Amazon announced today that it had reached an agreement with Andrew Wylie, head of the successful New York agency whose clients include such authors as Oliver Sacks, Salman Rushdie, and Philip Roth, as well the estates of William Burroughs, John Updike, W.H. Auden, and the like. Amazon and the Kindle e-book store will have exclusive rights to publish several books by authors Wylie represents, cutting all other players (such as authors’ paper book distributors) out of the deal. It’s a big win for Amazon, but the start of a painful period for consumers.
Picture all the e-books that are out there as being in a big pie. Amazon is cutting a piece of the pie out and putting it in their own pan. Pretty soon, the other players will be furiously cutting their own pieces out of the pie and isolating them in their own pans. The end result is a messy and fractured marketplace that’s difficult and confusing for consumers to navigate.
That said, it’s an inevitable step, and it’s far from unprecedented. This kind of thing has been going on since the first marketplaces, where one merchant said to the farmer bringing his beets to market: “Look, you’ve got the best beets, I’ve got the best shopfront. You know it, I know it — let’s make a deal. We’ll clean up.” Except they spoke in Latin, or Linear B or something. Point is that exclusivity happens, and the end result is that everyone steps up and the whole market gets better. But in the meantime, beets are going to be expensive.
Exclusive deals on this or that store, including the Kindle, are nothing new. It’s just that now, as the e-book market heats up, there’s going to be some real competition for talent, and talent is going to start pushing for deals as well. Sure, they want to sell as many copies as possible, but limiting it to one e-book store isn’t going to rock their boat too much, and I’m sure Amazon will be paying a nice up-front. Over the next two years, we’ll see a huge migration of famous authors to major e-book brands. Like Stephen King? If you want him in e-book form, you need a Kindle. That sort of exclusivity is easy to grasp and will likely stay around for a while.
I’m just concerned that it ends up being a negative for the end user. If the big players expect best-seller readers to switch to e-books, this is a bad way of going about it. Joe Danielle-Steel-Reader is going to be angry when he finds that he is unable to get certain authors on his e-reader, or that he has to sign up at a new store and give his credit card information all over again. Sure, you can get Nook, Kindle, or Kobo for lots of devices, but who wants to deal with a whole new interface and store for this or that author or book? For the titles selling millions, it’s going to be more convenient for him to buy an actual paperback — portable, DRM-free, and region-agnostic. Kindle may end up the iTunes of e-books, but until it’s really settled (as seems to be the case with music), there will be troubles.
Of course, Amazon and the others (as well as authors and agents) are sure to be aware of this problem. The “exclusive” deals going on are likely to be limited in key ways, though this one (for 20 classic books at first) is for a full two-year period of exclusivity. Seems a bit over the top. I think publishers and authors are going to end up doing something a little less drastic in future exclusive deals. First three months? First 50,000 copies? Until the author or agent says so? It’ll probably be a contract-specific parameter, which may actually end up confusing the matter further until it’s standardized. I’d like the “first X copies” one, personally — it encourages everyone involved to push as hard as they can.
Predictably, dead-tree publishers are raising a stink. They’re incensed that agents would make these deals on the side without consulting them or working out their cut. Better get used to it, guys. That club you’re wielding against the new wave of distribution is getting smaller every day.
It’s going to be chaotic in this business for the next couple years, for more reasons than those I’ve mentioned. A turbulent market is a hard one for consumers to navigate, unless of course they read this website, in which all secrets are revealed. The move to digital distribution is still wreaking havoc on the music industry, and the TV and movie industries are only faring marginally better. Hopefully the book and publishing industry will have smoother sailing.
[via Electronista]
one more reason for me to keep reading my books on paper. not that i needed it.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Definitely.
I don’t see the point of ebooks until the price is much cheaper than paperbacks. Since we all know that won’t happen, I don’t see ebooks in my future unless I get them for free from the library.
It did mention that the deal cuts out physical book publishers as well “cutting all other players (such as authors’ paper book distributors)”. The only thing this is going to do is make piracy in the ebook field rampant, locking people into different devices for different publishers will not help anyone.
and a big fat “screw you” to us Nook users. :(
You can convert .azw files to .epub with a few annoying steps and then sideload them. It’s an annoyance but it’s better than buying a whole different device, of course.
I wonder if it will end up being more like a CD+R/CD-R issue. Eventually you’ll have devices that are able to read multiple formats.
I just bought a Pandigital Novel which is supposed to be a Barnes & Noble book reader. But the underlying OS is Android. And conveniently all the major players now have Android apps. Granted it’s a pain to have to remember what platform a book is on, but eventually will it just be a software license kind of deal, where any player can have a license to be able to read that content?
