Amazon

Alternatives to Amazon

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I admit it. Amazon is my primary source for e-books. And they are often my go-to source for print books I want to get in a hurry or can’t otherwise find. Yet Amazon’s dispute with Hachette has left many of us uneasy if for no other reason than Amazon can dictate terms and exclude titles simply because it can without fear of losing its competitive edge. There is simply no one like them.

A recent article in Publisher’s Weekly notes how Macmillan Publishers alerted me that many publishers are now making their frontlist titles available immediately to libraries in ebook form for lending. Many are doing this through the Overdrive app, forms of which exist for IPads and I phones, Android devices, Windows computers and phones (XP or newer) and newer Kindles and Nooks. You also need a library card with your local library, which is the license holder for each title (typical arrangements seem to be for 52 withdrawals per license per two years).

In many ways this makes sense since you do not really own the ebooks you download from Amazon. The money you pay rents the title from them. Frankly, if you are supporting your local library through taxes you might as well get your money’s worth and use this service. And the truth is, I often remove books from my device once I read them (the Amazon ones are stored in their ‘cloud’ so that I can download them again should I wish). With ebooks borrowed from the library, they are automatically returned on their due dates and removed from your device.

There are also a variety of other sources, particularly for free ebooks (usually public domain). Project Gutenberg is the granddaddy of these and has many books in a variety of eformats. There is also archive.org (the Internet Archive) and the Open Library, just to name a few. In some cases, you may need to learn to download books to a computer and then transfer files to an e-reader.

Of course the question always arises of print vs. ebook. Having used both formats for a couple years now I am coming to the conclusion that the easiest way to think about this is that ebook is best if I know I don’t want to keep a book after I’ve read it. If it is something I want to keep and particularly to reference, then a print book seems better. This raises the question of why, apart from urgent need, would I pay for a book I’m not going to keep and don’t really own? Library or free options of ebooks, or print books from the library just seem to make the most sense in this case.

What this also suggests to me is that, with some thought, I can then dedicate more of my book-buying budget to supporting brick and mortar stores for most of my purchases, particularly to those who actually care about developing relationships with their customers. Sure, it takes more time, but the delights of a good bookstore can never be equalled on a website, and the serendipitous finds one makes can never be duplicated by Amazon’s heuristics generating book recommendations for me.

(Some of you may be wondering about Amazon’s new $9.99 per month unlimited ebook borrowing program. My son wrote a good blog post on this that I would recommend. Enjoy!)

So Who Will Help Barnes & Noble?

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James Patterson captured a great deal of attention in the book store world as he announced his intent to give away $1 million dollars to a variety of independent bookstores. A PW Daily story chronicles the first round of these grants, totalling $267,000, given after he meticulously reviewed grant requests.

B and N

The question is, what knight in shining armor is out there to bail out bookstore giant Barnes & Noble? They just announced a 10% drop in revenues during the third quarter. They say  EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) increased from $59 to $173 million over this period, but many consider EBITDA a clever accounting ploy to dress up a balance sheet. Revenues dropped in retail (including BN.com), college, and e-book and Nook sales. Were it not for draconian cuts in the Nook division (with more reportedly to come), things would have been even worse.

This is troubling news to me. In our market (Columbus, Ohio) they are the only significant retail outlet left, apart from some small indie stores with limited selections (none near us), grocery stores marketing the bestsellers, and a healthy segment of second hand stores. We’ve often been helped by book and media sellers when we have visited their stores. Sometimes that in-person assistance is far easier than searching around online when you have an idea of what you want but don’t have a particular title you are looking for.

For so many, this is just a market and convenience driven thing. Amazon is so easy to order from when you have a good idea of what you are looking for. E-books are incredibly easy to download and nobody beats Amazon’s selection, although I’m told by many that the Nook is actually a better reading device and doesn’t confine people to the proprietary format Amazon uses. Sadly, many thought Sony’s Betamax a better video format as well.

I suspect we are at a cultural tipping point. Patterson is helping indie operators attempt to innovate to stay in business. I actually wonder if some of these will survive longer than B & N, because they will figure out how to market to, attract, and serve a loyal clientele who still enjoy hanging around physical bookstores and value the service of booksellers and will pay for that privilege. I wonder if B & N needs to take a hard look at which stores in their operation are achieving this same kind of customer loyalty and both learn from them and figure out what the demographics are that make this work.

What troubles me is what will Amazon become if they face no serious competition? What I wonder sometimes is if one of the other new media giants like Google or Apple (I’m not convinced Microsoft is nimble enough) might join forces with Barnes and Noble. Apple has actually figured out how to use brick and mortar outlets to sell its products. It scares me at the same time to write this for fear of whether they might preserve physical book stores, but in some very new iteration alien to many of us.

