Inside subscription content: Apple iPad vs Google One Pass vs Amazon Kindle

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  • Reply 81 of 90
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sfwrtr View Post


    As an author, the new policy gives me the chills. Subscriptions and eBooks are not the same.

    ...

    So Apple takes 30% of the price the publisher wants to sell an iBook for and figures they can take 30% on Kindle books, too? That means, of course, that to provide a read-anywhere experience, Amazon has to lose 30% off the top of whatever margin they get for a Kindle book.



    If amazon wanted a read anywhere experience they would use the adobe drm w/ePub and add that to stanza. Instead they have folks locked into their Kindle ecosystem...



    Nook and Sony have the same drm. Apple like always uses fair play so they don't want read anywhere for some silly reason.



    Quote:

    But wait... I recollect reading somewhere that Amazon adjusted their margin to charge 30% of what the publisher wanted it to sell for on Amazon. Doesn't that sound like 0% when sold on the iOS Kindle App? Maybe I'm wrong and Amazon is buying wholesale and the the mark up is greater? Maybe Amazon will push the publishers and make them pay a higher margin if the book sells on the Kindle App?



    If amazon still wielded the market power that apple wrested from them last year they'd do whatever they liked. Today the publishers have an agency agreement and it is Amazons problem.



    Quote:

    The worst case scenario is two fold. First, Amazon, B&N, and Sony retreat from the app store and a certain percentage of sales for authors is lost. Second, worse, these gorillas force publishers to lower prices, which in turn means authors will take a bath on future sales. (We authors are mostly small fish; best-selling authors are a rarefied minority.)



    If I were to prognosticate, I think the path of least resistance is that in August Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, and Sony Reader will debut HTML5 apps... and Apple looses. One size does not fit all.



    Well, if your handle indicates you are a sf writer then I suggest you go see what baen is doing wrt ebooks and why. Oddly I buy a lot of baen ebboks and none from Tor.
  • Reply 82 of 90
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Inkling View Post


    I can offer an example. I spent over a year working on a book called Chesterton On War and Peace. It's quite long (448 pages), heavily commented, and describes someone who was warning that Hitler in power meant a European war in 1932, well before Churchill took up the alarm. Given the time and work I put into it, the $24.95 retail price is a steal. Suppose I create an ebook version and price it at $10. Here's what my income would be like for various versions and means of sale:



    * Sold on Amazon's webpage or a Kindle for Kindles and Kindle apps on any device, I get $7.00

    --Apple does nothing and gets nothing.



    * Sold on the iBookstore for iBooks on iPads and iPhones, I get $7.00

    --Apple handles all the distribution, billing and display while getting $3.00, just like Amazon above.



    *Sold on an iPad for the Kindle app on that iPad or any other device, I get $4.00

    --Apple does nothing but process the billing and yet gets $6.00



    Keep in mind that Amazon is a reseller, not the publisher.

    Last one - Apple gets $3, not $6 and you should get $7 from Amazon. After all, didn't you contract for Amazon for $7 per sale?

    If you sell to Amazon, you should get $7 for every copy they sell, regardless of where they sell it or how much they sell it for.
  • Reply 83 of 90
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chris_CA View Post


    Keep in mind that Amazon is a reseller, not the publisher.

    Last one - Apple gets $3, not $6 and you should get $7 from Amazon. After all, didn't you contract for Amazon for $7 per sale?

    If you sell to Amazon, you should get $7 for every copy they sell, regardless of where they sell it or how much they sell it for.



    Retail companies don't contract for specific guaranteed consumer prices, they either buy at wholesale or on a percentage of the sale basis. Publishers that contract on the percentage basis are allowing the retailer to set the sales price based on trying to move more volume and an overall higher profit than the guaranteed fixed wholesale sale may bring.



    And oh-by-the-way, only a few of the big publishers get the 30% commission rate from Amazon. If you are a small or independent publisher they still extract the full medieval 70% commission.
  • Reply 84 of 90
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hiro View Post


    Retail companies don't contract for specific guaranteed consumer prices, they either buy at wholesale or on a percentage of the sale basis. Publishers that contract on the percentage basis are allowing the retailer to set the sales price based on trying to move more volume and an overall higher profit than the guaranteed fixed wholesale sale may bring.



    Still, if Amazon is selling it for $10 in app, then the sales price is $10, therefore he should get the percentage agreed upon with Amazon, correct? The reseller takes into account marketing and distribution and such to come up with the percentage.

    And don't know where he came up with Apple getting $6 since they get 30% of sales price ($10).
  • Reply 85 of 90
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chris_CA View Post


    Still, if Amazon is selling it for $10 in app, then the sales price is $10, therefore he should get the percentage agreed upon with Amazon, correct? The reseller takes into account marketing and distribution and such to come up with the percentage.

