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In reply to the discussion: Amazon to Cut E-Book Prices, Shaking Rivals (making Amazon a Monopoly) [View all]rebecca_herman
(617 posts)It was comparing ALL of 2010 vs ALL of 2011. Not end of year vs beginning of year. But the entire year. The growth was slower in all of 2011, than it was in all of 2010.
Personally, I think it's perfectly fair that the authors get less from the publisher, because the publisher pays for editing, design, marketing, etc, where a self published author would either have to do without those things, or pay for those services with his or her own money and time.
And yes, when Amazon is selling products created by someone else at a loss in order to sell more of Amazon's products, YES, I believe they are devaluing someone else's work and unfairly creating expectations in customers as to what those products should cost.
Did I ever say that ebook sales will go lower than they are now? Nope. But I believe there will be a point that they plateau and stay at that number, basically, at least in my lifetime. There are a lot of people that are just not interested, period, and until those people are all dead and gone, I believe that print books will continue to remain easily available. And just because someone has a tablet doesn't mean they are reading ebooks on it, and tablet/reader sales can be an upgrade/replacement for someone who already had an old model (which would explain why despite high sales of tablets and ebook readers, only 3% more people were buying ebooks after the 2011 holiday shopping season). My mother has a tablet. Why? Because she finds it easier and less confusing to use the internet and email on it vs a computer which does more things. She doesn't read any ebooks at all. Also, many ebook sales are of traditionally published books, which indicates many people believe the publisher adds value to the book.
And personally? I'm a lot more concerned with a company having a monopoly on selling books - particularly when that company is one that wants to destroy something myself and many others love and consider to have a great cultural value - than having a monopoly on selling loaves of bread. Perhaps you only spend time with others who love ebooks and self published books, but as someone who reviews books for fun, I spend a lot of time with other readers online on various reading-related sites, and most still buy tons of print books and want bookstores and physical books to survive for the rest of their lifetimes.