As WUB said, /b/ is worse. After all, /b/ is the only board where you're actually allowed to post scat, guro and furry porn. Not that that stops some of them. Hell, it's possible that more gore has been posted on /a/ than on /d/ after that gore-spammer last year. Also, /b/ has a 15k+ reply thread after 2 days.
Hey guys, I think you need to read up more about the amazon ebook deal. You a massively under-informed. The 70% cut to the publisher or author really isn't a good deal considering this is 70% net, and Amazon is free to reduce the price if it wants, to get more sales, and you're not allowed to sell your ebook for less elsewhere, and the cap is at 9.99, so you can't price a new release higher for your fans to pay extra for.
The whole point of the 9.99 price point from amazon isn't that they want to give you a good deal on new releases. Not at all. They lose money on new releases.
What they want is to price every book in the "long tail" at 9.99 too! Want a book? 9.99. That book has been out in paperback for 20 years? Still 9.99.
What the publishers want is price flexibility. They want to say "If we price the book at 15 dollars, and people buy it... great! If not, we'll reduce the price to 10. If we need to we'll reduce the price to 5." People won't pay 9.99 for older novels, ones they already own in dead tree version, so 4 dollars might work out.
This isn't a play by Amazon in the best interest of the customers. This is, in fact, the thing you rail against later, trying to inflate or control pricing. People DO buy hardcover books, and will pay the same price for a new ebook from a favorite author. In a free market, shouldn't we let the publishers charge that price?
You are mistaken or just plain wrong on many other points too, but I'm not going to go into them now.
Hey guys, I think you need to read up more about the amazon ebook deal. You a massively under-informed. The 70% cut to the publisher or author really isn't a good deal considering this is 70% net, and Amazon is free to reduce the price if it wants, to get more sales, and you're not allowed to sell your ebook for less elsewhere, and the cap is at 9.99, so you can't price a new release higher for your fans to pay extra for.
If this is true, it is obviously BS. Amazon is a retailer. The publisher/author is a wholesaler. They should be able to set the wholesale price at any point they wish, and Amazon should be able to set the retail price at any point they wish. Amazon also shouldn't be allowed to tell you what prices you can set elsewhere. If I want to sell copies of my book for one cent at a convention, and they're $10 on Amazon, tough shit. Amazon's net shouldn't have any affect on the price the wholesaler gets, be they publisher or author.
The whole point of the 9.99 price point from amazon isn't that they want to give you a good deal on new releases. Not at all. They lose money on new releases.
I have somewhat recently learned the secret of how Amazon makes its money. I can tell you this, when Amazon has loss leaders, they don't actually lose any money. There is a reason that Amazon and Wal-Mart have no qualms about putting prices of things way under where they should be, and will gladly go toe to toe with each other in price wars on individual products.
The secret is this. Obviously Amazon can't have gigantic losses, nobody can. However, even if they sell a product at what seems to be a loss, they still make profit. How do they do this? It's all about scale and invoices.
When you buy a book, you pay immediately. Amazon gets that money effectively immediately. But when does Amazon pay the wholesaler for the book? At the end of the month of course! They put in an order, and once a month they settle the accounts. In other words, all the revenues Amazon is making sit in the bank all month. Those revenues collect interest.
You know how when you go to the bank they have a savings account chart? The more money you have in the savings account, the better interest rate you get. Imagine what the interest rate would be if you had all the money that Amazon takes in revenues during a month. Amazon can offer that size of a discount off the wholesale on every single product, and break even (not counting all their business costs).
When you buy a Kindle book for $10 it costs Amazon almost nothing. They don't even have to pay the warehouse people for it. Then that $10 collects interest until the end of the month when they pay the book distributor.
This, and other reasons, are why gigantic stores like Amazon/Wal-Mart can always beat the little guy on pricing. It's also why these gigantic stores just want to get more sales, even at a loss. More sales, more revenue, more interest, less inventory. That looks a lot better in the accounting books than fewer sales at higher prices.
f this is true, it is obviously BS. Amazon is a retailer. The publisher/author is a wholesaler. They should be able to set the wholesale price at any point they wish, and Amazon should be able to set the retail price at any point they wish. Amazon also shouldn't be allowed to tell you what prices you can set elsewhere. If I want to sell copies of my book for one cent at a convention, and they're $10 on Amazon, tough shit. Amazon's net shouldn't have any affect on the price the wholesaler gets, be they publisher or author.
