Play Book Tag discussion

I am addicted to Audible and I do purchase from Amazon, but this is concerning. Maybe our inside person knows something about this? The libraries aren't asking for anything free and if any company can afford a compromise, it's Amazon.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/techno...

I haven't finished the entire article yet, but I don't think it's just Amazon. It's publishers, too. Even though for ebooks (and I assume, audio books, as well), they charge much higher ridiculous amounts of money for an ebook.

And, libraries only get a limited number of times to circulate those ebooks (assuming, like for physical books, damage and libraries would have to buy another to replace... not concerned about the fact that, depending on how damaged, a library might fix it to use longer. Also with physical books, if they are in good enough shape, the library can sell them to raise more money.)

I've come across several books that the library tells me that it can't get on audio through their vendor. The publisher doesn't allow it. Most recently I was told that they've received many requests for the e-audiobook Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood. They do have a CD copy. Trevor Noah is one of the authors mentioned in the article.

Audible gets a lot of competition from libraries, and they're changing their business model to keep customers connected.

The article reminds me to ignore Amazon's Best Seller Lists because they're dominated by their own books. They often charge only $1.99 for new ebooks from their own publishers, which jacks up their sales. My library doesn't carry many Amy Harmon books (her publisher is LakeUnion which is owned by Amazon, but many of them are available on kindle unlimited.

This is really interesting- I noticed the lack of Mindy Kaling publishing's that she just put out on amazon, as well as my library never getting Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood on audio (I had requested it several times, lol). But never put two and two together. I was thinking/hoping? that Kaling's stuff would become more widespread after it dropped in popularity- like after a year or so. Sounds like it won't.

It's like a circle- Amazon markets and promotes the amazon published books, which makes them more popular, and so on. Amazon isn't the first to do this, nor will it be the last.

I haven't heard anything internally BUT I did do some Googling and found another article that has information that is a bit broader and gives a clearer picture to what is going on as Cindy mentioned...

https://www.wired.com/story/publisher...

In my opinion (I need to make sure I add that now)... I think it's a tough balance. Publishers don't make as much with so many books being consumed via the library digital collection but they want to make their customers happy. If Publishers don't make money, they can't pay authors and all of the other jobs that go into making a book happen. In my opinion, I don't know if I agree with removing their books altogether, but I understand why they do. They may be part of Amazon but they seem to be on the smaller side and help out authors self-publish as well.