Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 00:13:51 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] Booksellers and Macmillan and amazon
From: "Elspeth Kovar" <ekovar at panix.com>
To: wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com
Cc: "WSFA members" <wsfalist at keithlynch.net>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

I just occurred to me that some folks may not have read the actual documents on this.

First, the amusing one, buried in a Kindle community chat on the Amazon site:

Dear Customers:

Macmillan, one of the "big six" publishers, has clearly communicated to us that,
regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and
charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover
releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by
temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that
ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because
Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to
you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will
at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay
$14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don't believe that all of the major publishers
will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent
presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide
attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to
be easy!

Thank you for being a customer.

------------------------------------------------
I'm going to be snarky because this just begs for it.

"Regardless of our viewpoint" -- they should have listened to us.

"Temporarily" -- Head of Macmillan was out here on Thursday to discuss how they plan
to price their books.  We pulled them Friday.  We still haven't put them back up.

"Expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by
[yanking all their titles, all their imprints, all their formats]" without telling
any of our customers, shareholders, authors, editors -- we're not going to just hold
our breath until we're blue, we're going to suffocate a hell of a lot other people.

"Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles".  -- Those dastards!  We all know
that monopolies are wrong. What? Ikea has a monopoly over their own furniture? John
Deere has a monopoly on it's own tractors?  That has to be bad, too.

"Amazon customers will" do what all consumers do: they'll buy something if they're
willing to spend that amount on that product.

"many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity
to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative."  Because companies are
allowed to set their own prices.  Except for Macmillan.

"Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to
be easy!" --  okay, on that one words fail me.

This is written by a business?