Authors United, allies, demand government intervention

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by darryl

His talk of scans certainly suggests topaz, but as I understand things topaz files have their own file extensions, and would not use mobi or azw3.

On the whole, the extensions (with the exception of a few) have very little bearing on the underlying format. They often change depending on what platform/device/reading app is being used. I've seen just about anything and everything under the hoods of files with the azw, prc file extensions.

AZW3 is always a KF8, but KF8 sometimes has an AZW extention. TPZ is Topaz, but an AZW, PRC can also be a Topaz file. AZW4 is pretty consistently a Print Replica (PDF) book, but other than that ... pretty-much anything goes. It's the DRM plugin itself that tries to create some consistency by assigning specific extensions to specific formats.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by darryl

His talk of scans certainly suggests topaz, but as I understand things topaz files have their own file extensions, and would not use mobi or azw3.

The few topaz books I have are added to calibre as HTMLZ when de-DRMed. They need to be converted to either mobi or epub from there.

[Cinisajoy]

Hi. I want to chime in on the indie vs trad books.
Now I don't convert but I have noticed back list books do tend to have OCR errors. This is both in epub and whatever Amazon is using these days.
On indie books, it totally depends on the indie. Some are fantastic and others are horrible. I personally have about a 50% success rate in fiction. Do not get me started on non-fiction.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

I know topaz is a problematic format. I'm amazed that it can be converted in any reasonable form. However, to quote pwalker;

One thing that I've noticed is that for some books, calibre does a poor job of changing from mobi to epub. I have had some books that looked like terrible scan issues, but then when I happened to read the book on the kindle app, those scan issues disappeared.

His talk of scans certainly suggests topaz, but as I understand things topaz files have their own file extensions, and would not use mobi or azw3.

The specific book that I mentioned where I first noticed it is not a tpz book. I only have a handful of tpz books and I use DeDRM for those. I regard conversion of tpz books as dancing bear software, i.e. the wonder is not how well it dances but that it dances at all.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I regard conversion of tpz books as dancing bear software, i.e. the wonder is not how well it dances but that it dances at all.

Now you got a dancing bear stuck in my head (something like a Yogi Bear).

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

The key word in what I said is _some_ books. Not all, not most, but some. The first book I noticed this on is Tamora Pierces' Circle of Magic #1: Sandry's Book ( a youth book for those not familiar with Ms Pierce's books). When I was reading it in Marvin, I noticed a number of what looked like bad scanning errors, yet when I happened to look at it in the Kindle app, those errors went away.

Are you using a different font in Marvin?

My initial thought is that the book is using special ligatures that aren't being displayed correctly by your ePub reader...

[fjtorres]

The DOJ is in for a treat. Whether or not Preston actually mails his rant, Konrath is going to mail his formal reply. In his normal style.

That should make the day of whoever is actually tasked with opening the Deputy AG's mail:

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2015/0...-attorney.html

It'll probably end up on the bulletin board by the water cooler.

Comments on the source suggests there is interest in an online petition.
Would be fun to see a petition force a response from the White House.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The DOJ is in for a treat. Whether or not Preston actually mails his rant, Konrath is going to mail his formal reply. In his normal style.

That should make the day of whoever is actually tasked with opening the Deputy AG's mail:

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2015/0...-attorney.html

It'll probably end up on the bulletin board by the water cooler.

Comments on the source suggests there is interest in an online petition.
Would be fun to see a petition force a response from the White House.

Preston's letter doesn't have any legal substance to it so the DoJ is just going to ignore it anyway. They might laugh at it and they might get pissed off at him wasting their time but it won't go anywhere. The intent of Preston's letter is so that media organizations that are 'friendly' to the publisher cartel can write inflammatory headlines. It's simple propaganda, repeat the same message from multiple sources and people will believe it must be true. The bizarre thing is that there is no end game here. During the contract negotiations it put some pressure on Amazon and I'm sure the publishing cartel loved to see it. Now it's just annoying noise like children screaming in the next room.

Konrath's letter isn't going to stop the propaganda machine but it's direction-less propaganda so it doesn't really need stopping. It might help some neutral media organizations write a balanced story about it but they're not likely to pick it up. "Author's have a hissy fit over nothing" doesn't make a compelling headline.

Amazon has put themselves in a position where there is a large opportunity for abuse. If they do violate US antitrust laws I hope they are investigated and charged. Until there is evidence of criminal violations they don't deserve to be slander in the media. That should be reserved for known criminals like the publishing cartel.

I hope that's the intent of Konrath's letter. Remind the publishers who the real criminals are and send a message to them to make their whining children shut up.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Amazon has put themselves in a position where there is a large opportunity for abuse. If they do violate US antitrust laws I hope they are investigated and charged.

They have been in a position to abuse their market power for five years, now, thanks to the conspiracy.

They haven't.
Even the gold-plated idiots admit they stay on the safe side of the line. Probably because they have good lawyers and *listen* to them.

The biggest danger for Amazon in legal issues is probably KU.
To work as a discovery tool, KU requires exclusivity and keeping the BPHs out of it. So far, the BPHs have obliged.

But if KU grows much bigger and the alternatives keep underperforming Amazon may end up with a real problem on their hands.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Amazon has put themselves in a position where there is a large opportunity for abuse.

They really haven't.
Other parties took over smaller stores that were as good a Amazon's store and ruined them.
Amazon fell into its current position as the biggest store as much because of incompetence and skullduggery on the part of its competitors as through its own efforts.

Amazon didn't make Feedbooks and Fictionwise shadows of what they were.
Nor did it force Sony to not keep up with its store.

