Trouble in the book world

You may have seen the articles about the Agency Pricing model for e-books. This is widespread in the USA but until 1 November did not exist in the UK. Those who follow such things may recall that the Net Book Agreement was abolished back in the mid 1990s. This agreement allowed publishers to dictate the price at which books were sold by retailers.

This was abandoned before it was ruled to be illegal and anti-competitive. Now some publishers - most notably the Hachette group which includes such big names as Penguin and Harper Collins - are saying that anyone selling their e-books, whatever format, must sell them at the price dictated by the publisher - i.e. retailers are acting as the publisher's agents and selling on their behalf.

This to me is price fixing under another name and is, I think, illegal in the UK under EU and UK law. Even if it is illegal it would seem that the publishers are likely to shoot themselves in the foot with this as in some cases the e-book price is turning out to be considerably higher than the hardback price. This piece of nonsense arises because retailers can discount hardbacks and paperbacks as much as they like but cannot alter the price of e-books from some publishers.

I'm aware both publishers and authors need to make a living and like most people who read I have no problem paying a fair price for a book I want to read. Ultimately I shall do with e-books what I have always done with tree books - look at the price for the cheapest format and make my choice accordingly based on whether I want to keep the book or read it once and dispose of it. What I am against is people trying to sell to me at a higher price because it keeps the market dynamic and gives consumers more choice as one publisher tried to say. So making every retailer sell an e-book is giving consumers more choice and keeping the market dynamic? I don't think I'd want him working for me if I was running a company!

I don't see there are any baddies or goodies in this situation - it is just a new market trying to establish itself and stabilise. I shan't be boycotting any publishers but I will be making my book buying decisions based on price and how much I want to read the book concerned. If the price fixed bears some resemblance to the paperback price of the book then I may buy it. If it is way more than the hardback then I shall wait for it to come down or not as the case may be. I read between 250 and 300 books per year. I can't see me running out of e-books to read - many of which are free.

Do people complain about nothing these days?

I've been frequenting the Kindle forum on Amazon and found the following complaints about the Kindle which seem to me extremely petty:

1. The Amazon-Kindle logo on the screen surround irritates me - does anyone know how I can remove it?
2. I don't like the screensavers which come with it - they're just black/grey pictures of authors etc - can I change them?
3. I can't buy books from Waterstone's - why do Amazon insist you only buy books from them?
4. I don't like the size of the margin on the page - I want it smaller
5. The screen goes black when the page changes - it irritates me
6. Why isn't there a memory card slot?
7. I don't like having lots of small transactions on my credit card for Kindle books because my card provider has queried some of my transactions.
8. I want a Kindle in white not grey

My answers were:

1. You don't notice it when you're reading but something like T-Cut might get it off if it's really annoying
2. Do you look at the screensavers when you're reading a book?
3. Amazon don't insist you only buy from them. In fact they specifically direct you to other sites where you can download books for free and the Kindle supports some other formats as well.
4. Size of the margin varies from book to book and if you change the text size and the number of words per line - try experimenting
5. Duh! All e-book readers do this - it is for a fraction of a second only and you could try blinking when it changes then you won't notice.
6. Do you really intend buying more than 3,500 books? If you do try deleting them when you need more space as Amazon keep a list of everything downloaded from them and you can always re-download them if you want.
7. Credit card providers get used to your spending pattern and query transactions outside the norm for you. I'm all for them querying transactions myself so I can't see the problem
8. Grey is easier to read from - a white surround will distract you from the page you're reading. You could always try painting it ;-)

I didn't actually answer some of the questions because my answers would probably have got me severely criticised. But seriously all these points could have been clarified from reading the product page BEFORE purchase. One person sent their Kindle back because of the page change thing even though he'd been told by everyone who responded that all e-book readers do this and you don't notice after a while.

Do people look for things to criticise? As for the person who said the screensaver picture of Jane Austen frightened her - well words fail me!

I'm not a gadget person but . . . .

My Amazon Kindle e-book reader arrived yesterday and I love it! Very easy to use straight out of the box though I did skim through the manual while it was charging just to get used to using it. I tried buying and downloading a book via the 3G telephone network but it is slow partly because there isn't a terribly good signal here. Now it's set up on our wi-fi network and downloading is very quick. It's pretty intuitive to use if you've ever used a mobile phone or a computer. What really intrigues and amuses me is that I can be using the computer and see an e-book I want so I buy it and it's then downloaded to my Kindle provided it is on and the wi-fi connection is switched on. You can switch it off to save battery life.

I was going to say it's like reading a book but it's actually better in some ways than reading a book. You can change text size and appearance, line spacing and the number of words per line. You don't get text lost at the edge of the page as you do when reading a tightly bound paperback. Of course the big advantage is you can store up to 3500 books on it and pretty well anything out of copyright is free or less than £1. Other books - unless they're only just published - are cheaper than paperbacks.

It has to be one of the best things I've bought.