Or it will more than likely end up as a big fiasco like MP3′s where it is far easier and more convenient to just pirate things rather than go through the legal channels. DRM strikes again hurting honest consumers and not even being a speedbump for pirates. And it’s all because of the “suits”, not artists.
Good for Amazon, even better for iPad owners. On the iPad, you have the iBookstore, the Kindle store, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and plenty of comicbook apps.
If all of these separate companies start making exclusivity deals as the article suggests, the iPad seems like the best bet.
Or any other device that supports all the formats, such as Android.
This is the point. Why does the author say you will “need a Kindle.”. Not true. You will need a Kindle app on your tablet/whatever.
I don’t see it the same. The deal is to publish and sell the books, then amazon is going into the book publishing business (which I am surprised they did not so far). It is almost certain that Amazon and the Kindle will have an exclusive period during which books are only available on their store/platform but in the long run, Amazon is out to make money so they will sell the books to other sellers such as B&N. It is nothing different from how the book business is working right now. Authors are constantly signing exclusive book publication deals. The only difference is that now, the publisher is also the seller.
If you take other businesses as examples, there are many manufacturers who sell both wholesale and retail. While they can undercut all other stores by selling items cheaper on their own retail stores, they generally don’t because they will undercut their wholesaler’s business and only hurt their business in the long run.
This is just a part of doing business and an expansion of Amazon’s business. It would be the same as Apple starting to produce music and signing artists on their own. Nothing wrong there…
Certainly, it’s a natural progression – I just think that on top of a new technology that’s already hostile to users, it’s bad news for the average consumer. It’ll be settled, but nobody wants to have to install three different book stores on their iPad (though of course no one has a problem with going to this grocery store or the other to get a special brand of something).
It’s not a fundamentally bad thing or anything like that, just a period when things will be confusing for people who simply want to read a book on their new gadget.
Are you sure it’s the same thing as what is going on in other businesses? Hardback and paperback books are portable–you can take them anywhere, read them anytime, and let your friends borrow them. Amazon’s business model allows the e-books you buy from them to be used only by you, only in certain circumstances, and only on their device or using their software.
It would be like buying a car from a certain dealer, but then finding out that you can only drive it on certain streets and on certain days, and that you can’t sell it or lend it to anyone, even though the people who drive the same cars from other dealers can do what they want with them.
Now, Amazon wants to say that certain models of cars–cars which they do not produce–can only be sold through them, and must follow those same rules.
I cannot see how this benefits anyone–except Amazon, and then only in the short term. If I were a publisher and one of my authors entered into such an agreement for a book that my company helped develop and market, I would withdraw all of my books from Amazon, and I would fire the author. At the same time, this balkanization of the e-book market leaves the readers, and ultimately the authors, high and dry. Do I really need to buy twenty e-book readers to read everything I want? And as an author, shouldn’t I want to have the widest distribution possible?
Amazon is not engaging in normal business practises in any sense of the word here–not in publishing or any other kind of business. They are forging ahead with a new business model that has never been tried before, and which may well backfire on them. What is more, in the long run, it is not a sustainable business model, as sooner or later another company will come up with a business strategy that better serves the book-buying public and the authors, and takes over market dominance.
Some people have asked that if they were the author “shouldn’t I want to have the widest distribution possible?” But my question is isn’t what Amazon is doing now a lot “wider” than what publishers were offering, i.e., no distribution at all? The only reason this exclusive came about was because publishers were doing nothing to release a lot of the back list titles they claim so altruistically they want (when?) to one fine day distribute “more widely”.
I am glad that it’s Amazon that gets these exclusives than Apple. Imagine what would happen if Apple had them — they would eventually ban any competing reader apps, just like what they did with iTunes.
so what happens next? apple gets the exclusive digital rights to certain bands music???
The Beatles refused to sell on iTunes for years, is it really all that different?
In the mentioned worst case scenario, I think iPad is the winner. People will download kindle app and other reader apps on iPad, and there you go.
Is iPad the only platform that supports all the reader formats?
Nope, you can download all the apps on Android too.
this sucks I have a nook oh why cant they just work together?
Google “convert azw” and check out some of the ways you can covert Amazon’s proprietary format for epubs. I have a Nook and I can sideload them.
In that none of these books were available as an ebook prior to the agreement between Wiley and Amazon, I fail to see how consumer of ebooks has been harmed?
imagine if a great product comes out but it’s only available at a certain store, but you just moved to a place where there are no stores of that type nearby. You’re SOL. I mean, this 20-book deal is only a minor inconvenience, but once the entire publishing world is divided up like a pie and you don’t know which slice you should go with, that’s trouble for the average consumer.
