The battle lines have been drawn--it's us authors on board with Hatchette vs. the great sucking retail machine, Amazon.
As a very humble writer of two self-published books, MEDICUS and ONE PAGE A DAY, I've actually been a target of a couple of long blast emails from the head of Hatchette and the head of retail books at Amazon. As it stands, Amazon and Hatchette are in bitter negotiations over the pricing of Hatchette's e-books, Amazon's position being that the publisher over-charges and, in retaliation, Amazon is making many of Hatchette's books unavailable on its website, thus hurting a constituency that hits close to home--my fellow authors.
Of course Amazon's point is that its top priority is to serve its customers by offering products at a fair price, and that Hatchette is undermining that policy. Hatchette's point of view, of course, is that publishing books is extremely risky and most books don't make back the costs of its production and marketing and thus must charge more to earn a decent profit. Both fair positions, in my view.
What's not fair in my view, is that the authors are the ones getting screwed. Hatchette authors are being blackballed by the largest book retailer in the world for reasons that have nothing to do with them. They are collateral damage in a war between two testosterone-fueled mega-corps.
The irony, from my POV, is that pricing, in the end isn't up to Amazon or Hatchette. The market sets the price. Amazon should certainly suggest pricing, but not necessarily demand certain pricing. If Hatchette can sell its e-books for $13.99, then god bless them. But they'll find out soon enough how much the market is willing to pay for its wares, and adjustments will be made accordingly. Amazon is probably right that you can sell more books and make more money by selling for $5.99 vs. $11.99, but why insist on $5.99? Give the over-pricer the option to fail and validate Amazon's research. Let the market do its job.
And set those Hatchette authors free!!!
As a very humble writer of two self-published books, MEDICUS and ONE PAGE A DAY, I've actually been a target of a couple of long blast emails from the head of Hatchette and the head of retail books at Amazon. As it stands, Amazon and Hatchette are in bitter negotiations over the pricing of Hatchette's e-books, Amazon's position being that the publisher over-charges and, in retaliation, Amazon is making many of Hatchette's books unavailable on its website, thus hurting a constituency that hits close to home--my fellow authors.
Of course Amazon's point is that its top priority is to serve its customers by offering products at a fair price, and that Hatchette is undermining that policy. Hatchette's point of view, of course, is that publishing books is extremely risky and most books don't make back the costs of its production and marketing and thus must charge more to earn a decent profit. Both fair positions, in my view.
What's not fair in my view, is that the authors are the ones getting screwed. Hatchette authors are being blackballed by the largest book retailer in the world for reasons that have nothing to do with them. They are collateral damage in a war between two testosterone-fueled mega-corps.
The irony, from my POV, is that pricing, in the end isn't up to Amazon or Hatchette. The market sets the price. Amazon should certainly suggest pricing, but not necessarily demand certain pricing. If Hatchette can sell its e-books for $13.99, then god bless them. But they'll find out soon enough how much the market is willing to pay for its wares, and adjustments will be made accordingly. Amazon is probably right that you can sell more books and make more money by selling for $5.99 vs. $11.99, but why insist on $5.99? Give the over-pricer the option to fail and validate Amazon's research. Let the market do its job.
And set those Hatchette authors free!!!
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