Photo by Mark Strozier
Part 1 (Where we stand) Part 2 (What Amazon is doing) Part 3 (Why Amazon is doing this and the effect on YOU) Part 4 (The future of books)
(This will be a multi-post article so that I can adequately explain why Amazon.com’s latest manuevers could keep pagan/spiritual readers from finding the reading material they’ve come to love and put small spiritual publishers out of business.)
So why is Amazon doing this? What do they hope to achieve?
Their initial rationale was that forcing publishers to use Amazon’s printer will improve customer service because the books would then be immediately available for shipping, with no lengthy waits while your book is being printed or acquired from the pubisher. Sorry, but I’ve got to call bullshit on that one. If we have a run on books and are completely zeroed out of inventory, we can have new books printed within 48 hours, with very rare exceptions. Our books printed by Lightning Source have always been available as “in stock” at Amazon or –in rare cases–shipping within 2 days.
Here’s a little-known fact: our books ordered from Amazon don’t even see the inside of an Amazon warehouse. This is true for publishers who use LightningSource as a printer, as we do. Lightning Source is partnered up with our wholesaler, Ingram, and when you order our books from Amazon, the warehouse run by Ingram packages the books in a box that says Amazon.com on it and ships it directly to you.
Meanwhile, my colleagues have reported trying to order books printed by Booksurge and have either received books that are inferior in quality (pages falling out, grossly skewed covers, ink globs) or they’ve been told the print-on-demand book won’t be available for several weeks.
The publishing industry has been in a state of flux for the past decade but this is going to bring a lot of it to a head. Here’s what’s at Amazon has to gain by bullying publishers and authors:
(Stay awake for this part!)
If you’ve never heard of Long-Tail Ecomonics and the idea of College Econ 101 still makes you break out in yawns, do yourself a favor and check out something new at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail. To put it in layman’s terms (because I really despise economics courses), The Long Tail refers to very limited sales of a bazillion unique items, whether it’s books, dvds, songs, beer, or tiny bank loans. There’s literally a product (in this case, book) for everyone of every taste. It’s a great time to be an individual in this world!
The Long Tail is a big deal NOW because technology NOW allows this huge smorgasbord of choices so that if you want to find a book on, oh, how to open and run your own New Age/pagan/metaphysical shop, there’s one out there for you. We know because we published it. Very tiny market but it has crucial advice for the people who are looking for that particular type of info. We’re publishing another book called How to Set Up an Inter-Dimensional Portal. It will likely not sell a million copies and be on the NY Times Bestseller list. But for people who are interested in wormhole magick, it’s going to be just the ticket!
My point is, whatever your reading tastes are or whatever information you’re seeking, there’s probably a book out there just for you. Technology allows small presses to publish it and technology allows you to find it. Because small presses now have more options than ever before, they’re able to present more choices, which benefits you, the reader—even if they sell only a handful of copies to the handful of people who share your very specific taste in books. A major publishing house will rarely consider investing their resources in a book that with a limited audience. They want tons of sales and the books they acquire need to be able to bring in tons of sales. Major publishing houses would turn up their noses at books on building an inter-dimensional portal or starting an online store that sells Goddess jewelry. The market for such books simply isn’t big enough to draw their interest, which is where small presses step in to fill the void for the spiritually eclectic reader.
Because The Long Tail represents more choices for readers and their individual needs, we like it. So does Amazon…in fact, they’d like to own The Long Tail.
Imagine this: Amazon already benefits enormously from The Long Tail, profiting from all the tiny per-book sales of obscure books but in a bazillion obscure book titles. If they could also profit from the printing of these books, the set-up fees for printing these books, listing fees for these books, audio and ebook formats of these books, and sales of used editions of these books, then they will OWN The Long Tail of books. There’ll be little left for publishers to do other than edit the books (some do edit, some don’t—and Booksurge does not edit). Amazon will set the prices for the readers and either the discounts for the publisher or the royalties for the author. Amazon will hold the monopoly on books. And monopolies mean big dollars for the monopoly and far fewer choices for the consumer.
For example, my colleagues have reported trying to order books printed by Booksurge and have either received books that are inferior in quality (pages falling out, grossly skewed covers, ink globs) or they’ve been told the print-on-demand book won’t be available for several weeks.
Part of me cannot believe the audacity of Amazon to try to get their arms around The Long Tail and subdue it. It’s not that they want to get rid of it—they make their money on niche-selling books—but they want to milk it for every penny. It’s all the more important for them to control The Long Tail NOW because they can look into the future as I can and see what technology is going to make available to the average book buyer VERY SOON…but more of that in the next post.
Next post… the future of books.
Thank you for this series of articles.