All that would be needed for say...Smashwords to compete better with Amazon would be for the content to be tagged and filtered so readers to be able to find what they like. And maybe a better user review structure. Just about every manga scanlating site does the former and the latter wouldn't be that hard to do. Kobo could be more competitive even with its higher prices if content were organized.

So at the end of the day, Amazon didn't claw its way to the top of the heap. It plodded along steadily and the competition took a nap or wondered off.

[Waylander]

ADS strikes again. The stupid is almost too much to bear.

[murg]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The biggest danger for Amazon in legal issues is probably KU.
To work as a discovery tool, KU requires exclusivity and keeping the BPHs out of it. So far, the BPHs have obliged.

But if KU grows much bigger and the alternatives keep underperforming Amazon may end up with a real problem on their hands.

I don't understand this.

Anyone can enter KU. Even the BPHs. They just choose not to.

Amazon's requirement for exclusivity isn't an issue, authors/publishers can go elsewhere.

The BPHs are also not fully supporting the other subscription services out there. In fact, as we've just learned from Scribd's reduction in content, the BPHs are demanding close to retail for each loan, which makes this an unviable market.

The music industry has learned how to do monthly plans, the publishing industry hasn't.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by murg

I don't understand this.

Anyone can enter KU. Even the BPHs. They just choose not to.

Amazon's requirement for exclusivity isn't an issue, authors/publishers can go elsewhere.

The BPHs are also not fully supporting the other subscription services out there. In fact, as we've just learned from Scribd's reduction in content, the BPHs are demanding close to retail for each loan, which makes this an unviable market.

The music industry has learned how to do monthly plans, the publishing industry hasn't.

Exclusivity isn't an issue *yet* because authors can survive without KU income.
So far, KU only constitutes about 10-15% of the ebook income available to indies. But it already exceeds what indies can get from Nook. or Kobo. Or Apple. It might conceivably exceed what Indies can get from all non-Amazon sources combined. (It's close.)

What happens when KU makes up 25-30% of the revenue available to Indies? Or more?
What happens if Nook closes? Or Scribd runs out of investor money?
How many would be able to survive without being in that "optional" market?
And what happens to competing bookstores if a third or more of all ebook titles are Amazon exclusive?

KU is practically competing in a vaccum, much like KDP was in 2008-2010.
And moves like Scribd purging an Indie-heavy genre like Romance don't exactly make KU growth harder.

So what if Amazon ends up with 70% of ebook sales and 90% of an ebook rental market that equals 25% of the revenue from sales? At what point does the competition become irrelevant in the eyes of politicians and regulators?

So far, all the requests for government intervention are bogus.

And Amazon doesn't have enough market power to trigger an honest investigation. But that doesn't mean that if the competition implodes they might not end up on dangerous ground after the dust settles, even without doing anything wrong.

The reason the Konrath's of the world take AU's laughable positions seriously enough to counter is because in the world of politics being factually innocent isn't enough of a defense. Perceptions matter.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Exclusivity isn't an issue *yet* because authors can survive without KU income.
So far, KU only constitutes about 10-15% of the ebook income available to indies. But it already exceeds what indies can get from Nook. or Kobo. Or Apple. It might conceivably exceed what Indies can get from all non-Amazon sources combined. (It's close.)

What happens when KU makes up 25-30% of the revenue available to Indies? Or more?
What happens if Nook closes? Or Scribd runs out of investor money?
How many would be able to survive without being in that "optional" market?
And what happens to competing bookstores if a third or more of all ebook titles are Amazon exclusive?

KU is practically competing in a vaccum, much like KDP was in 2008-2010.
And moves like Scribd purging an Indie-heavy genre like Romance don't exactly make KU growth harder.

So what if Amazon ends up with 70% of ebook sales and 90% of an ebook rental market that equals 25% of the revenue from sales? At what point does the competition become irrelevant in the eyes of politicians and regulators?

So far, all the requests for government intervention are bogus.

And Amazon doesn't have enough market power to trigger an honest investigation. But that doesn't mean that if the competition implodes they might not end up on dangerous ground after the dust settles, even without doing anything wrong.

The reason the Konrath's of the world take AU's laughable positions seriously enough to counter is because in the world of politics being factually innocent isn't enough of a defense. Perceptions matter.

I like your thinking but not all indies are in KU. As long as Amazon does not make exclusive a requirement for all non BPH books, then they are doing nothing illegal.

An indie can choose not to check the Select box and they will not be exclusive and will not get borrows.

I know hybrids that have some exclusive and some wide.
It is NOT an all or nothing choice.
If one chooses to go through KDP, they are not exclusive.
If one chooses to put a book in KDP Select, that book is exclusive. The indie/author does not have to be completely exclusive.

I hope this helps.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I like your thinking but not all indies are in KU.

I know all indies aren't in KU.
Nor do the ones in KU have everything in KU. They really *shouldn't*.

But KU contains 900,000 titles.
Versus, maybe, 400,000 non-exclusive indie titles.

As revenue dries up in non-Kindle channels the economics of exclusivity are going to change.
(Think of the PS2 era of console gaming: Sony's share of the market was so big it simply made no economic sense for many developers to spend money chasing incremental sales on Nintendo or XBOX.)

And, consider what it does to the credibility of a non Kindle bookstore if authors start rotating their titles through KU every 90 days, which means they'll be taking them in and out of their stores. For series titles, KU works best with the first in the series. Which leaves the competitor stores trying to sell "headless" series.

The whole subscription model is too new to tell how big KU can get or what the second or third order effects will be like. But the synergies are already making waves. There is no reason not to expect them to grow.