God forbid Amazon gets customers by have the superior e-book reader. Who would ever consider offering a better product to gain fans. Instead they force fans of these books (and future with this kind of deal) to go to the Kindle (if the readers want these books).
And to the comments about these books not yet being on e book… these initial books aren’t the issue as much as the precedent it sets.
In the end, this is bad for the e-book market. It further fractures it in ways that negatively impact the end user. Nothing good will come of it.
I understand why this is awesome for Amazon. What I do not understand is why this is awesome for publishers.
Publishers lose the ability to sell to other formats or to sell it by themselves (and cut Amazon out of the loop).
As a basic economic rule, the cost to distribute a digital copy of a book is essentially zero. There is no reason to partner exclusively with any storekeeper when it costs nothing to sell everywhere.
As for consumers, they will not like having to deal with exclusives. I want to know that any book I buy, without regard from where, will work on any device I own.
Forcing me to buy multiple devices that all serve the same function in the same way will not make me happy. If I want a book, I will buy the paperback(publishers make all their money on the hardcovers) or pirate a PDF version with the intent to buy once the devices start playing nice.
“Publishers lose the ability to sell to other formats or to sell it by themselves (and cut Amazon out of the loop).”
Isn’t that the fault of the publishers for not doing anything to get those titles out in e-book form all this time? Didn’t they cut themselves out of the loop? And mightn’t this have been from fear of cannibalizing paper editions already in the pipeline or fear of speeding the obsolescence of the printing presses such books get printed on?
No problem with exclusivity agreements – if you release the books without drm cripple-ware. Without it, Amazon is a publisher with a powerful distribution channel. With it, it’s an abusive use of market share.
i sense ebook wars coming on…
As a nook user this would just mean I would have to pirate whatever books aren’t available for the nook.. and I will…
These books were never available digitally in the first place. So suddenly now that they’ll be available on Kindle you have an urge to read them to prove a point? That’s rather pathetic don’t you think?
It’s interesting that this is essentially (as far as I can see) the third time an industry has had the opportunity to go digital.
It happened first with music. The revolution was fraught with difficulties, but it seems to have finally settled in a fairly good place. There is sort of a monopoly in iTunes, but that came about by Apple simply doing good business. Not to mention, there are alternative sources. And the DRM is what I’d call fair. Users have the ability to put a song on about as many devices as they are likely to have, and no more.
Then came the movie revolution. And thankfully, the movie industry learned how they should proceed by looking at history, seeing what went wrong for the digital music revolution, and avoiding those mistakes.
Wait, no. They are doing all the same things all over again and alienating consumers just as much. D’oh. But they are slowly coming around, if a bit late. I’d argue that they made piracy a heck of a lot more common than it could have been.
Anyway, on to Revolution Three: The Bookening. If people were smart, eBooks would be sold just like mp3s are now. There is nothing stopping it from happening but the industry. But alas, I fear we are in for yet another repeat:
Why can I not buy an American eBook outside the States (c.f. DVD regional encoding)?
Why must I buy it in a format only readable on one company’s device (c.f. WMA, M4A, etc.)?
Why does it cost MORE than a paper copy when the cost of production is negligible (c.f. mp3s vs. CD/cassette/vinyl)? (BTW I say negligible because there are still royalties to be paid, so it is not totally without cost)
*sigh*
One of the few highlights so far has been that Sony, of all companies, is the one offering the most open file formats. The weirdness of that alone convinced me to go with Sony as opposed to any other eReader. Well, okay, there was more to it than that, but it was a big factor.
And yeah, I also prefer a real book. Of course I do. It’s an integral part of reading for me, the feel and smell of the paper. But after ten years of ever-more-stressful passages through airports I decided the benefits vastly outweigh the drawbacks, at least for a traveller.
The analogy with beets is wrong, as you didn’t get the beets packaged in a way that you could only cook in their special pan (kindle app), even though that pan is compatible with your stove (ipad).
Good for amazon as well as ipnone owner.
I don’t understand exactly why the world has to go through these vicious, regressive cycles of technology. We all know where this is going to end up in 15 years anyway… a single, open marketplace of ebooks available in PDF and EPUB (or more likely an evolved format). Corporate and consumer resistance to this just hinders the technology for the rest of us. Paper books will be about beauty and craftsmanship, not cheap mass printed paperbacks.
nook offers over 950,000,000 free books of the total library of over 1,100,000,000
nook can read .epub, which can be downloaded from a variety of websites like sony or digitaltextbooks.com
Kindle:nook::iPhone:android
There are more books for free on nook than Amazon’s complete library.