The problem is that the normal way things work is this:
The consumers money is split between those parties. But the point is that the publisher is NOT the wholesaler, not in the case of books and amazon. This is how Amazon can undercut smaller bookshops and chains. They go through a wholesale. Amazon IS a wholesaler. This means they get twice the cut.
writer - publisher - amazon - consumer
With this new 70/30 ebook deal they are wanting this model:
writer/publisher (get cut of NET, not list price) - amazon as publisher too (who can set the list price) - consumer
That isn't what the writers and publishers want. Publishers do a LOT for authors, and printing and marketing and editing and formatting is just a small part. The biggest part? SECURITY! Publishers are established companies, and can provide advances and long term deals. Nobody has yet come up with another business model that can sustain the creation of novels. I write, but I have a job where I do two night's work a month. Most writers aren't so lucky.
What Apple is offering, and what the publishers and writers want from Amazon, is this:
writer - publisher - market place (selling agent) - consumer
What some writers would like is this:
writer - market place (selling agent) - consumer
These two are the best for the authors, and as far as I can tell, that's the way your favorite authors will keep earning a living. Micro payments and pledges in advance of sales has never worked on a large scale. You said if Stephen King released a novel like that he'd make a killing. Well, you know what? He tried it already, bypassing the publisher and selling to the fans electronically and directly. He gave up that idea pretty quick and went back to the publishers.
It's an interesting concept, certainly; if it doesn't grab you, stop buying. However, it's Stephen King. His latest work probably isn't benefiting from that.
You people and your fancy e-bookery. I'll stick to my dead trees.
If I'm not mistaken Stephen King was charging per chapter. Who wants to buy a book by the chapter?
This is something I have noticed. Lots of people out there dip their toe in the waters of revolutionary business models. However, they are too afraid to dip all the way in. The result is that their half-assed attempt fails. They then try to use that as evidence that going whole hog will be even worse.
Again, Steam has proved that this shit fucking works. Imagine this. Stephen King writes a new book. It has to be a good one, people don't buy crap no matter how cheap. Then on the same day it appears in stores he puts the eBook on Amazon, with no middlemen between him and the customer, for $2. Heck, he can probably get away with $5, but $2 would be much better. It would probably sell hundreds of thousands of copies, day one. Oh, it has to be internationally available on day one, no half-assing it. No DRM either. It has to be able to be read on every computer, eBook reader, etc. to maximize the possible customer base. I've never bought a Stephen King book in my life, but I'd buy that. I probably wouldn't even end up reading it, either. Just like I buy games on Steam for $2 and never beat them.
Cut price by %75, increase sales figures by 1470%!
Let's say the original price was $10 and original sales figures were 1000. So $10,000 in revenues. Nice even numbers for easy math. That means that if you cut the price to $2.50 the sales figures will be 14,700 for revenues of 36,750. Lower price = more money. Yes, that is how the world works now.
The problem is that nobody believes this, even though it's true, because nobody has the balls to prove it other than Steam. Also, because they make enough money the non-risky way, they don't ever bother to push it and try to make more. Even though his prices are high, and he could make a lot more money, King still has high enough sales to be rich and comfortable. he could make four times as much money, but when you're already making millions, why change the formula?
These two are the best for the authors, and as far as I can tell, that's the way your favorite authors will keep earning a living.
With a handful of exceptions, all my favorite authors are dead.
More importantly, for all I read, I almost never, ever buy new books. I get used ones wherever possible for a few dollars, or possibly Amazon it if the discount is massive. Rarely, I'll buy one in person if I'm travelling and desperate for entertainment.
The DRM'd $9.99 ebooks would actually get more money out of my pocket that went to authors than physical media ever will, simply for the fact that DRM removes my first sale rights and prevents me from borrowing or buying used.
The solution is simple. Amazon should be free to mandate a minimum or maximum price anyone can list something at on Amazon. Publishers and authors should be free to list or not list on Amazon within their rules, and also free to list wherever else they like at whatever prices they want.
What would most likely happen is that non-Amazon-listed books would sell more poorly, e-book or tree-book, especially when Amazon's prices would almost certainly be better for the consumer.
On the topic of 4chan, a few days ago they added a 3DCG board. I went out of curiousity. Not impressed. I'll go to CGtalk or Creative Crash or CG Society or ConceptArt.org, all of which have a lot less Na'vi porn and racism and fapping.