    And don't know where he came up with Apple getting $6 since they get 30% of sales price ($10).



    Not quite, he would get the percentage based on the Amazon take. Not a percentage based on a 3rd party sell through price because the contract is only with Amazon.



    If it sells in the iOS App for $10, the publisher could get $4.90 with Amazon getting the remainder of the $7.



    What I expect to actually happen is an adjustment in sliding scales with Amazon and the publishers so that when it sells through Apple Amazon takes a slightly smaller percentage, bringing the publishers earnings up a bit too. You know Amazon and the big publishers already have their MBAs and actuarial accountants running profit optimization curves for the new business relationships this presents. It will take a bit to shake out and the relative perturbations of relative sales volumes will really drive the long term pricing structure. I do expect Apple to hold to a one-size fits all pricing per product space, but maybe not everything staying at the same 30% as apps. We'll see.
  • Reply 86 of 90
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Inkling View Post


    ... The trouble comes when Apple wants to grab 30% of the retail price not just when an ebook is sold through their iBookstore but when it is sold through Amazon, B&N, or Sony apps. In those cases, the ebook is still being processed by Amazon or the others, so they're still earning their 30% legitimately. But Apple is reaping a 30% income for handling a 3% credit card processing fee. That is what is grotesque. ...



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gozar View Post


    One misunderstanding is that Apple is only providing payment services for in app purchases. Storage, bandwidth, etc. are paid by the vender/developer.



    The whiners aren't complaining about the exposure the App store gives developers, their complaining that Apple wants 30% of your subscription rate while offering little else except credit card processing ...



    The misunderstanding here is your propositions that Apple is running a fee for services system with the App Store. They aren't. The App Store is a revenue sharing service. Consequently, your arguments are entirely beside the point. Anyone distributing software through the app store agrees to share 30% of their revenue with Apple. Offering what is essentially a shell app for free, one that offers no (revenue generating) functionality without content that must be purchased separately, is, quite simply, cheating on the agreement you signed with Apple by hiding your revenue.



    Frankly, it's hard to understand how anyone could be making this argument at this point, so your posts smack of willful misrepresentation. That your analyses always seem to revolve around a premise that once in-app purchasing must be offered, all purchases of all content will be made through in-app purchasing lends credence to the impression that your desire is to misrepresent the facts. (The alternative is that a) you have no understanding of what you are talking about and b) haven't bothered to put any critical thought into your "analysis".)



    Also, the example of Dropbox is ill chosen since it's not at all evident that the enforcement of this policy affects Dropbox in any way. To the contrary, storage space on a server likely falls under the category of "real world goods" for which developers are prohibited from using Store Kit. If anything, Dropbox would seem to be in violation of the guidelines if they did offer to sell storage space using Store Kit, so this shouldn't affect them at all. Note, this is exactly like any number of apps selling "real world goods", such as Amazon Mobile or eBay Mobile, which are not affected.
  • Reply 87 of 90
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chris_CA View Post


    Still, if Amazon is selling it for $10 in app, then the sales price is $10, therefore he should get the percentage agreed upon with Amazon, correct? The reseller takes into account marketing and distribution and such to come up with the percentage.

    And don't know where he came up with Apple getting $6 since they get 30% of sales price ($10).



    Right, he's using the "new math" where the goal of your "calculations" is to make Apple seem as greedy as possible.
  • Reply 88 of 90
    I'd like you to take a look at the posts from "alanQuatermain" in this discussion about the same matter: it explains how things have evolved for small providers of content with Apple changing the rules again and again (you'll have to navigate the webpage or do a text search for his handle, sorry).
  • Reply 89 of 90
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Snafu View Post


    I'd like you to take a look at the posts from "alanQuatermain" in this discussion about the same matter: it explains how things have evolved for small providers of content with Apple changing the rules again and again (you'll have to navigate the webpage or do a text search for his handle, sorry).



    His argument is that those who "built a business" on cheating the (revenue sharing) system ought to be allowed to continue to cheat the system. Not a very convincing argument. That's like saying, I built a business that's profitable because I found tax loopholes to exploit, so Congress can't close those loopholes because my business exploits them.
  • Reply 90 of 90
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    His argument is that those who "built a business" on cheating the (revenue sharing) system ought to be allowed to continue to cheat the system. Not a very convincing argument. That's like saying, I built a business that's profitable because I found tax loopholes to exploit, so Congress can't close those loopholes because my business exploits them.



    Not only that but his "Story" is so full of holes that the hypothetical-ness of it screams not well thought out and that he doesn't understand the concept of net and gross.
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