One was king of the hill for a long time, but a newer and better solution for consumers came along. Probably a bad comparison, at least you could walk into an apple store and ask a question or buy an accessory. Walk into Amazon and post how that goes. B&N is bitchsmacking Amazon and Borders (with their inferior model that has no wifi at $150) around the block, taking names and doing their sisters. It’s not even fair.
correction: 950,000 free books and 1,100,000 titles
All the finest titles the 19th century and earlier have to offer…
that’s pretty much all I need..
Public domain ebooks are available to all ereaders at this time. I have a Kindle and also have millions of books available.
I have had a Kindle for over 2 1/2 years and have amassed a kindle library of over 1000 books only 315 obtained from Amazon (that includes Amazon freebies of over 100).
It would take too long to download a million plus books, much less read them, but Kindle, Nook, and Sony all have pre-1923 ebooks available, usually in the format suitable for the different ereaders.
Feedbook, Manybooks, Smashwords and Baen just to mention a very few of book sellers, have their wares in Kindle, Nook and Sony format.
The above mentioned ereaders are all just fine. All have their pluses and minuses but they all do the job they were designed to do….read books.
Thats not good..there should be a single platform where all books should be available.
I have a kindle and love it, but this still pisses me off. Books should be available in whatever format the consumer wants to purchase them in.
There’s a bit missing from this article/discussion. Mr Wylie has started a publishing firm (Odyssey Editions) and its first authors are clients of his agency. The publisher is not Amazon. Rather, Amazon has negotiated for exclusive rights to the initial slate of Odyssey’s books, which are electronic versions of books available from traditional publishers. Mr Wylie has stated that his new venture will pay significantly higher royalty rates to Odyssey’s authors than the 25% traditional publishers do.
With that as background, your assertion that this is the first step on the slippery slope or whatever seems to be – while typical of US media hyperbole – faintly ridiculous. It’s a new house, publishing in a single format, with a very limited catalogue. It is, for all intents and purposes, an experiment. Only if it works will there be any push for continued exclusivity deals, etc. At this minute, I’d imagine most publishers and authors are waiting and watching…or preparing litigation. In any event, there is an element missing in your analysis: the effect Mr Wylie’s venture may have for writers. The current climate for (especially new) writers is very unfavorable, with traditional houses scaling back their catalogues to a draconian extent. Even moderately successful authors are being dropped by the big houses. Those that remain are being squeezed and the royalty rates available mean that making a living as a writer has become very difficult indeed. (Not that it was ever easy.) If Mr Wylie’s experiment bears fruit, is there not a potential to expand his house and/or develop similar ones to support new authors with opportunity and royalty rates that work in the real world? Rather than lead to a series of walled gardens and consumer confusion, could this not be the true beginning of the long rumoured e-Guttenberg era of publishing? If the “price” of this is having multiple apps on my phone or iPad or other device, I think that’s a negligible downside.
The habitual reaction of the American politician and his media friends – choice is good, more choice is better – is laughable in the real world. Mr Coldewey would do well to stop drinking that particular flavour of Koolaid, or at least acknowledge that sometimes a little less choice is a positive thing, at least in this case and at this stage.
It’s absolutely the first step of the slippery slope. Amazon’s end game all along has been to be both the publisher and the distributor of popular titles. If you want the latest from your favorite author, you will have absolutely no choice but to buy it from Amazon. There will be no competition. Amazon will dictate prices. You know it. I know it. And Jeff Bezos knows it.
Wylie is the publisher, Amazon is the distributor only. The exclusivity is for 2 years, about the length of time some books to go from hardback to paperback sometimes.
Random House did not sell those books in ebook format and had no plans on doing so. Wylie just though it best to form his own publishing house and do it himself.
What makes you think that this is not the start of more like this? As you note, it’s a better deal for the authors, the agency, and the distributor. What e-book store is going to say no to an exclusive deal for this or that book? I don’t think I’m overreacting, I’m simply looking forward a bit.
…I think it’s great and it’s the future…paper had its “day” and its time for a new format…most devices now have a Kindle “app” that allows them to read the mobi/prc formats…cutting out the “middleman” means a bigger profit margin for Amazon and still bigger savings possible for consumers…and people griping it somehow increases piracy — give me a break…give me the name of a book you want and in five minutes or less I bet I can find a “free” copy somewhere on the internet…if anything, it REDUCES the risk of piracy by bringing prices down to the extent that piracy simply isn’t worth the effort…
As a person in their mid 40′s, my love of reading books has been challenged by the physical adjustments I must make. With paperbacks, I always need my reading glasses to avoid a headache. I have to find the right place to sit where I have enough light to avoid the eyestrain. I have bought and been given so many book lights, some adequate, none great. The eReader is an awesome invention for me. Specifically my iPad. I have multiple books with me on extended trips. I can make the text big enough to read comfortably without the readers. It’s never too dark to see, and brightness can be adjusted.
