Amazon's move to e-content threatens booksellers
Cutthroat price competition keeps driving bookseller after bookseller out of business. But the bigger threat is Amazon's move into digital content delivery.
I'm not too worried about e-books at this point. Amazon's Kindle isn't keeping me awake at night. Apple's Steve Jobs says Kind is dead on arrival because nobody reads anymore. Frankly, I'm more concerned about downloadable audiobooks.
Being able to sell instant downloads of audiobooks for iPod and MP3 player is going to fatten Amazon's profits. Not only does this totally lock out third-party sellers, it even cuts out book printers and distributors, the whole industry supply chain! All Amazon needs to do is add a few bits to its computer.
Someday soon, everyone is going to have a cellphone with the same capability of these MP3 player.
I'm not too worried about e-books at this point. Amazon's Kindle isn't keeping me awake at night. Apple's Steve Jobs says Kind is dead on arrival because nobody reads anymore. Frankly, I'm more concerned about downloadable audiobooks.
Being able to sell instant downloads of audiobooks for iPod and MP3 player is going to fatten Amazon's profits. Not only does this totally lock out third-party sellers, it even cuts out book printers and distributors, the whole industry supply chain! All Amazon needs to do is add a few bits to its computer.
On Thursday Amazon said that it had agreed to buy Audible, the Web’s largest provider of downloadable audiobooks, for $300 million. Amazon isn’t saying much about what it will do with the company, but bringing audiobooks directly to its Web site and to the Kindle is the obvious first step.I'm not a computer geek by any stretch of the imagination, but I bought an MP3 player about a year ago and have worn out three sets of headphones since. I've been really surprised with the quality of the audiobook experience -- I don't know whether it's my imagination or not, but I seem to absorb more of a book's content when I'm listening to a good reader.
Someday soon, everyone is going to have a cellphone with the same capability of these MP3 player.
Labels: audiobooks, ebooks
posted by Steve Weber at 2/01/2008
10 Comments:
I'm not the kind of bookseller who runs screaming from new technology, because I think in the end we probably all oughta have a back-up career (as should anyone whose entire livelihood depends upon factors which are entirely out of one's control, i.e. Amazon), but coupla things about audio downloads:
1.) Non-fiction. Most of what I sell online is non-fiction. Is someone going to buy an audio of The Pipe Fitter's and Pipe Welder's Handbook online? Not likely.
2.) As you mentioned, audiobooks completely lock-out third party sellers. But this works in two ways: when I go to buy an audiobook as a customer, there are no "used" audiobooks. You can buy the Kindle edition of Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth for $6.99... AFTER you buy a Kindle. But I just check the iTunes price for the same audio download -- $18.95. As a buyer, I'd go with a trusty used copy at $7.90.... and then re-sell it when I'm done.
I'd rather read a book than listen to it any day. Maybe I'm a minority. Even when selling books, my movie sales would trump book sales when it came to quick sales, buyer demand, etc. Maybe the same will be true of audio.
Only thing to do is diversify. That is what plenty of Ebay sellers are doing now that they hear they can't leave feedback for buyers any more. Now that is one heck of a business model. Ugh.
I can't cope with ebooks, I like turning pages.
But I do love audio books because they bring something extra. I know several times when I found something new in a book just because of the way it was read (especially when it is read by the author). And when it is read by an actor/actress who can do different voices well.... it's a whole different thing than a print book.
Plus of course I can listen to audio books in the car.
Doug
A forecast model might be to look at how MP3's have changed CD sales. I really have no idea how that's been effected, myself. It could work to a bookseller's advantage. All the yard salers might give up if they can't make money, and leave bookselling to professionals. Let's face it. Over the last 8-10 years, once Amazon started marketplace, bookselling as a profession has changed dramatically. Even you, Steve Weber, gave up your career once you found out you could make money by selling books from a library sale. Technology changes the marketplace sometimes overnight, and it's what has made bookselling what it is today - penny sales that no one can complete with or live on. But hang in there, maybe the hand held book will become a scare commodity - and therefor valuable.
Obviously, fewer people read books all the time, and audio books are many people's preferred method of getting the information.
But listening to a book is a passive activity and reading is an active one.
My elderly mother, who has vision problems, listens to audio books all the time and they're great for her.
But when I'm at her house and listening, I enjoy it, too, though to me, it's more like watching TV than it's like reading a book.
My experience is not as rich, my imagination is not as engaged, I don't stop and think about a sentence and reread it and pause before going on, as I do when I read.
For some of us, nothing will take the place of books, but of course, as we're in the minority, the question for booksellers is: are there enough of us who prefer reading that we can stay in business with an ever-shrinking pool of customers?
I love audio books. I have been a member of Audible.com for many years. But digital books will never take the place of physical books for me. They each have their pros and cons. You can't read a book while you're driving your car, but you can listen to one. However, it's very difficult to look something up in an audio book, or even in the digital version of a book. If I really like a book, I'm liable to buy both the book and the audio version. I've tried going all digital, for portability and to save space, but it's just not the same at all.
My husband and I are in an interesting position regarding books vs audiobooks. I sell books, he sells audiobooks. We both work from home, running 2 separate businesses. We're both avid readers of 'real' books, but while Greg also likes audiobooks, I don't. One of our sons does, the other doesn't but he's also a keen reader.
Some of the titles we sell are the same, but we each have niches which suit what we sell - I sell a lot of cookbooks which just wouldn't work as audiobooks, he sells a lot of learn-a-language CDs which are the perfect way to learn. I think there's room for both of us in the marketplace.
And while there may be pressure on Greg's audiobook selling from digital downloading, Audible/Amazon etc, in the city we live in only 20% of people with internet access have faster than dial-up. People on dial-up won't download whole audiobooks - too slow.
E-books and audiobooks will cut down on sales of fiction and some "self-help" stuff, but it won't diminish the demand for used books (which is what I sell). Adjust to the future and you can make money, fight it and you might as well be T-Rex baying at the asteroid.
(BTW: I am 65+ so I have seen lots of changes.)
My casette AudioBooks no longer move - the CD ones do
But will halt with Downloads
The Future:
No harddrives - no System software
Microsoft or Apple will bill our CC's monthly like a utility - there will be no DVD's or CD's to "own" no "HardCopy"
This will revitalize "Books" - crap will be priced like imperfect diamonds.
I use Flash Drives to move my files between home and office
Just wanted to address a comment about how technology etc has driven books to a penny.
Technology has not driven a book to a penny, the penny book is the realised price for that paticular book.
Take a S.K. paperback. New its on sale at border for$8.99
A year later that book used on amazon is at 1 cent plus shipping , so in fact its %50 off what it originally cost.
What do you want for that book? 3 dollars plus 3.99 for shipping?
$1 cheaper than new?
Penny books are that price for a reason, and its a flooded market.
Join some of us here at the $15 and up range. : )
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