Amazon makes a direct offer to Hachette authors: 100% ebook royalties

[tubemonkey]

Amazon should send some drones to the negotiating table. With certain attachments, they'll get Hachette's attention mighty fast.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Amazon should send some drones to the negotiating table. With certain attachments, they'll get Hachette's attention mighty fast.

Do you mean this?

https://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/d...150630137.html

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Do you mean this?

https://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/d...150630137.html

Not what I had in mind, but that's definitely a high priority item deserving of drone service

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Amazon should send some drones to the negotiating table. With certain attachments, they'll get Hachette's attention mighty fast.

They could send one of their ground-based prototypes:

[TCSimpson]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I don't know for sure, but its highly likely. If a company has more money, it highly likely that all stakeholders benefit a bit. Look how much manufacturing wages have increases in China while high-profit-margin US tech companies send them more and more big orders.

That's contrary to what is actually happening, say in the Uk for example,
http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...ety-of-authors

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by TCSimpson

That's the quote from the UK's society of authors.

I don't see, in your link, evidence for the claim of increasing publisher profits. I do know Hachette did unusually well in 2013, but that's just one data point.

I don't see any evidence that two of the three example big publisher authors mentioned in your link (Evie Wyld and Mal Peet) used to make more than they now do.

I do see evidence concerning what is happening to the incomes of Society of Authors members at the same time that membership is increasingly indie -- the incomes are going down.

Now, I am under the impression that advances have, on average, declined. Here are some of the reasons:

1. People are reading less:

http://publishingperspectives.com/20...ook-sales-why/

2. Near-global mini-depression.

3. Increasing retail bookseller concentration (Barnes & Noble, Amazon) puts pressure on publishers to decrease prices.

4. Competition from no advances, low service, low retail price publishers (Smashwords, Kindle Direct Publishing).

Another factor, probably smaller but essentially unknowable, is that digital distribution makes shoplifting books easier.

Now, if big publisher average profits have increased at the same time as all the above, then that would indeed be of interest. I'm not aware of evidence they have. It would be pretty hard to get because the companies that own the publishers are generally in multiple businesses in multiple countries. (Hachette's owner made money, fairly recently, by selling its stake in Airbus.)

Even if it is true that publisher profits went up as advances declined -- and I have no idea if this did or did not occur -- forcing down book prices would even make it worse.

I wonder how the decline in advances compares in the world of genre fiction, where there is a lot of low-priced indie competition, and more or less serious non-fiction, where there is much less indie competition. Hillary Clinton's memoirs, released last month, reportedly received a near-record US$14 million advance.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They could send one of their ground-based prototypes:

Most definitely! They could also send Nomad:

"I am Nomad. I am perfect. That which is imperfect must be sterilized. Publishers are imperfect."

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Barcey

The 100% wouldn't significantly hurt either of them. The authors signed away their part in the negotiations when they signed away their rights to Hachette. Now they're being used as pawns in the negotiations and taking collateral damage. Amazon offered a 50/50 fund to compensate them and Hachette turned them down. I can understand that would be difficult to fairly distribute. Amazon now offered an alternative where the compensation would be based on the number of ebooks sold.

The proposal would put both Amazon and Hachette under the clock to come to an agreement and the penalty fund would go as some compensation to the authors.

It's actually a very fair proposal but Amazon knows that Hachette won't take it. Hachette appears to be stalling the negotiations (damn the impact to the authors).

I've been saying this and nobody has been paying attention. Hatchette won't deal unless they get a contract signed that allows them to go back to agency pricing. Amazon is trying to stop that from happening. That's what this fight is about.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've been saying this and nobody has been paying attention. Hatchette won't deal unless they get a contract signed that allows them to go back to agency pricing. Amazon is trying to stop that from happening. That's what this fight is about.

And if Amazon gives it to them it may be enough for the avoidance of problems when the other four turn up asking for it to. I think they are just trying it on Amazon at the mement. Once all contracts have expired and all 5 are trying to negotiate simultaneously with Amazon for Agency Pricing it is going to be very difficult for Agency to come back. Likewise if Hachette finish negotiations and don't get agency. Is this perhaps a reason for the complained about slow progress.

[tubemonkey]

Will Amazon's Revenues Rise $11.2 Million If Hachette Caves?

According to Amazon.com’s Brittany Turner, “You have to look at the parent company — Lagardère Group — rather than just the Hachette division. Kindle books are only 1% of Lagardère Group’s sales. They can afford it, and should stop using their authors as human shields.”

[Sydney's Mom]

Is it just me, or was that horribly written? The ending really needed editing.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Is it just me, or was that horribly written? The ending really needed editing.

The begining and middle, too.

[jgaiser]

It's full of "Let's make up some numbers and see if it fulfills my bias".

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Is it just me, or was that horribly written? The ending really needed editing.

Maybe they should have someone from a BPH work on it.

[Barcey]

The Author's Guild co-VP Richard Russo wrote an open letter about Amazon's offer.

www.authorsguild.org/general/letter-from-richard-russo-on-the-amazon-hachette-dispute/

Amazon actually responded to it.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...-hachette.html

Our offer is sincere and it stands—Hachette need only say yes to help their authors. We also wonder what this letter would look like if Hachette had posed this idea and Amazon had rejected it. The letter conflates the long-term structure of the industry with a short-term proposal designed to take authors, the constituency this organization supposedly represents, out of the line of fire of a negotiation between large corporations. Given that the Authors Guild are an author's advocacy group, it is hard to believe they don't support this. They are the Authors Guild, not the Publishers Guild.