“Publishers joining Apple’s iBooks store [sic] are turning their back on Amazon and its vision of the flat $US9.99 ebook,” Matt Buchanan writes for Gizmodo.
MacDailyNews Note: Like iTunes, iBooks is the app. It connects to Apple’s iBookstore, just as iTunes connects to Apple’s iTunes Store.
Buchanan continues, “Apple forced the music industry to charge 99 US cents per song, so why are they helping publishers set their own prices? To screw Amazon.”
“The difference between Amazon and Apple is this: Amazon is very much in the ebook business to sell ebooks.. Apple, on the other hand, sells content in order to sell hardware,” Buchanan writes.
“At this moment, Amazon owns ebooks. The book publishers’ fears are the same as the record labels with iTunes: They’re paranoid about losing control over pricing, and their own digital destiny. They’re worried that books are being undervalued, and that once people have the mindset that the price of an ebook is $US9.99, and not a penny more, they’re doomed,” Buchanan explains. “They needed an insurgent player: Apple.”
“Apple has advantages that Amazon didn’t have with music: Scale and technology. iTunes has just moved three billion iPhone apps. Apple’s sold over 250 million iPods,” Buchanan explains. “By contrast, Amazon’s sold an estimate 2.5-3 million Kindles since it debuted two years ago. Analysts predict Apple will sell twice as many iPads this year alone.”
MacDailyNews Take: The analysts that are predicting 5-6 million iPads sold this year are going to have to up their estimates; they’re too low.
Buchanan continues, “In terms of technology, e-ink looks old and busted and slow next to the iPad’s bright, colour display… An iPad can do more than books: Beautiful digital magazines, interactive textbooks, a dynamic newspaper. Oh, and it’s a computer that does video, apps, music. Amazon’s scrambling now to make a multitouch full colour Kindle after betting on e-ink, but that kind of development takes at least a year. Even if they churn out a full colour reader that is somehow better than the iPad, it likely won’t matter: It would just be a very nice reader to iPad’s everything else, and it would be nine months too late.”
“Price would’ve been Amazon’s major advantage over Apple too – being able to undercut Apple by setting whatever price they needed to compete would’ve been its ace in the hole against the iPad’s flashy colour screen, and everything else it can do. And now that’s poofed,” Buchanan writes. “Apple will be able to sell you ebooks for the exact same price as Amazon. By turning the publishers against Amazon, they’ve effectively dicked the Kindle over.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Kindle wasn’t cutting it, regardless of empty hyperbole from Bezos, willing accomplices in the media, and certain analysts. The publishing industry doesn’t have two decades for Amazon to maybe hit critical mass. Plus, Kindle is amateur-hour hardware (and software). Amazon doesn’t have the core competency to do such a device (or any device of any complexity, actually). Maybe Bezos could do an Amazon clip-on book light or something, if he wants to fool around with Amazon-branded hardware. If Amazon wants to sell e-books, then they need to forget about hardware devices — leave that to a real devices (hardware+software+services) company — and concentrate on their Kindle app for iPhone OS devices: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
…”Pad largest buyer demographic will be the elderly who have avoided the internet and children”
Not all elderly avoid children; some tend to like them quite much (especially if they are their own grandkids)…
Predrag
We older folks want dogs when our kids move out. Dogs just want affection, they don’t care about your wallet.
Mehran
The elderly’s parents built the first computer. We all have them now.
@cb,
how is Apple “screwing the competition”? Like it or not, business is war, and in war one of the objectives is to outmaneuver your opponent. Apple is not immune to being outsmarted in business (see Microsoft). The difference between Apple’s tactics and those of Google, Microsoft and others is that Apple actually has better products with which to “compete”.
Apple’s tactics since the intro of the iMac are a testament not only to Apple’s business prowess, but a constant reminder to those companies who rest on their laurels after achieving a certain amount of success.
“They should be able to make a reasonable profit, but they should *not* be able to dictate to the publishers what their profit should be.”
Amazon was buying its recent books at an agreed-upon price and selling them at a loss, in order to expand the market. The publishers’ profit level wasn’t affected by Amazon’s discounting.
I suspect the recent push by publishers to raise e-book prices is just a gesture to appease bookstore chains & indie stores, which are struggling from competition from Amazon and e-books. After six months, when publishers can point to a sharp drop in e-book sales but no relief in bookstore woes, they’ll have the excuse they need to let Amazon (and Apple?) lower its prices.
I doubt that anyone even knew about the existence of the $9.99 book price (outside of a very narrow group of Kindle users). Thus, the impact of the price change on the perception of the average book-buying consumer is practically non-existent.
The average book buying consumer is yet to embrace an e-Book as a format for their book buying. Obviously, the iPad will be THE facilitator for that, and it will be clear if the price will work or not.
As I said, to cover the difference in distribution costs between hardcover and e-Book, the price difference should be no more than about $2. The rest of the difference should represent the subjective value of physical hard copy vs. electronic soft copy, which is, well, subjective. Much like with the music industry, it will be something that the publishing industry will have to find out.
Apple just preempted Amazon’s plans to force the publishers into contracts that would have made Amazon the largest an exclusive e-book publisher for all the largest book publishers in the world. At which point Amazon could then tell Barns & Noble, Sony, Apple and the rest to go pound sand. Then of course e-book prices would start to rise from $9.99 to $12.99 then to $15.99 and on up past $19.99. Apples strike on Amazon was to fight Amazon and prevent the publisherS from entering into Amazons exclusive contracts.
“”The difference between Amazon and Apple is this: Amazon is very much in the ebook business to sell ebooks.. Apple, on the other hand, sells content in order to sell hardware,” Buchanan writes.”
and the Kindle is what?
We’ve gone through this pricing thing with music in the iTunes music store. A lower, standardized price is better. You might get a lower per unit price, but you will sell more units…
MDN,
Really, Busting the author over “iBooks Store?”
If Apple does have, as you infer, the “iTunes Store” for its “iTunes” app, then it makes perfect sense for them to have the “iBooks Store” for its “iBooks” app. If Apple uses the name “iBookstore”, then it is them being inconsistent, and a reporter on deadline shouldn’t be wrist-slapped over terminology of an as-yet unreleased product.
I’m usually a stickler for correctness in articles, but it seems here you are just trying to be the obnoxious kid in the front of the room trying to show off.
@MDN,
“If Amazon wants to sell e-books, then they need to forget about hardware devices — leave that to a real devices (hardware+software+services) company — and concentrate on their Kindle app for iPhone OS devices: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.”
How much do you want to bet that on or before the day that the iBookstore opens, the Kindle app will get banned from the ITunes App Store.
The article gives the general impression that all kindle books are 9.99 or less. Wrong! Because I needed certain to consult certain technical works otherwise unavailable while traveling in distant places, I’ve forked out as much as 51.17 for e-books to read on my ipod touch/iphone. The quality of the technical drawings, charts, etc. was really crappy, too. I expect the ipad will do a much better job of presenting a whole range of texts that go beyond paper back best sellers and not necessarily charge more. As sold by Amazon at present, many technical books are a rip-off in my opinion.
Q: What was the favorite Christmas present for 2009?
A: The Barnes and Nobel ‘Nook’ eBook reader. NOT the Amazon Kindle.
The Nook isn’t perfect, but it runs rings around the Kindle regarding user-friendliness. So, if Barnes and Nobel can out-do Amazon with hardware, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell Amazon will catch up with Apple’s eBook reader, the iPad.
Q: What will be the favorite Christmas present for 2010?
A: The Apple iPad.
So, why do writers need publishers now? Can’t they just run their prose through Pages or InDesign and sell it via iBooks?