At least it's related on that board, and only one small thread you can ignore.
racism and fapping
Really? Really? The new boards have been over a week old already. /b/ has already left. It's quite a decent board if you ask me. Advice is being given, actual discussions are held, community stuff is done (dorf is a meme already, collaborations too), sure, there's some crap too, but it's 4chan, you shouldn't be looking for a lot of high quality discussions, let alone when you go comparing them to other boards that focus on the same thing only without anonymity.
EDIT:
If they ever start to censor the internet, they will start with 4chan.
This sounds likely, yes. Only because it's the biggest and best known of the bunch though.
Really? Really? The new boards have been over a week old already. /b/ has already left. It's quite a decent board if you ask me. Advice is being given, actual discussions are held, community stuff is done (dorf is a meme already, collaborations too), sure, there's some crap too, but it's 4chan, you shouldn't be looking for a lot of high quality discussions, let alone when you go comparing them to other boards that focus on the same thing only without anonymity.
I'll try again, but the art is better on the other 3D forums and so are the critiques.
The problem is that nobody believes this, even though it's true, because nobody has the balls to prove it other than Steam.
You keep bringing up the example of Steam. I don't think you can apply the findings of Steam to all these other markets. Steam is a single solution for the user for all PC gaming (pretty much), and for many of the games on there, it's the ONLY place you can buy the games.
I guess that's what Amazon is aiming for -- they want to become the only market place. No wonder the publishers want an selling agent model!
More importantly, for all I read, I almost never, ever buy new books.
About a quarter of the books I buy are new, but I trade them in at a local used bookshop for free borrowing of any of their titles. It means that, on average, I pay about $2 or $3 per novel. Until ebooks are a similar price, or more expensive but I can lend and borrow and trade them just as easily, I won't buy one. I read a lot of ebooks, but so far I've hardly scratched the number that are available for free direct from the authors, or are public domain.
Which brings me back to your first point, which is that I also really enjoy the work of a lot of dead authors!
I'll try again, but the art is better on the other boards and so are the critiques.
I'm not saying you should try again. Just that you shouldn't expect it to be as good as the boards you mentioned. I doubt there's actually anything for a professional animator like you to find. Perhaps some inspiration from inspiration threads, or a rare bit of advice or a solution on how to do something if you don't already know all that stuff.
The only upside is that you can post your work on /3/, get critiqued or trolled for it, and it won't at all effect the next time you post up work. (I'm not talking company work of course)
The only upside is that you can post your work on /3/, get critiqued or trolled for it, and it won't at all effect the next time you post up work. (I'm not talking company work of course)
Comments
Also, /b/ has a 15k+ reply thread after 2 days.
The whole point of the 9.99 price point from amazon isn't that they want to give you a good deal on new releases. Not at all. They lose money on new releases.
What they want is to price every book in the "long tail" at 9.99 too! Want a book? 9.99. That book has been out in paperback for 20 years? Still 9.99.
What the publishers want is price flexibility. They want to say "If we price the book at 15 dollars, and people buy it... great! If not, we'll reduce the price to 10. If we need to we'll reduce the price to 5." People won't pay 9.99 for older novels, ones they already own in dead tree version, so 4 dollars might work out.
This isn't a play by Amazon in the best interest of the customers. This is, in fact, the thing you rail against later, trying to inflate or control pricing. People DO buy hardcover books, and will pay the same price for a new ebook from a favorite author. In a free market, shouldn't we let the publishers charge that price?
You are mistaken or just plain wrong on many other points too, but I'm not going to go into them now.
The secret is this. Obviously Amazon can't have gigantic losses, nobody can. However, even if they sell a product at what seems to be a loss, they still make profit. How do they do this? It's all about scale and invoices.
When you buy a book, you pay immediately. Amazon gets that money effectively immediately. But when does Amazon pay the wholesaler for the book? At the end of the month of course! They put in an order, and once a month they settle the accounts. In other words, all the revenues Amazon is making sit in the bank all month. Those revenues collect interest.
You know how when you go to the bank they have a savings account chart? The more money you have in the savings account, the better interest rate you get. Imagine what the interest rate would be if you had all the money that Amazon takes in revenues during a month. Amazon can offer that size of a discount off the wholesale on every single product, and break even (not counting all their business costs).
When you buy a Kindle book for $10 it costs Amazon almost nothing. They don't even have to pay the warehouse people for it. Then that $10 collects interest until the end of the month when they pay the book distributor.
