If Amazon had only been strongarming the ebooks, I'd have no gripe. Them pulling the physbooks is what made me go, "Oh, bad form, bad form!"
The other thing that makes me want to kick Amazon and say, "You, son, are no Apple iTunes!" is this: http://www.musicbizacademy.com/articles/dl_newmedia.htm says "Pursuant to the iTunes agreement with the record labels, the iTunes share of income is $0.29 cents out of each $0.99 download."
The Amazon Kindle contract for "publishers" (aka self-publishers and others), here, says: "Provided you are not in breach of your obligations under this Agreement, we will pay you, for each Digital Book sold to a customer (i.e., an end user) through the Program, a royalty ("Royalty") equal to thirty-five percent (35%) of the applicable List Price for such Digital Book, net of refunds, bad debt, and any taxes charged to a customer or applied with respect to sales to a customer (including without limitation any value added or sales taxes). If your List Price for a Digital Book is higher than permitted under Section 5.3.1 above, we will be entitled to deem it modified so that it is equal to the maximum List Price permitted when calculating Royalties due to you under this Agreement."
Or, at best, they get 65 cents out of ever $1.00 and you get 35 -- pretty much the reverse of an iTunes sale.
When I was wittering over their original 30% royalties, I got told that actually, ebook royalties could be much better. I think it was Steven Marsh who said it, and the implication is that, for stuff on e23 (or at least not SJ Games stuff), the publisher is getting 80% of the price.
I think MacMillan is wittering around a bit as well (and anyone talking about typesetting being a cost for a linear-text ebook needs to be beaten with the "NO! USER CONTROLS THE HORIZONTAL! USER CONTROLS THE VERTICAL! USER CONTROLS THE FONT!" stick), since -- as you point out -- Baen has been chugging along for years now on eARCs at $15 (with typos! they openly state this is an ARC with typos!), webscriptions at 4 for $15 (also with typos in the first chunks!), and then books for $4-$5 (at least, Bujold's are in that range).
[Non-linear texts, such as poetry, gaming books, or other technical writing, do of course need typesetting. Ignore typesetting e.e.cummings at your own peril!]
And yeah, what's up with the "oh, paper costs are driving up the price" argument suddenly going away? What's up with that? If it was, "Our copyeditors demand a living wage," that'd be a different kettle of fish, but I've always heard, "It's the paper."
no subject
The other thing that makes me want to kick Amazon and say, "You, son, are no Apple iTunes!" is this: http://www.musicbizacademy.com/articles/dl_newmedia.htm says "Pursuant to the iTunes agreement with the record labels, the iTunes share of income is $0.29 cents out of each $0.99 download."
The Amazon Kindle contract for "publishers" (aka self-publishers and others), here, says: "Provided you are not in breach of your obligations under this Agreement, we will pay you, for each Digital Book sold to a customer (i.e., an end user) through the Program, a royalty ("Royalty") equal to thirty-five percent (35%) of the applicable List Price for such Digital Book, net of refunds, bad debt, and any taxes charged to a customer or applied with respect to sales to a customer (including without limitation any value added or sales taxes). If your List Price for a Digital Book is higher than permitted under Section 5.3.1 above, we will be entitled to deem it modified so that it is equal to the maximum List Price permitted when calculating Royalties due to you under this Agreement."
Or, at best, they get 65 cents out of ever $1.00 and you get 35 -- pretty much the reverse of an iTunes sale.
When I was wittering over their original 30% royalties, I got told that actually, ebook royalties could be much better. I think it was Steven Marsh who said it, and the implication is that, for stuff on e23 (or at least not SJ Games stuff), the publisher is getting 80% of the price.
I think MacMillan is wittering around a bit as well (and anyone talking about typesetting being a cost for a linear-text ebook needs to be beaten with the "NO! USER CONTROLS THE HORIZONTAL! USER CONTROLS THE VERTICAL! USER CONTROLS THE FONT!" stick), since -- as you point out -- Baen has been chugging along for years now on eARCs at $15 (with typos! they openly state this is an ARC with typos!), webscriptions at 4 for $15 (also with typos in the first chunks!), and then books for $4-$5 (at least, Bujold's are in that range).
[Non-linear texts, such as poetry, gaming books, or other technical writing, do of course need typesetting. Ignore typesetting e.e.cummings at your own peril!]
And yeah, what's up with the "oh, paper costs are driving up the price" argument suddenly going away? What's up with that? If it was, "Our copyeditors demand a living wage," that'd be a different kettle of fish, but I've always heard, "It's the paper."