RE: about Amazon.com for technical books
Judy,
Your comments about Amazondotcom and their high-handed practices, are
the reason my publisher refuses to list my Wheeling Island History with
them. According to my publisher,
they dictate to him what they will pay for the book and what they will
charge for it. He says that limited edition and small run publishers would
lose money dealing with them.
Bob Schramm
Check out my web page at:
http://www.SchrammStudio.com
From: Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>
Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: about Amazon.com for technical books
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 01:36:15 -0500 (EST)
On Feb 14, 2007, at 4:55 PM, Nancy Diessner wrote:
I checked Amazon for Longley's book, but it seems to be unavailable. I did
find her Website and see that I can order it from Australia. By any chance
do you know anywhere that it might be available in the States?
Thanks!
This is something else I've said before but, especially as a self-published
author, I say it again....
We see now a world which reflexively looks for any title no matter how
obscure, technical, specialized, etc. at amazondotcom. Which, given that
most sources will have websites that make finding those books elsewhere
easier than ever, seems... regrettable.
For many reasons, even aside from putting more specialized book sources out
of business. I note (again) that Amazondotcom for a single book order
(assuming THEY knew the source) demands 60% off the list price, IN ADDITION
to the source paying the cost to ship it to them. I believe I explained
this in terms of my own book -- which would have had to be $36 just to
break even via AmazonDotCom.
(Not that it isn't worth twice that, but that wasn't my plan.) And it
doesn't matter with, say, your average novel with 200 pages of print,
because the cost to print per book is probably $1, and the book is priced
in the twenties, so there's still profit.
(I think I did read that Amazondotcom stock had dropped -- tho maybe that
was google.)
Anyway -- and I'm guessing here, since the book mentioned is unknown to me
-- when price has been set a while back, for a technical book with a small
market and a lot of labor, especially when markup has been kept modest to
make it available, say to starving artists, or ivory tower inventors.... it
would be cheaper to burn them than ship to Amazondotcom.
There's also the tiny fact that even in NYC independent book stores go out
of business almost daily. We might say that in the wide open country it's
better for the environment to buy the book from Amazondotcom than go out
in the gas guzzler to look for it -- and the postal service or UPS comes
your way anyway, but then you won't have ANY bookstores left -- if that
matters. (Besides which, we still have the telephone, as well as the
aforementioned web.)
Sorry to be so crabby, well, I'm not really sorry... We have snow here and
freezing winds and the streets have NOT been plowed and I slogged through
the snowbanks in my clogs to go up to College Art -- I sure wish I could
have shipped some of our brown snow to those poor polar bears... but things
are pretty bad when MIDTOWN doesn't get plowed. (Years ago when Queens
didn't get plowed they made such a stink it toppled a mayor...so we figure
all the snowplows are still in Queens... and HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!)
Judy
_________________________________________________________________
Find what you need at prices you’ll love. Compare products and save at MSN®
Shopping.
http://shopping.msn.com/default/shp/?ptnrid=37,ptnrdata=24102&tcode=T001MSN20A0701
|