David

I think your book acquisition habits are very interesting. They may not be representative of the general public, but I think it’s very important for authors, publishers, and booksellers to understand how we book buyers (and library borrowers) think. I mean you could just buy the book new, but you won’t, and not because of the price, it sounds like.

Hey, Paula, I tend to favor used paperbacks–mercifully lacking DRM! But I figured it would be nice to send Roth some royalties via an e-book purchase since I like his writings so much. “Used” won’t do the trick. Plus, I wanted to catch up with “Indignation.” Badly.

I don’t watch The Office, but, yes, though it’s a joke, the Real Life factor is there, lol.

Thanks,
David

I’m not trying to make light of your concerns, but if you really want to read the Roth, there are hard copies out there.

As far as the similarity between Michael Scott and Bezos goes, I don’t know enough about Bezos to comment. I was just making a joke based on last week’s “The Office” episode where Michael undercuts Dunder Mifflin so dramatically that they panic. Of course he’s losing his shirt, but in the end, he’s got them. Which means that in theory, big companies are vulnerable.

It would appear Amazon actively lobbies publishers to get things into e-format and that they make it easier for them to do, sometimes even doing the scanning themselves in the case of Topaz format books. There’s nothing stopping other distributors (LightningSource/Ingram ContentReserve/Over Drive) from doing so.

Some authors are self publishing their early titles themselves (ie: Dana Stabenow) and are pretty much doing Kindle only, not because they are unwilling to publish through other avenues, but because they’re doing it themselves and Amazon makes it easy for them to get their titles out without a ton of technical stuff. I’d think the same could be true with some publishers.

FWIW if you really want Indignation in a non Kindle format you can get it as an iTunes App. It’s got a crazy price of $25.99 (while the audiobook is $16.95), but it’s out there without Amazon being involved. At least until they buy ScrollMotion/Iceberg .

Amazon has it’s issues no doubt, but there is nothing stopping some other entity from getting books out in other formats especially if Amazon’s already done the hard work for them and sold the publisher on allowing it in e-format in the first place. Once a book is out on the K (unless it’s Topaz) it’s not that hard to do other formats, but someone needs to sell that to the publisher and I’d bet for the most part that other distributors do little if anything other than take what they’re given. I doubt they’re doing much of anything to lobby or help publishers grow their ebook catalogs.

Would that the above be true! The Kindle format, as I recall, is the only one in which I could find a Philip Roth novel I badly wanted to read. Books like Indignation aren’t generic products.

As for a multiplatform approach, well, yes, Amazon can reach more people that way–but it still views the other platforms as simply feeders for the Kindle. Hence my problem with Amazon’s search engine as seen through the Safari browser? If that isn’t an accident, then it’s one more way Amazon is interfering with other products’ user experience. Bad, bad stuff–considering that I like my Philip Roth and don’t want Jeff Bezos getting in the way. Ideally Roth will be in ePub in time, maybe even nonDRMed someday. But for now, I have no choice but to deal with the Amazon beast. Amazon in that case, to the best of my knowledge, has a monopoly.

Thanks,
David

That’s why it makes more sense to buy Stanza, in order to give Kindle store access to more devices… not to kill it and push people to buy Kindles he can’t supply. There may be a lot of iPhones, even compared to all the other cellphones out there, but regardless, tech history has shown us that this year’s iPhone is next year’s Razr, and a brick after that. Jeff would be better served building an app that will run on multiple platforms, whichever is popular next year, and the next, so he doesn’t have to depend on Kindle sales.

As far as content is concerned, the only thing to do is to go to the publishers, tell them what you want, and have them put pressure on Amazon. And remember, you always have a weapon: Your refusal to buy in formats you don’t want. Even Amazon has to pay attention to bad sales.

David

Amazon is no more “dangerous” now than it was a week ago. The other companies and formats haven’t dried up and gone away in a week. ePub is not dead and buried… Fictionwise, and many other companies, still sell in multiple formats… open-source programmers are still working on other apps for other devices. Heck, Stanza hasn’t even changed yet!

And I’ll repeat, for (I promise) the last time: THERE ARE OTHER CELLPHONES! THERE ARE OTHER DEVICES! THEY CAN ALREADY READ E-BOOKS WITHOUT STANZA! THAT HASN’T CHANGED!

So, let’s all get a grip here. Things may be serious… but they’re not desperate. The market can work this out, the same way it worked out the online music situation (which, you will note, Amazon has managed to participate in by selling Non-DRM MP3s, but has not co-opted).

We should all proceed with caution… but leave the torches unlit and the pitchforks down until they are really needed.

Okay, that’s a joke, but I thought we could use a little levity.

Amazon’s swallowing Mobi is, unfortunately, a done deal. But again, ePub can provide an out, as long as there is SW available to convert old mobi formats (if they lose HW support over time) to the ePub format. ePub is positioning to become the MP3 of book formats, and Amazon won’t be able to stop that, nor control it.

The only thing that will doom us all is laziness… that is, accepting whatever Amazon throws our way because it is just so darned easy to do so.