This, and other reasons, are why gigantic stores like Amazon/Wal-Mart can always beat the little guy on pricing. It's also why these gigantic stores just want to get more sales, even at a loss. More sales, more revenue, more interest, less inventory. That looks a lot better in the accounting books than fewer sales at higher prices.
writer - publisher - wholesaler - retailer - consumer
The consumers money is split between those parties. But the point is that the publisher is NOT the wholesaler, not in the case of books and amazon. This is how Amazon can undercut smaller bookshops and chains. They go through a wholesale. Amazon IS a wholesaler. This means they get twice the cut.
writer - publisher - amazon - consumer
With this new 70/30 ebook deal they are wanting this model:
writer/publisher (get cut of NET, not list price) - amazon as publisher too (who can set the list price) - consumer
That isn't what the writers and publishers want. Publishers do a LOT for authors, and printing and marketing and editing and formatting is just a small part. The biggest part? SECURITY! Publishers are established companies, and can provide advances and long term deals. Nobody has yet come up with another business model that can sustain the creation of novels. I write, but I have a job where I do two night's work a month. Most writers aren't so lucky.
What Apple is offering, and what the publishers and writers want from Amazon, is this:
writer - publisher - market place (selling agent) - consumer
What some writers would like is this:
writer - market place (selling agent) - consumer
These two are the best for the authors, and as far as I can tell, that's the way your favorite authors will keep earning a living. Micro payments and pledges in advance of sales has never worked on a large scale. You said if Stephen King released a novel like that he'd make a killing. Well, you know what? He tried it already, bypassing the publisher and selling to the fans electronically and directly. He gave up that idea pretty quick and went back to the publishers.
You people and your fancy e-bookery. I'll stick to my dead trees.
Again, Steam has proved that this shit fucking works. Imagine this. Stephen King writes a new book. It has to be a good one, people don't buy crap no matter how cheap. Then on the same day it appears in stores he puts the eBook on Amazon, with no middlemen between him and the customer, for $2. Heck, he can probably get away with $5, but $2 would be much better. It would probably sell hundreds of thousands of copies, day one. Oh, it has to be internationally available on day one, no half-assing it. No DRM either. It has to be able to be read on every computer, eBook reader, etc. to maximize the possible customer base. I've never bought a Stephen King book in my life, but I'd buy that. I probably wouldn't even end up reading it, either. Just like I buy games on Steam for $2 and never beat them.
Don't believe me? Just look at these figures.
Cut price by %75, increase sales figures by 1470%!
Let's say the original price was $10 and original sales figures were 1000. So $10,000 in revenues. Nice even numbers for easy math. That means that if you cut the price to $2.50 the sales figures will be 14,700 for revenues of 36,750. Lower price = more money. Yes, that is how the world works now.
The problem is that nobody believes this, even though it's true, because nobody has the balls to prove it other than Steam. Also, because they make enough money the non-risky way, they don't ever bother to push it and try to make more. Even though his prices are high, and he could make a lot more money, King still has high enough sales to be rich and comfortable. he could make four times as much money, but when you're already making millions, why change the formula?
More importantly, for all I read, I almost never, ever buy new books. I get used ones wherever possible for a few dollars, or possibly Amazon it if the discount is massive. Rarely, I'll buy one in person if I'm travelling and desperate for entertainment.
The DRM'd $9.99 ebooks would actually get more money out of my pocket that went to authors than physical media ever will, simply for the fact that DRM removes my first sale rights and prevents me from borrowing or buying used.
The solution is simple. Amazon should be free to mandate a minimum or maximum price anyone can list something at on Amazon. Publishers and authors should be free to list or not list on Amazon within their rules, and also free to list wherever else they like at whatever prices they want.
What would most likely happen is that non-Amazon-listed books would sell more poorly, e-book or tree-book, especially when Amazon's prices would almost certainly be better for the consumer.
EDIT:This sounds likely, yes. Only because it's the biggest and best known of the bunch though.
I guess that's what Amazon is aiming for -- they want to become the only market place. No wonder the publishers want an selling agent model!
About a quarter of the books I buy are new, but I trade them in at a local used bookshop for free borrowing of any of their titles. It means that, on average, I pay about $2 or $3 per novel. Until ebooks are a similar price, or more expensive but I can lend and borrow and trade them just as easily, I won't buy one. I read a lot of ebooks, but so far I've hardly scratched the number that are available for free direct from the authors, or are public domain.
Which brings me back to your first point, which is that I also really enjoy the work of a lot of dead authors!
The only upside is that you can post your work on /3/, get critiqued or trolled for it, and it won't at all effect the next time you post up work. (I'm not talking company work of course)