I have all four reader/booksellers apps. I have bought books through all four stores. Pluses and minuses for each, but I have access to all on the same reader, so I don’t see exclusives as a problem. If they price a book too high, I’ll wait. While I like strolling through a traditional large bookstore, you can do some significant “strolling and browsing” through the various online sites now too… and I can do it 24 hours a day, without driving to the bookstore.
Bring on the exclusives, bring on the competition. I may never buy another paper book. Let’s force the retailers to make us want to come to their digital stores.
If WE don’t like it, then WE don’t have to buy those books. Power of the people– fight the contracts through action.
First, the publishers didn’t bother to put the books in ebook format and had no plans to do so.
Second, the exclusivity is for two years only.
Third, the books are available on your computer, netbook, iPad, iPod, iTouch, iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones right now with the free Kindle app…the Kindle itself is not necessary. If anyone doesn’t have any one of those at this time, an ebook would pretty much be useless.
Fourth, since the Agency model is here the new routine for the big six is fixing prices on ebooks. Penguin and Hatchette are selling some old backlist ebooks for $20 per.
Fifth, good for you Amazon. Publishers are as stupid as the old music biz executives. Instead of embracing new revenue streams, they are at war with the consumer. They want to sell hardbacks and ebooks to them are a threat. Those Wylie books are being sold at $9.99 per which is reasonable for books that have been in print in hardback and paperback for quite a long time.
Interesting. I have no doubt that eventually things will work out in the end, just as they pretty much have for music. It just bugs me that nobody seems to have learnt anything from what we’ve been through the past 10-15 years.
On formats: epub seems like the best option. Many people talk a lot about PDF, but frankly I have been less than impressed with it as a format for ebooks. If we are going to use anything I think we should use something that was specifically designed for its purpose, like epub was for ebooks. And, of course, something that is open. That goes without saying. Though I appear to have said it anyway.
And on pricing: since this is a newish tech, for the moment I generally go by the rule that I will pay as much as I would for a paperback. I feel that ebooks have several advantages over paperbacks, and I am willing to pay for what I see as an advantage.
Any thoughts?
The only advantage to epubs is library use. If you change the epub extension to zip, you get an .opf file which is a mobi. Azw is also based on mobi.
It would be useful for cross platform books but the format is nothing special. They are easily converted to mobi with Calibre or Mobipocket Creator Publisher.
You can also convert DRMd .azw to DRMd .mobi with Mobi2Mobi_GUI.
The three formats are much related.
Ahh, but you see I am all about the cross-platform thing. Not sure why… might be because of all the excruciating years I’ve spent battling to make web pages cross-browser compatible. Cross-platform just seems… fairer. And easier for everyone involved. And I know you can convert them, but doesn’t it make more sense to… you know… not have to convert in the first place?
Anyway, like I said, I’m sure it will all work out in the end, one way or another. I have faith… *crosses fingers shakily*
I love that the big publishers are being left out in the cold with this deal. They colluded on the agency pricing model for ebooks which is basically price-fixing and it raised the average price for ebooks. Now they are being told they aren’t needed, and the consumer gets these books at a reasonable price. Kindle has free apps for so many ereaders that folks can read these classics on almost anything. I don’t even own a Kindle, but use the Kindle for PC app and will be reading these that way. The Big 6 publishers had better get on board with paying better royalties to authors for ebooks and pricing them fairly, or they will be left behind.
Amazon having these books means that I can get them for a reasonable price – $9.99. Random House or any of the other big publishers would have put them out at $14.99 or more, most likely. I don’t even have to buy an ereader to get them, I’ll use the Kindle for Blackberry app. As a consumer, I’m delighted with this deal.
This is the latest shot in Amazon’s running battle with publishers. Amazon wants to sell books, and they know they’ll sell more books at lower prices than what the publishers want.
Authors are starting to bypass the publishers altogether and sell ebooks direct on various sites — which has the publishers scared spitless, since they’re losing both revenue and control over authors. They’re saying the exact same thing as Mr. Coldeway, “this is bad for consumers” (when it’s bad only for their profits). Sure, publishers can be a crap filter, but one person’s crap is another’s fertilizer after all.