I’ve never understood quite why, in a digital age that allows companies to sell directly to their customers, that book publishers, record labels, writers, and artists have allowed third parties like Amazon and Apple to seize outsize control of their industries.
J.K. Rowling doesn’t either, apparently.
The one-time billionaire has long resisted selling e-books of her Harry Potter series. Now she’s going to, but only through her own website Pottermore.com.
Such is Rowling’s market power that even Amazon, which dominates the ebook industry, is going along with her plan, and so has Barnes & Noble (Apple has not). Search Amazon for Harry Potter on the Kindle and you get this result:
That’s a link to Rowling’s site where you can only buy it there. Presumably, Amazon is getting a referral fee for that service. But you can bet it’s nowhere near the 30 percent it takes off the top for selling an e-book through its own site. For what it’s worth, here’s what Amazon pays news sites and blogs for sending customers its way, less than a third as much and usually a lot less than a third.
What’s more, when you buy Harry Potter via that Amazon link for your Kindle, you buy a copy that you’ll be able to read on any company’s e-reader, and it costs just $7.99 (though that’s probably so low because Rowling owns her digital rights). Typically when you buy a book through Kindle you’re stuck on the Kindle. That’s a big reason I, for one, still haven’t bought an e-reader. I don’t want to buy a bunch of books in one format and then not be able to purchase a different brand of e-reader.
The Guardian Philip Jones puts it this way:
In bringing these books to the digital marketplace, Pottermore, the business created to sell the ebooks, has forced Amazon into perhaps the biggest climbdown in its corporate history.
Instead of buying the ebooks through the Amazon e-commerce system, the buy link takes the customer off to Pottermore to complete the purchase, with the content seamlessly delivered to their Kindle device. It is the first time I’ve known Amazon to allow a third party to “own” that customer relationship, while also allowing that content to be delivered to its device. Amazon gets something like an affiliates’ fee from this transaction, much less than it would expect to receive selling an ebook through normal conditions. Schadenfreude doesn’t even come close.
Joshua Gans says “JK Rowling blows up the eBookstore business.” Maybe not, but this example very well could blow up the ebookstore business. I’d say it should blow it up. And hopefully it blows up the nascent e-newsstand business as well.
Right now these bookstores serve as chokeholds on a market that should be wide open if content producers want it to be. Here’s The Guardian’s Jones again.
Amazon has a stranglehold over the ebook market both in the UK and in the US (though particularly in the UK where there is no Nook to challenge it)…
Many in the publishing business worry about this, and rightly so. Amazon seeks to dictate terms that are making many publishers feel uncomfortable: in the US it has recently locked out numerous independent publishers, simply because they cannot agree to its demands.
You can also see this in that they’re able to take 30 percent off the top of somebody else’s content. Should it really cost nearly one-third to retail a digital product?
Apple’s Newsstand has been hobbled somewhat by the 30 percent fee it charges media companies to sell their apps there. The New York Times and Vogue are there, sure, but the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal are not—and you can’t really have a newsstand without those publications. Apple’s 30 percent wouldn’t be much of a problem if it were a one-time transaction cost. But if you buy a recurring subscription through Newsstand, Apple gets a 30 percent cut of every transaction in perpetuity—plus Apple controls the customer relationship. That’s ridiculous.
Obviously, based on book sales, Harry Potter has sold more books. Also, as a film franchise, HP has had 6 big-budget films. It has had time to sufficiently grow into a great film series. I used to see them all in a cinema, buying tickets through cash advance online no checking account. As a film series, Twilight is just starting out. The first film sucked for several reasons (bad score, bad special effects, terrible editing, the awful blue tint, ridiculous dialogue, and Catherine’s desire to turn it into a quirky/eerie action film instead of a classic love story). That being said, 6 months before its release nobody knew what Twilight was. It went from being NOWHERE, to being EVERYWHERE. Also, the DVD sales show that the DVD sold like the DVD of a film that made 260 mill domestically at the box office. HP and the POA made 240 mill. It’s clear that the Twilight fandom is growing exponentially and continuously.
#1 Posted by Nancy, CJR on Tue 3 Apr 2012 at 05:30 AM
What Barnes and Noble doesn't make clear in there special FAQ on Harry Potter books here (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/harry-potter-ebooks-nook-faq-frequently-asked-questions/379003492/) is that you CANNOT use a Barnes and Noble gift card to purchase the books through Pottermore. This means, in my case, and I presume that of other parents, that you try to bless your kids for their birthday by getting them the one thing they want, an expensive book series and a new ereader so they don't have to deal with the weight of those books, and $50 in gifts cards to almost cover the cost of the series, only to find out the gift cards cannot be used. A $50 overage in book cards is an awful lot of money to dish out for a preteen's budget. There should be a way the purchase can go through Barnes and Noble, just as it can through Amazon.
#2 Posted by Joan Bandy, CJR on Thu 15 Nov 2012 at 12:00 PM