Comments on: Aiming At Amazon

By: dsquared

dsquared — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:19:48 +0000

That is, it’s real easy to do that much. Amazon just won’t help you take the extra step of getting any further. Nothing contractual, merely a cost-and-relative-ease structure.

Exactly such a cost-and-relative-ease structure (with regard to the positioning of the icon for Internet Explorer on the Windows default desktop) was a really big part of the Microsoft EU antitrust suit, so I wouldn’t make any definitive statements about how Amazon’s system might rub up against the relevant law.

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:30:43 +0000

Raven, re: recycled ISBNs and librarians—it’s not all that big an issue. They’re recycling ISBNs of books long out of print with defunct publishing rights. Those books aren’t likely to be in high demand. In the rare event that we end up with 2 different books in the same library with the same ISBN, chances are that one is an old book that’s hardly ever been checked out and may be a good candidate for deaccessioning.

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:23:35 +0000

John: that’s the situation I’m mulling over. Becoming my own publisher might be the way to go, in which case Aaron’s advice will be very useful. Thanks for the link!

By: The Raven

The Raven — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:05:49 +0000

I wonder if CreateSpace is subsidized by Amazon.com? And, hmmm, I think those recycled ISBN’s are going to be a great big headache for librarians down the road a bit.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 05:27:25 +0000

I’ve also sort of forgotten to emphasize Shepard’s solution: setting yourself up as a publisher and using Lightning Source. And getting yourself on Amazon that way while getting higher profits. In effect, by doing a perfectly do-able amount of extra work you can cut the likes of CreateSpace and Lulu out of the loop. They are, in effect, just middlemen smoothing your dealings with the likes of Lightning Source, in any case. The short version is: if you want to set yourself up as a publisher and deal with Lightning Source, you have to know the ropes. They won’t hold your hand. But Shepard talks you through all that. If you really want to self-publish novels and sell in significant volumes, Shepard probably has a better model for you than either Lulu or CreateSpace. For smaller projects, and personal projects, and for the congenitally hassle-averse, the POD services provide hassle-free mediation.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 05:20:02 +0000

Thanks, Keith. One problem with Lulu is the comically exorbitant international shipping – which isn’t an issue for everyone. You are, of course, right about the ISBN issue. It’s annoying that they are so expensive. The price has actually doubled in the last year, I think. Amazon’s use of recycled ISBN’s as internal product codes is a bit shifty but saving $100 off the cost of production of a micro-published item is actually quite significant. I can imagine that there is a large class of micro-publishing projects for which $100 savings-but-its-only-on-Amazon is a deal-making advantage.

Also, maybe I exaggerate the savings, but I ran the numbers for several different sorts of books and it seemed quite significant in each case. It would be easy to raise your profit margins by $4 or so on a lot of product-types. For such a tight-margin business that’s pretty ‘through the roof’. (To do this, you would have to sign up for CreateSpace pro.)

By: Keith

Keith — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 04:51:16 +0000

I published my book through Lulu and it wasn’t that expensive. You do have to buy the ISBN if you want to sell it outside of the Lulu marketplace, but that’s pretty much a universal cost ($100*). Lulu subcontracts the distribution through CreateSource, with the result that my book is available from Lulu. com, Amazon (.com and .co.uk) B&N.com and Powells.com (because it’s also in the Ingram database). My only gripe with Lulu is they have rather inflexible design specifications (6X9 is a little bigger than I’d like but only by a half inch, so it’s not a big deal).

I’m looking at CreateSpace for my next book since they are more flexible in their design specs. The distribution won’t be as wide but so far, having the book on Powell’s and B&N hasn’t gotten me any more sales, so there won’t be a loss. Also, there’s nothing stopping me from doing multiple POD publishers in order to cover more distributors.

Given the recent implosion of the Big Publishing houses, they aren’t going to be looking for some chancy new author who writes gothic fairy tales and steampunk novels so I’m really counting myself lucky to have discovered POD. If I have to sell my distribution rites to Amazon, is that really much different form Harper Collins? I mean, if I’m going to have to market myself anyway, might as well have more creative control on the production end.

