used book shops, so that
would look bad...

------
EGreg
It sounds like instead of the author making this plea, the publisher should
just withhold the books from Amazon. After all, isn't copyright still in
effect in this country?

------
Tichy
So they can't stop Amazon from selling the book?

If they really want to make a good cut, they should sell the ebook on their
own web site.

------
wildermuthn
If enough people bought the book (i.e., were interested in reading the book),
money wouldn't be a problem.

------
methodin
So why don't presses offer a widget for people to buy directly from the
author's site, such as this?

------
Uchikoma
Except I'll pay another 63% for p&p.

------
kostyk
I am not sure if everybody aware, but Amazon is actually losing money and
bleeding cash. [http://seekingalpha.com/article/1712392-how-ugly-will-
amazon...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/1712392-how-ugly-will-amazon-coms-
earnings-be)

~~~
astrodust
It's not like anyone's expecting Amazon to make mountains of cash. It's not
bleeding, either, it's re-investing, just like it always has.

Since the very beginning.

Stop screaming about the sky falling. It's just rain.

