Amazon and Book Publishers: WalMart 101
June 25, 2014
I have been thinking about the reactions to Amazon’s approach to book publishing. I enjoyed the tone, examples, and modest outrage expressed in “New Amazon Terms Amount to ‘Assisted Suicde’ for Book Industry, Experts Claim.” The “claim” is a nice dodge too.
Amazon has a cost problem. Without cutting and pasting the financials, the Bezos machine faces a future with more costs than revenues. Now one can gild the lily in the manner of Wall Street cheerleaders, but the fact is Amazon needs revenue. Expenses keep on rising and one can only hope that hefty profits will characterize the company’s performance over the next nine to 12 months. How does one solve a problem with essentially uncontrollable costs for hardware, software, infrastructures, pesky humans, etc.? Easy. Find ways to generate new money.
Enter squeezing the hapless, ineffectual suppliers. WalMart 101.
The article points out that Amazon is offering book publishers assisted suicide. Perhaps some of these former gatekeepers should opt in. The digital revolution has been underway for a few years. Book publishers want life to be the way it was when owning a book meant the reader was a cut above the general population.
The article states:
The Bookseller’s editor Philip Jones said the ongoing negotiations “indicate a direction of travel that would see [Amazon] take a sizeable control over both a publisher’s inventory and its marketing”, and that “publishers spoken to – and obviously they will only speak on condition of complete anonymity – have every right to be concerned. This is a form of assisted suicide for the book business, driven by the idea that publishers are a sickly lot unable to run even the most basic operations efficiently.”
Perhaps it is a trifle too late? The Gutenberg museum in Strasbourg may want to start development of an exhibit showcasing publishing as it was in the 1990s.
Stephen E Arnold, June 25, 2014
Comments
2 Responses to “Amazon and Book Publishers: WalMart 101”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
Appreciate this post. Will try it out.
Feel free to surf to my website – ninja kingdom cheat engine download
What’s up tto every body, it’s my first visit of this blog; this webpage
carries remarkable and really excellent material ffor visitors.
my webpage – best dating sites for men