timworstall

Comment Threads

• SFreader commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
  Glad to hear that ......
• robotech.master commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
  As I was telling someone last night, you can still find a number of good titles that coupon will apply to. For example, Hugh Howey's Wool and Shift omnibuses are e-published through a small press, as Howey split the e-book rights off from the print. And plenty of traditionally-published authors self-publish their rights-reverted titles via Smashwords, which also puts them onto Kobo. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure Kobo can be blamed for this. I know that when agency pricing was on, discounts and coupons and the like on agency priced titles were strictly verboten. That's what killed off Fictionwise's Buywise...
• dirk.bruere commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
  http://www.hughhowey.com/another-explanation-for-the-hachette-delays...
• Dave_the_Proc commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
  Without knowing the details of the negotiations between Hachette and Amazon, its hard to parse the accuracy of Hugh Howley's piece, it's pretty much pure speculation in a vacuum. One problem that I do have with it is that the author seems to be trying to have it both ways with Amazon: On the one hand he points out that Amazon is the master of just-in-time ordering and delivery, but then also tries to say that they would have great difficulty delaying specific orders. As one commenter on the article highlights: since Amazon already clearly has a process in place...
• psychochild commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
  Day late, dollar short (I was moving house across the North American continent), but I have to leave a comment. OGH wrote, "...my product has to compete for your attention and money in the same market as the [...] Assassin's Creed games. Neither of which have a near-monopoly incumbent like Amazon squatting between them and their customer base, trying relentlessly to depress prices...." Except there is in the case of video games. Steam has a near monopoly on digital PC game sales channel. (Consoles might also be "video games", but they're a very different beast. Like comparing fiction and non-fiction...