*I sold enough copies through word of mouth that the book bought it’s own ISBN with my creator revenue.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:19:48 +0000

“On the other hand, I’d send out more self-published things as presents if they were cheaper than Lulu prices. Has anyone done a comparison?”

I think CreateSpace undercuts Lulu pretty decisively. (If I had noticed that before X-Mas, I probably would have switched from Lulu.)

Amazon’s BookSurge has been plagued by quality issues and bad customer support (allegedly). CreateSpace, however, seems to have worked out the bugs (I’m just reporting stuff I read by lurking on some forums, haven’t tried it myself.) Quality. Good. Price. Reasonable. I think for self-publishing to give away as presents it would be a better option than Lulu at this point. (Unless you have principled objections to Amazon.)

To date, I have used Lulu to make annual for-the-grandparents art books, containing all the stuff my kids drew during the year. But I use Blurb for the yearly photobooks. I use it because I am happy with Blurb’s photobook templates; it’s fast and easy to make a photobook using their BookSmart software. I actually haven’t seen a Blurb product but all my relatives report that the quality is good. Lulu makes very good quality, but the cost is through the roof these days.

By: Delicious Pundit

Delicious Pundit — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:16:28 +0000

I heard about CreateSpace from a conservative friend in my hometown, who published his best-of blog with them and was extremely happy with it. He even did a reading at the public library and everything. When I finish my own blog stunt next week, I’m thinking of publishing it with them just so my mom (and I) can have a copy, it will tickle the both of us.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:11:50 +0000

Or rather: if you want to self-publish a comic as collected trade volume. I don’t think Amazon would work for publishing a monthly 22-page comic. But the price is right for books in the 80 page+ zone. (Not that comics are everything. But I don’t want to mislead people into thinking Amazon targets comics self-publishing. It’s just that comics self-publishers are typical sell-it-myself-at-the-con folks. They might be an example of a group for which CreateSpace would work very well, even outside the Amazon orbit.)

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:07:48 +0000

You aren’t legally locked in to something like CreateSpace, Donald, but the service is set up to encourage people to stay within Amazon. That is, it’s real easy to do that much. Amazon just won’t help you take the extra step of getting any further. Nothing contractual, merely a cost-and-relative-ease structure. But actually one element of their scheme might fit with a lot of small self-publishers: you can buy cheap copies yourself. If you self-publish a comic and want to go hawk a stack personally from your card table at some ComicCon, or personally convince your local comic store to take some on consignment, I think CreateSpace might not be a bad option.

By: Donald A. Coffin

Donald A. Coffin — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:32:44 +0000

For a self-publisher, being locked into a single distribution source has (what seem to me to be) huge potential drawbacks. [I’m assuming that Amazon’s contract with self-pubihshers does not specifically ban using other distribution sources; my—admitedly limited—knowledge of anti-trust law (I’m an economist, not a lawyer) makes me think that such a contract would not be legal.] The primary drawback is that, should Amazon decide to stop distribution self-published books, or decide to quit dealing with your product, your business is dead…

By: The Raven

The Raven — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 01:59:13 +0000

Looks like an attempt to monopolize the on-line distribution of books to me; I suspect on-line book distribution has economics similar to those of a natural monopoly. Once Amazon has put the competition out of business, I expect they’ll raise their prices. And of course packager/publishers will have to deal with the low-quality output and service levels of Amazon’s POD service. We are talking about the company that has attempted to patent the idea of “push a button, buy a book,” after all. And a company with an anti-union reputation.

Krawk!

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:02:37 +0000

But it’s not the individual customer-based price discrimination that people sometimes mistakenly think is done by Amazon.

Yes, people who spend more time checking prices are likely to end up finding a better price.
That’s a general property of a market economy.
And we don’t even have haggling as common in our culture (skill PLUS social class!)

By: engels

engels — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:21:52 +0000

I think people get confused by the fine-grained pricing changes Amazon does based on inventory and popularity. That is, at any given moment in time, the price will be the same for all customers. But the price may change in time rapidly enough, and combined with cacheing and time-outs, to cause people to mistakenly think it’s a personal change.

It seems to me that changing your prices frequently is a form of price discrimination (if done for this reason) as it means that people who spend more time checking the prices (ssumed to be more price-conscious) are likely to end up finding a better price.