Death Of A Business Model Part Three

So if you have not heard CEO John Sargent of Macmillan is working hard to get Amazon to dump his publishing company into the black hole of retail no where. Thus deleting his author’s books from the sight of millions of Amazon customers because he wants people to buy $15.00 eBooks. This was after he decided to pay his authors less for eBook sales anyway.

So have we not heard this whole thing before recently? You know the whole “Target, Walmart, Amazon are discounting our hardcovers stop them Mr. Government Policeman!” even over in other countries. Yeah who’s to blame for that nonsense the retailers for knowing what customers will afford or the publishers for not understanding the new market? Oh and the other thing they want to do is delay eBooks while they try and sell hardcovers. All of which reminds me of someone whining about not being able to Price Fix and Market Manipulate. Oh the pain!

I think the message retailers are giving all the publishers out there is clear. You cannot expect to make $15.00 on a book in ANY FORMAT. In other words we don’t care if editing and certain over priced authors costs more money or the actual printing and warehousing costs more money. No one is buying $15.00 books no matter how many Sarah Palins you sign up on your roster, our customers are demanding $10.00 books.

Amazon has the right to sell their products to their millions of customers any way they want to. Publishers have the right to not sell their products to Amazon. Good luck to the idiot Publishers in finding or creating as big a retail venue as Amazon but hey that’s your choice. Authors have the right to find Publishers that know what they are doing in selling eBooks and getting themselves available on all these reading platforms as they evolve.

You don’t see Samhain or Loose Id having all these issues handling the new markets do you?

It’s all about choices, the good ones and the bad ones. Good, is adapting to new markets and new consumer expectations. Bad, is publicly throwing a hissy fit when you do not get to call the shots and grabbing your products and running away.

I personally think I have the right to not give a flying fuck. I have the right to ignore the drama of authors who made bad choices in choosing a stupid publisher and stupid publishers who do not want to change and are about to learn what bankruptcy means. Let’s cut the crap business wise. Who’s making money and gaining customers with their eBook prices? Macmillan or Amazon? Who made a bigger profit this year and the year before that and the year before that?

I strip all the DRM from the eBooks I buy anyway like I take out those stupid anti-shoplifting tabs from my DVDs when I get home from the store. So go ahead Macmillan run away from technology and hide and your authors will soon find out just how business smart you are since even now they get less profits.

Yep that eBook is mine now not yours. I bought it, I own it. So good luck getting it back.