Comments on: More tablet rumors; Amazon to change Kindle revenue split? http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/more-tablet-rumors-amazon-to-change-kindle-revenue-split/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:31:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Chris Meadows http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/more-tablet-rumors-amazon-to-change-kindle-revenue-split/comment-page-1/#comment-1150689 Chris Meadows Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:36:20 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/12/10/more-tablet-rumors-amazon-to-change-kindle-revenue-split/#comment-1150689 Right, I should have been more clear about that. The split for <i>self-published</i> Amazon books is 70/30 in Amazon's favor. I'll amend the article to fix that. As for the other, well, <i>book</i> publishers is what the original article says. Wouldn't it be interesting if Apple were going to try to sweet-talk the publishers into switching from list price model to percent-of-revenue model? I seem to recall hearing that the wholesale price of the books is half the hardcover price, which would mean that the publishers could make the same amount of money by charging only 5/7 of hardcover price for their e-books. Of course, that's still not going to get them down to Amazon's price of $9.99, and it seems more likely the publishers would be happy to keep right on charging list price but make more money per copy sold. Right, I should have been more clear about that. The split for self-published Amazon books is 70/30 in Amazon’s favor. I’ll amend the article to fix that.

As for the other, well, book publishers is what the original article says. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Apple were going to try to sweet-talk the publishers into switching from list price model to percent-of-revenue model? I seem to recall hearing that the wholesale price of the books is half the hardcover price, which would mean that the publishers could make the same amount of money by charging only 5/7 of hardcover price for their e-books. Of course, that’s still not going to get them down to Amazon’s price of $9.99, and it seems more likely the publishers would be happy to keep right on charging list price but make more money per copy sold.

]]> By: Alan Wallcraft http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/more-tablet-rumors-amazon-to-change-kindle-revenue-split/comment-page-1/#comment-1150683 Alan Wallcraft Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:59:30 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/12/10/more-tablet-rumors-amazon-to-change-kindle-revenue-split/#comment-1150683 The original reports may have said "book publishers" but this seems to be about newspapers and magazines. Amazon takes the majority of the revenue from these on the Kindle. Books are entirely different, because for them the return to the publisher is based on list price, not the net revenue. If, for example, Amazon is losing money on a bestseller, then by definition the return to the publisher is above 100% of revenue. The original reports may have said “book publishers” but this seems to be about newspapers and magazines. Amazon takes the majority of the revenue from these on the Kindle. Books are entirely different, because for them the return to the publisher is based on list price, not the net revenue. If, for example, Amazon is losing money on a bestseller, then by definition the return to the publisher is above 100% of revenue.

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