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Sundae posted:I like the D2D rep answer in that thread. I'll stop lurking and comment on this since this is a point that I've been interested in. As someone looking at all of this 1) as someone who wants to try to get in this (and learning a lot from this thread), and 2) someone who's been researching this and looking at the ins and outs of it, I think this is a really important point. The way Amazon has become the platform for a lot of authors trying to self-publish, they control distribution in a lot of direct and indirect ways. As I've been looking at the different companies that sell ebooks, I'm surprised that I haven't seen more smaller sites that sell specific genres or groups of authors (or have a certain theme/platform), or even the growth of a more individualized method of distribution where authors sell their books from their own site. Not that this isn't happening at all, but the fact that Amazon offers very key advantages (I'm assuming by design) that other businesses haven't done and aren't as viable on an individual level is a key part of how they've become so critical in this space. I'd argue that there would need to be changes to the larger e-book ecosystem in order to see a significant shift in this pattern. Just the fact that the Kindle is so popular, that when you buy a book from Amazon it's right there on your Kindle, makes Amazon a very convenient place to buy books for a lot of people (and the dwindling sales of the Nook can help explain why B&N isn't a popular). If there were a way to either do something similar with any ebook reader (including the Kindle) regardless of where the book was purchased, or a shift to reading more on tablets or other devices not locked into Amazon's system, then I could see another business doing well selling ebooks (self-published or otherwise) and giving Amazon some real competition. And yes, you can send books to your Kindle and/or use Calibre, but that extra step, from a usability perspective, makes all the difference. That all said, I could see a smaller site selling e-books and really taking off, as long as they were targeting specific niches, and the perception of quality writing could be maintained across their catalog so that they could build themselves up to be a go-to source for their targeted audience. But, this, in some ways, would be replicating the models of traditional publishing, which wouldn't need to be a bad thing. Having a viable model, good authors that are treated well and with good contracts, and the right advertising could at least work. Not sure how profitable it would be, though. But, from what I've seen with other products that Amazon doesn't dominate in terms of online sales, a site that could present itself as legit, trustworthy, and a good source for quality could at least get a loyal following.
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Jun 28, 2014 02:38
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