Review: A Revolution of the e-Book Publishing Industry...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 1, 2013
The Amazon Kindle revolutionized the e-book publishing industry with its historical introduction in 2007.  With a "significant investment", the Kindle took three years to develop, offering consumers a catalog of over 90,000 e-book titles, new bestselling e-books affordably priced at $9.99, with the convince of quick downloads on a mobile device. The introductory Kindle, which retailed for $400.00 dollars, completely sold out within hours, it took Amazon months to meet the demand and fill back orders.The Big 6: that is, major book publishers Penguin, Harper Collins, Macmillan, Simon Schuster, Random House, and Hachette viewed Amazon as their "frendenemy" a threat, with their aggressive book marketing tactics, tension between them was nothing new. The publishers could/would not tolerate new bestselling e-books (which  reflected their carefully constructed relationship in the industry, with authors, distributors, etc.) selling for bargain basement prices of $9.99! The marketing practice of big publishing already allowed for traditional discounts and included 20% for e-books, where publishers/authors etc. retained suitable profit margins. Publishers were further alarmed with the rapid decline of the brick/mortar stores. Customers were "show rooming", that is: going into stores, browsing, then buying books on their mobile devices from Amazon for less money. Borders, the second largest American bookstore went bankrupt in 2009. Barnes and Nobel's remained in business, but closed numerous stores nationwide.In 2009 the classic "Loss Leading Strategy" where e-books sold at a break even profit margin were sustainable and worked for Amazon. Consumers bought "Frontlist" bestselling e-books for $9.99 and then often added "Backlist" titles- older/previously published, lower priced e-books to their orders as well. Amazon also increased their volume of e-book sales with the introduction of "self publishing", selling 9 out of 10 e-books during that time period.In 2010 Apple finally entered the e-book market, where their previous share in that market had been zero. Apple was encouraged by select publishers to compete with Amazon for a share in the e-book market with their own developing e-bookstore, which would be featured on Apple's new iPad. With Steve Job's "Aikido Move" the "Frontlist" best selling e-books increased immediately in price to $12.99-$14.99. Some publishers also attempted to "window" new best sellers, that is: selling new titles for a limited time with selected booksellers, this practice would exclude Amazon.February 1, 2010 Amazon filed an anti-trust suit with the US Department of Justice to protect their business interests regarding e-book sales. Additional "Copy Cat" lawsuits were filed, including charges by the Federal Government. These lawsuits charged certain publishers for attempting to "fix" e-book prices to protect business profit margins. Although some lawsuits were settled quickly, the controversy continues, and its not over yet. Amazon rocks and rules the bookselling industry with an estimated 86 billon dollars in sales in 2012.This Kindle Single is an exceptional expose of e-book sales and marketing, it was sad to read about the competitive and fierce battle behind the scenes, and the closing of bookstores. The author noted it was unfortunate that publishers seemed overly focused on the damage of digital book sales to the market, rather then the success it might achieve. I agree.