

A Message from the Amazon Books Team - dtmmax33
http://www.readersunited.com/

======
BryantD
I recommend reading Orwell's full essay here:
[http://vintagepenguins.blogspot.com.au/p/review-of-
penguin-b...](http://vintagepenguins.blogspot.com.au/p/review-of-penguin-
books.html) It's well written, because of course it's Orwell, and while he was
certainly wrong in 1937, six years later he was cheerfully writing to Penguin
about the best books for them to reprint:
[http://georgeorwellnovels.com/letters/letter-to-penguin-
book...](http://georgeorwellnovels.com/letters/letter-to-penguin-
books-8-march-1943)

Meanwhile, George Bernard Shaw was saying the cheaper books were, the better,
and J. B. Priestley was calling Penguin "a grand publishing feat." Amazon is
rewriting history when they say the literary establishment hated paperbacks.

And, of course, Orwell was the last man in the world one could reasonably
accuse of being a pawn of corporate interests. He was a revolutionary and a
socialist who went to Spain to fight against fascists. He was uncompromising
in his examination of even his fellow travelers: 1984 is a criticism of the
Soviet Union and abstract leftist thought.

Finally, if you're going to invoke Orwell, you should have the intellectual
honesty to link to both people who agree with you and people who disagree with
you. You should also not call yourself Readers United. I'm a reader; I have
some sympathies with Amazon, but I am not united behind this any more than all
authors are part of Authors United.

~~~
taeric
I'm not sure of your point. Seems that the _only_ reason he was invoked, was
_because_ he is well respected and generally regarded as a smart person. And,
he was wrong. That he later changed positions to be "right" is irrelevant.

Similarly, that some in the industry thought paperbacks were a good idea is
similarly irrelevant.

So, are there any points in this letter that are not legitimate? Overly sold?
I'm genuinely curious. As things stand right now, my take is that I'm for
cheaper books. Though, the last ebook I bought was $36. And I don't regret a
penny of it. (Granted, the average price of the previous 20 books I bought is
probably under a buck. I over saturated myself with the humble bundle for
books.)

Perhaps the most interesting thing to analyze is if their numbers on the price
elasticity is accurate. Really that is the key of the debate, it seems. I
understand that things are a more complicated for Hachette, as they believe
this devalues reading as a whole. In particular, their hard back sales. Any
numbers showing how 9.99 ebooks affect hard cover sales out there?

------
shalmanese
Amazon's position on this never really made much sense. If Amazon wanted to
make the paperback books analogy, then the real disruptor is the 99 cent
Kindle Singles which Amazon sells. If Amazon's predictions come true, then
cheap self published books will take over from expensive, publisher published
books.

If Hachette wants to price their books at $15, why shouldn't they be allowed
to? Any business in America should be free to shoot it's own foot off, that's
their right. Where does Amazon come in telling Hachette how to better run
Hachette's business?

------
acangiano
This was sent to all KDP authors. Mine started with, "Dear KDP Author,"

~~~
hliyan
I too, just got mine. As someone who is still kind of confused (and
unaffected) by this issue, Amazon may have had on me the _opposite_ effect of
what they expected. The following just rubbed me the wrong way:

\- Opening with George Orwell (it felt like a milder form of Godwin's)

\- Boiling the issue down to "We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not."
I thought there was a lot more to it than that?

\- "We have noted your illegal collusion."

~~~
taeric
What more did you think there was to this debate?

------
sliverstorm
It seems like this is the real clinch of their message:

 _[Hachette] believes they get leverage from keeping their authors in the
middle._

e.g. they are accusing Hachette of putting pain to their own authors with the
hope of said authors mobilizing against Amazon in retaliation

~~~
jamesaguilar
Hard to see how else to read hachette's actions, unless amazon is straight out
lying about the proposals they made and hachette's response (not likely).

~~~
BryantD
Amazon is much bigger than Hachette. They can absorb losses due to these
proposals more easily. If a guy making $50 a day tells a guy making $10 a day
that it's fair for them to both make $5 less per day, he's wrong.

Note that Amazon is being semantic when they say ebooks are 1% of income.
That's for the Lagardere group as a whole. Hachette is a subsidiary and
doesn't have the flexibility to just tell the other subsidiaries to absorb
their losses.

[http://www.lagardere.com/businesses/lagardere-
publishing/ove...](http://www.lagardere.com/businesses/lagardere-
publishing/overview-and-priorities-600028.html)

