HFQ up on Amazon

I don't like to get into the "evil Amazon" debate but the reason that Amazon is the "number one" place to go for ebooks is because they worked at becoming Number One.

They started early when few other retailers saw the market for ebooks.

The same publishers who whine about Amazon's position in the ebook world could have supported somebody else selling ebooks on-line.

Why didn't they?

Answer, the publishers (save for Baen) didn't see ebooks as important.

Getting into the ebook marketplace isn't as hard as it would be to get into the dead tree book market place.

Sure Amazon has a strong lead, but Amazon can't prevent somebody else from joining the race.

Also, if the ebook isn't a Baen book, Amazon is my second choice with B&N being my first choice.

Bahzellstudent wrote:While on balance, Amazon have been good for the book-buying public, these things can be pushed too far; we see the same thing in the UK where milk prices have been used by the big supermarkets as a loss leader and as a result, most milk farmers are now losing money.

in the world of eBooks, there is a virtual monopoly by Amazon and Kindle - and whenever a market is controlled by one person (whether that be published, distributor or anyone else) problems will eventually arise

Bahzellstudent wrote:While on balance, Amazon have been good for the book-buying public, these things can be pushed too far; we see the same thing in the UK where milk prices have been used by the big supermarkets as a loss leader and as a result, most milk farmers are now losing money.

in the world of eBooks, there is a virtual monopoly by Amazon and Kindle - and whenever a market is controlled by one person (whether that be published, distributor or anyone else) problems will eventually arise

What monopoly? I read my "kindle" books on my Mac, or on my iPhone. I read my purchased from Baen eBooks on my Mac, and on my iPhone. The encryption on Kindle books is a joke, so you can at any time take the files, decrypt them, and use them on many readers.

And your first paragraph utterly contradicts itself. To sell something as a "loss leader" means to pay more for it than you sell it for. Which meant it wasn't the dairy runners who were losing money, it was the supermarkets.

DrakBibliophile wrote:I don't like to get into the "evil Amazon" debate but the reason that Amazon is the "number one" place to go for ebooks is because they worked at becoming Number One.

They started early when few other retailers saw the market for ebooks.

The same publishers who whine about Amazon's position in the ebook world could have supported somebody else selling ebooks on-line.

Why didn't they?

Answer, the publishers (save for Baen) didn't see ebooks as important.

Getting into the ebook marketplace isn't as hard as it would be to get into the dead tree book market place.

Sure Amazon has a strong lead, but Amazon can't prevent somebody else from joining the race.

Also, if the ebook isn't a Baen book, Amazon is my second choice with B&N being my first choice.

Amen, brother, amen.

GregD wrote:

Bahzellstudent wrote:While on balance, Amazon have been good for the book-buying public, these things can be pushed too far; we see the same thing in the UK where milk prices have been used by the big supermarkets as a loss leader and as a result, most milk farmers are now losing money.

in the world of eBooks, there is a virtual monopoly by Amazon and Kindle - and whenever a market is controlled by one person (whether that be published, distributor or anyone else) problems will eventually arise

What monopoly? I read my "kindle" books on my Mac, or on my iPhone. I read my purchased from Baen eBooks on my Mac, and on my iPhone. The encryption on Kindle books is a joke, so you can at any time take the files, decrypt them, and use them on many readers.

And your first paragraph utterly contradicts itself. To sell something as a "loss leader" means to pay more for it than you sell it for. Which meant it wasn't the dairy runners who were losing money, it was the supermarkets.

Bit rough on Bahzellstudent there. He may not have chosen his words with entire precision but what he meant was pretty clear. His contention is that amazon so dominates the market for sale of ebooks that they have a quasi-monopolistic effect on it and exercise undue or damaging influence. May or may not be true but the idea isn't instantly dismissable.

And just because the supermarkets are losing money on milk it wouldn't necessarily mean they aren't shorting the dairy farmers too. In fact the 4 or 5 big supermarket chains in the UK utterly dominate the retail milk trade over here and they are currently having a price war where one of the highly visible very cheap items is milk. Impossible to tell from the outside whether they are losing money on it themselves, but in order to help fund their low prices they are paying the farmers less than the price of production in many cases. The price war is just the last straw, the squeeze has been going on for years and a huge percentage of UK dairy farmers have had to give up the business in the last 10 years or so (about 50% off the top of my head) They just don't have anyone else to sell the milk to.

I know they're connected to Amazon, but we buy bundles of Audible credits for about $11 each and can use one credit for one title... Whereas buying the audio title without the credit can run around $40.

Not only are the audio books very well done, but I don't have time to sit and read all the material I want to read. It's a win-win for our family as readers.

The quality of an audiobook depends on the voice of the narrator. Some are wonderful, some are ok and some are so bad I can't even listen to the short sample available on Audible without wanting to scream.

The first four Safehold books had very good narrators (two different ones and the switch in character accents can be a bit jarring when going directly from book two to three), the fifth made me feel sleepy and the sixth had a narrator who went the opposite direction and made everything sound like an exciting action scene. The seventh went back to one of the first two narrators, I think.

A really good audiobook can be perfect for times when your hands are occupied but your brain isn't. I've got lots of time like that at work.

And yes, I buy credits from Audible, too.

Polyglot wrote:I know they're connected to Amazon, but we buy bundles of Audible credits for about $11 each and can use one credit for one title... Whereas buying the audio title without the credit can run around $40.

Not only are the audio books very well done, but I don't have time to sit and read all the material I want to read. It's a win-win for our family as readers.

Ordered! Let's hope the release date is accurate. One has to be devout (or addicted) to follow this series. When the whole series is finished, I can re-read it in my dotage...

Fortunately Oliver Wyman is listed as the reader for HFQ.

Steve

Never used any of the Audio books. Out of curiosity what's the playtime on LAMA, say?

"Never used any of the Audio books. Out of curiosity what's the playtime on LAMA, say?"
*****
LAMA playtime is 27 hours, 31 min. I have listened to the series multiple times, the three read by Oliver Wyman are the best followed by two by Jason Culp, one by Charles Keating and the worst, by far is MTaT by Kevin T. Collins.

Steve