What I wonder above all is that in turning so much of our commerce over to the virtual world, will we lose the physical spaces that add a richness to life and exchange them for our personal caves with our electronic devices that connect us to this brave new world?

Is Amazon Good for Books?

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That probably seems like a no-brainer if you are a reader. Of course Amazon is good for books! I can find practically any book in print in the universe on Amazon.  Why wouldn’t Amazon be good for books?

Then consider all the authors who are self-publishing or whose work is being picked up by Amazon Singles or other Amazon publishing ventures. Isn’t this good for aspiring writers who get overlooked by the Big Five publishers?

George Packer, in his current New Yorker article “Cheap Words” isn’t so sure. It is a long article that traces Amazon’s history from its initial beginning as an online bookseller to the present day. Several things I gleaned from the article:

1. Fewer people are reading and bookselling must market as efficiently as possible to those of us who tend to read lots of books.

2. Amazon’s pricing and the percentage it takes on each sale is squeezing publisher profits more than ever even while publishers are becoming ever more dependent upon Amazon as their primary outlet for sales.

3. Amazon’s e-publishing (Kindle versions of works from other publishers, self-published e-books, and Amazon e-published materials) is tending to foster the notion of books as things of little and ephemeral value–“widgets”.

Some publishers are trying to respond with their own efforts to “direct online market” both print and digital content. But generally, they’ve been way behind the curve on this and Amazon is still a major source of sales these publishers can’t ignore.

Packer concludes with observing that the major publishers, as well as smaller houses have been a form of “gate keeper” for quality content. He acknowledges that this is admittedly elitist. The question arises however of what will happen to quality should Amazon be the only significant gate keeper left?

A few thoughts of my own. I wonder if there may be some form of self-correcting mechanism that will come into play here.  Will Amazon be forced to work out better pricing structures with publishers so they don’t “kill the goose”? Will publishers be forced to become more competitive in looking for promising talent? And will publishers develop more direct alliances with their customers? It may be that smaller houses might be especially nimble in developing ways to reach their target markets without being so reliant on Amazon.

What strikes me is that there may be room for creative entrepreneurship in the publishing industry. Frankly, those of us who love good writing better hope so–and be willing to reward the innovators with our trade.

 

Waterfall Press: Amazon’s Venture into Religious Publishing

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Just saw this story in Publisher’s Weekly daily email:  Amazon Publishing Launches Christian Imprint.  According to the story, they will publish both fiction and non-fiction under the “Waterfall Press” imprint. It sounds like some of their publishing will be in collaboration with Christianity Today.  This, and the selection of Tammy Faxel, who has been associated with Tyndale House and Oasis Audio, to give editorial oversight suggest an evangelical editorial bent for this imprint.

Waterfall Press

A thought and a couple questions:

The thought: creating this imprint marks a recognition by the behemoth of Amazon that evangelical publishing is a significant market segment. Joining forces with Christianity Today gives them instant “street cred” in a broad segment of the evangelical community.

One question: what will this mean for other evangelical publishers, particular those not backed by larger corporate resources (as is the case for example of Zondervan with Harper)?

The other question: given Amazon’s financial heft, what will be the long-term editorial shape and theological bent of this imprint?

What do others think about Amazon’s movement into this new venture in the world of Christian publishing?

Making GoodReads Better

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I have been using GoodReads for about two years as a way to post reviews of books as well as learn of good books others are reading.  It serves as a kind of Facebook for book lovers.  It provides recommendations of books you might enjoy based on books you have read.  And it connects your posts easily to Facebook and other social media sites.  There are some things I wish this site would improve, now that it is funded by the behemoth of Amazon (perhaps another post on this sometime!).

1.  It would be great if the text entry box for reviews would provide the same features WordPress offers its bloggers, including easy integration of links and the ability to tag posts.

2.  I wish there were a limit on the “wants to read” posts from one person at one time–perhaps three to five–so that one’s whole newsfeed isn’t filled with one person’s posts.

3.  The search function to add titles to you “reading” list often seems not to turn up the book you want even if you’ve entered the title exactly, in my experience.  Sometimes, the only way to get this is via entering ISBNs.

4.  Currently only GoodReads authors have their blogs automatically posted to GoodReads.  It would be nice if those of us who blog on books might also have this ability without pasting in links.

5.  It would be helpful if GoodReads suggested categories for books based on publisher and cataloguing data.  I might still like to add my own categories but this might make for more systematic sorting and searching of reviews.

Finally, I don’t want my reviews posted to Amazon without my permission.  While I do want to see people read, I don’t want to be an Amazon sales person. For those of you who use GoodReads, what would make it better for you?